Youngsters go through training drills in Bristol
Funding is crucial to development.
However, the processes involved in identifying the best funding pools to apply for and completing lengthy application forms can prevent groups from attaining much needed funds.
The number of applications for funding received from ethnic minority groups in Sport is worryingly low, despite the number of groups playing, watching and using football as a tool to deliver wider social messages.
With this in mind Kick It Out has developed a Funding Fact Pack to assist groups. Click here to download.
Kick It Out and funding bodies, such as the Football Foundation, want to address this disparity and ensure that all groups have the opportunity to develop, reach their full potential and serve communities across the country.
Kick It Out understands the difficulties groups have experienced in getting funding in the past and uses this expertise to offer support and advice to groups exploring funding opportunities.
Here are just a few of the funding opportunities that Kick It Out can offer help and advice on:
The Football Foundation is currently able to provide support for junior teams (under 18 teams and adults with disabilities) by offering free kit and/or equipment up to the value of £400.
The Small Grants Scheme was introduced in 2003 to encourage new activity, which aims to increase participation and provide training for volunteers to support grassroots football. Funding available up to £10,000 over three years.
The aim of the Community and Education Panel is,
• To increase participation and promote healthy and active lifestyles.
• To use football as a tool to increase education attainment, promote social inclusion and challenge social nuisance.
This scheme will fund up to £250,000 over five years for community and education projects.
Capital project scheme includes refurbishment or construction of changing rooms, grass and artificial pitches and clubhouses for community benefit across the country.
Scheme to help provide teams in disadvantaged areas with equipment, kit and coaching help.
Awards For All (Sports England)
Awards for All is a National Lottery Sports Fund programme delivered through Sport England.
Sports Aid is an independent charity established in 1975. It has three main objectives:
1. To further the education of young people through the medium of sport
2. To encourage those with social or physical disadvantages to improve their lives through sport
3. To enable those living in poverty to take advantage of the opportunities offered by sport.
Sports Aid awards grants both nationally and regionally in order to ensure that it helps as many people as possible and that its grants make a difference to the people who receive them.
The Sportsmatch scheme is funded in England by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) through Sport England.
It has been designed to improve the quality and quantity of the sponsorship which grass-roots sport receives in Great Britain. Through the scheme, every pound of 'new' money put forward by a business sponsor can be matched.
Connecting Communities Plus - Community Grants
Connecting Communities Plus is a grants programme designed to support practical action to help achieve the goals set out in Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society, the government's strategy to increase race equality and improve community cohesion.
The programme facilitates tailored initiatives to meet the specific needs of disadvantaged communities, rather than treating all BME communities in the same way.
Connecting Communities Plus Community Grants are aimed at locally run and managed voluntary and community organisations with an income of less than £50,000 per year, run by volunteers or with one full time or two part time paid staff.
For the first time the fund will also support local projects which are commemorating the 200th anniversary of the passage of the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 2007.
Local Network Fund
The aim of the Local Network Fund is to help disadvantaged children and young people achieve their full potential, by investing directly in the activities of local community and voluntary groups working for and with children and young people.
Small locally managed community and voluntary groups that work with children and young people and that have constitutions and rules can apply for grants between £250 and £7000 to help with the costs of activities or services. Most of the children and young people benefiting from the grant must be facing disadvantage or poverty.
Community Champions Fund
The Community Champions Fund supports the work of local people who can encourage others to get more involved in renewing their neighbourhoods.
The fund offers grants of £50 - £2000 and is designed to increase the skills levels of individuals to enable them to act as inspirational figures, community entrepreneurs, and community mentors/leaders, in order to increase community involvement in regeneration and learning activity.
An emphasis is placed on supporting individuals who have already shown leadership in stimulating community activity, or who have ideas for encouraging greater community activity. The Fund will also support small-scale community inspired projects as part of supporting potential champions who have not previously sought funding.
Sport Relief
Sport Relief grants look to support voluntary and community groups who are using sport to:
* Increase access to sport and exercise for people who face social isolation and exclusion
* Help people who are experiencing difficulties in their lives to regain their confidence
