Sport England – Movement Fund
Funding priority
Sport England has launched a new fund to encourage more people to get active.
The Movement Fund, which is worth £160 million over the next four years, will offer crowdfunding pledges, grants and resources to provide physical activity opportunities for the people and communities who need it the most.
Eligible projects could receive up to £15,000 to cover a wide range of costs and items that will help deliver positive change, particularly for those facing barriers to activity such as:
- people living on low incomes
- disabled people or those with long-term health conditions
- older people
- people from culturally diverse communities
- pregnant women and parents with very young children
- girls aged 5-16
- LGBTQ+ people
- people who are in foster care
- people who provide care without pay
Deadlines
Rolling
Type of funder
Charitable trust or foundation National lottery
Who can apply
- sports clubs
- charities
- local authorities
- schools
- community Benefit Societies
- not-for-profit companies
To receive funding, you must have at least three non-related trustees or directors who don't live together. And you need to ensure decision making and voting rights are equally distributed between your trustees or directors.
To receive more than £10,000 of funding from us, you need to meet Tier 1 of our governance code.
Restrictions
They won’t fund:
- People living outside of England: we focus on activities within England, so costs for activities involving participants living outside England aren’t eligible for funding.
- Activities linked to statutory duties: we aren’t able to cover costs for activities that are statutory responsibilities, such as funding activities that schools are already required to deliver, like PE classes.
- Projects for private gain: we’re unable to cover projects that solely benefit an individual (e.g. covering membership fees).
- Distribution of grants on our behalf: the Movement Fund doesn’t fund organisations that’ll redistribute our grants to others.
- Duplicate funding: we don’t fund costs already covered by another source of funding. All sources of funding for your project should be declared in the application.
- High-risk sports and activities: we won’t fund projects that are for high-risk sports and activities, unless they’re for recognised sports where the organisation/coaches are affiliated with the relevant national governing body. A full list of recognised sports can be found here, those marked with an asterisk are considered high risk and will require affiliation.
- General running or existing staff costs: we’re unable to cover costs for general running of your organisation or existing staff.
- Recoverable VAT: we’re unable to provide funding for VAT costs you can recover.
- Retrospective funding: we can’t fund costs already incurred before the award letter date, or projects that have already started before you’ve received a funding confirmation.
- Children under five years old: projects focused solely on children under five aren’t eligible for funding. However, we can support projects where children under five are part of a larger project where the majority of beneficiaries are over the age of five.
- Football Foundation projects: we won’t fund football-only projects where it’s possible to receive support from the Football Foundation (e.g. equipment – goal posts or portable floodlights – or facilities). These projects should apply to the Football Foundation.
- Artistic dance activities: we don’t fund artistic dance activities where the main purpose is for artistic or performance purposes, rather than for getting people active.
- Projects with distant start dates: we won’t fund projects which aren’t able to start within six months of the funding award confirmation, or projects which won’t be completed within 12 months of starting.
- Movement Fund awards over £15,000 in a 12-month period: you can make multiple applications to the Movement Fund but we won’t fund a project that would result in an organisation receiving more than £15,000 from the Movement Fund and Small Grants Programme in a 12-month period.
Funding Type
- Capital expenditure
- One-off
- Project
- Regular
Grant details
The Movement Fund supports projects that promote physical activity, including active travel, walking, cycling, dance, fitness and sporting activities.
Here are some of the things our funding could cover:
-
- Equipment: support purchasing new or improved equipment that’s required for the delivery of your activity.
- Refurbishing or upgrading facilities: we can support you to improve or create spaces that can provide opportunities to get more people active.
- Developing new capabilities and leadership skills: providing formal training for staff and volunteers to improve their skills and leadership abilities to help improve how you tackle inequalities and get more people active.
- Delivery costs: paying for the people and facilities you need to deliver the project, where these are new costs to your project.
- Emergency relief: helping with costs during a crisis, like damage from extreme weather, that couldn’t have been avoided or insured.
Size of grant
- Small (£1 - £10,000)
Application details
Online application form - read the guidelines on the Sports England website carefully before applying.
They will review your application and get back to you. Typically, this process takes 3-6 weeks but during periods of high demand it might take longer.
Contact Details
Address
21 Bloomsbury Street
WC1B 3HF
England
Telephone Number
0345 8508 508