How can you add that little bit of sustainability to your project?  Do you need assistance in completing funding bids?

If so, Funding Buddies can offer the help and skills your club needs to be successful in completing bids.

The Funding Buddies project is a programme to assist community and voluntary groups access funding opportunities. It will also develop training courses to increase and enhance the skills of community organisations.

The project will operate throughout the Mid Kent Leader+ area but will concentrate specifically on the Isle of Sheppey and Romney Marsh.

You can visit their website here.

For everyone looking at trying to raise funds for their club project, the Tesco Community Awards Scheme might be of interest.

The Tesco Charity Trust Community Awards Scheme provides one-off donations of between £500 and £4,000. The funding they give goes towards providing practical benefits, such as equipment and resources for projects that directly benefit children, the elderly and adults and children with disabilities, living in the local communities around our stores in the UK.

You can find out more by downloading the attached PDF file or by visiting this link - or both!

Sport in the community is about local people, local facilities, local groups and organisations working together to provide opportunities to enjoy sport. Betfair and SportsAid recognise the importance of community sport, so Cash 4 Clubs has been set up to facilitate fundraising for community sports clubs throughout the country.

Cash 4 Clubs offers all sports clubs in the UK the chance to win grants ranging from £250 to £1000. It is a simple scheme aimed at giving community clubs a helping hand and provide the opportunity to raise the money they need to invest in their club.

You can find everything you need to know about Cash 4 Clubs on their website.

Recently, Kent Cricket Board carried out a thorough review of the potential funding streams and opportunities that exist today.

All of our findings have been included in a document which lists the names of the organisations involved, all their contact details and the types and levels of funding that they offer.

It contains details of the Lord’s Taverners, O2’s “Its Your Community” Fund, Kent Sports Development Unit (KSDU), Kent Community Foundation, Comic Relief, Awards for All, Sport England, Sport England Small Grants, Pro-Active London Partnerships, Skills Active Bursaries and of course, the England and Wales Cricket Board.

If you are currently looking for funding this document will be of considerable interest to you.  You can find it by following this link.

As always, Clair Gould and Andy Griffiths, Community Cricket Managers are available to give you advice on any funding opportunity you may want to investigate.

Following a review of the Awards for All England programme, changes are to be made to the small grants scheme’s existing format when it comes to an end in March 2009.

Currently Awards for All England is a joint Lottery grants programme supported by Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England.

From 1 April 2009 each of the lottery distributors supporting the scheme will have their own small grants programmes up and running. Applications can still be made under the current arrangements until 31 March 2009.

The change will mean that each distributor can better address the needs of their applicants and the themes they support. Overall, across all the distributors, it is anticipated that new money available for small grants in 2009-10 will be comparable to money that was available to community groups through Awards for All in 2008-2009.

To ensure this change will be as seamless as possible, the distributors will each run their own small grants programme as follows:

• Big Lottery Fund will launch a new small grants programme on 1 April 2009 awarding grants of £300 to £10,000 to local communities in 2009-2010.

• Sport England will provide small grants for sports ranging from £300 - £10,000 from 1 April 2009.

• Arts Council England will provide small grants through their existing ‘Grants for the arts’ programme, supporting awards between £1,000 and £100,000.

• Heritage Lottery Fund small grants will be provided through the existing ‘Your Heritage’ (£3,000 to £50,000) and ‘Young Roots (£3,000 to £25,000) schemes.

There is also a Question and Answer document which will answer many of the questions you may have and it’s available for download from here.

Canterbury Cricket Club is celebrating after receiving a grant of over £45’000 from the Community Cricket Development Program which is administered by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The grant will help the club finance the construction of a new cricket ground at the Polo Farm Sports Club complex. Work on the project will begin in the next few weeks and it is envisaged that the new ground will be ready for use in 2010.

Full details can be found here.

You will find attached to this item details of some very important changes to the guidance on ECB Grants and Loans.

These changes have been made to streamline the whole process time and to accommodate the new Club Development Planning tool. In respect of existing bids or bids midway through the application process, the Facilities and Funding Unit at ECB will accept bids complying with the current guidance until the end of May 2008.
 
Key changes are: 
Loans
- The requirement to complete 3 core sections of a development plan has been removed (in line with updated new planning tool)
- Amendments to guidance have been refined (see attached)
- Confirmation that the maximum term of loans has been reduced from 10 to 5 years
 
Development planning will be conditioned within the offer of a Loan with timeframes attached. This way will ensure nothing is lost and will give clubs more time to implement.
 
Grants 
- The inclusion of Wales within the grant scheme
- Amendments to guidance (see word document)
 
KCB are urging all clubs planning to make an application or even in the process of completing one at the moment but unlikely to see it completed before the end of May 2008, to make sure that these new documents are read:  most of the confusion and delays over Clubs accessing the Grant and Loan scheme is non-compliance with the set criteria of the schemes.
 
Please feel free to download any of these documents and distribute accordingly around your Club.

ECB Guide to funding - version 2
Through this publication ECB has set out to help steer you through many of the grant aid and development funding agencies which exist. It contains many ideas for those looking for funding.

ECB Grant Aid Scheme Guidance Notes - Version 4

ECB Interest Free Loan Scheme Guidance Notes - Version 4

These really are significant and important changes.

If you are a group or organization that wants to increase the numbers of people taking part in sport and physical activity or if you have an idea or a project that you think will increase the numbers of people taking part in sport and physical activity then you might want to think about applying for lottery money from the Sport England Community Investment Fund (CIF).

Who can apply?
* A club, association or trust – you must have your own constitution and/or memorandum
* A local authority
* A local education authority – on your own behalf or on behalf of a school
* A local education authority school may apply for revenue, but for capital theauthority itself must apply
* A Foundation school or college
* A voluntary aided or controlled school
* An independent school or college
* An institute of further education
* A company limited by guarantee

Please note that applications from sole traders or partnerships cannot be acceepted.

How much money can be applied for?
The smallest amount of money that Sport England will usually give to a project is £30,000 and it is unlikely that they  will contribute more than £400,000 towards a large capital project.

Full details are available in a PDF file that is available on this website.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has very recently published the latest version of a document detailing the process and procedures necessary for a Club to take advantage of the interest free loan system.

This is an important document that could have a wide impact on your club.  You can download it by clicking here.

ECB have committed over £200k to projects across the country ranging from Machinery purchases to Pavilion Constructions and there are a number of further applications in development circa £500k.

The significant change in the document over previous versions is:

“The maximum amount of a loan shall be £50,000 and the maximum term shall be 5 years. Any applications for loans greater than £50,000 or for a loan with a repayment term of greater than 5 years may be considered by the England and Wales Cricket Trust and the England and Wales Cricket Trust shall have an absolute discretion to agree or reject such an application.”

The reason for this change is to ensure that the England and Wales Cricket Trust have the ability to increase the turnover of applications in the long term thus enabling a greater number of Clubs and their projects to benefit from the scheme.