Very many voluntary and sports organisations have looked to the National Lottery as a source of funding. Its very unlikely that the Lottery would cover your general running costs; however, some of the projects that your develop may attract Lottery support if they meet the relevant criteria.
Lottery distribution mechanisms have changed considerably over the years. There are now more than a dozen different lottery distributors, each of which run several different funding programmes. There are programmes aimed at youth, sport, community events, employment, capital building projects, volunteers, talented athletes and many other categories. Some programmes are designed for small grants (e.g. Awards for All), some are to support individual athletes and events, whilst several are aimed at major capital projects.
Which Lottery Distributor should we approach?
Choosing the most appropriate distributor and funding programme is crucial to the success of any application you might make.
To help you, all the combined Lottery Distributors have set up a website where you can easily search for the most appropriate fund to approach.
The Lottery Funding website (see panel on right) enables you to search for lottery funding by amount of money needed, type of activity (e.g. sport, eductation, etc), funding body (Big Lottery Fund, sportscotland, UK Sport, etc), by location, and by keyword. It helps to narrow your search quickly and easily and is an excellent first point of reference in navigating the lottery maze.
When you find a suitable lottery fund to approach, remember to download or request all the relevant briefing notes so that you provide all the relevant information to enable your application to be assessed positively.
Awards for All
Awards for All is a lottery grants distributor aimed at local community projects. Grants of between £500 and £5,000 are awarded in a simple and straightforward way.
