Sport England has announced it is making up to £195 million of funding available to help the community sport and physical activity sector as it negotiates the on-going COVID-19 crisis.
The package is additional to any funding support provided by the Government and part of it will go towards assisting the sport of lacrosse to make it through the current situation largely unscathed.
Sport England say their package will include:
A £20 million Community Emergency Fund, which will be opened immediately for local clubs and community organisations to bid into. Grants between £300 and £10,000 are available;
A £5 million pot for existing partners to bid into if they are facing specific and immediate financial difficulty;
An additional £55 million to support their sectors during an on-going period of restrictions, to fund new and innovative ways to keep people active and then, when the period of restrictions is over, to help organisations get back to business and adjust to a different environment;
A £115 million rollover of current funding into 2021/22 to give long term certainty to over 100 well established partners who play a vital role in the delivery of sport and physical activity in England.
England Lacrosse CEO, Mark Coups, welcomed the announcement from Sport England, saying:
“The news of the £195 million worth of additional funding is welcome news given the current global climate and we, as an organisation, look forward to assisting Sport England in any way we can to ensure our clubs up and down the country get through this crisis unharmed”.
A large part of the announcement is the £20 million Community Emergency Fund that is “specifically targeted at clubs and organisations who have a role in supporting the nation to be active but who are experiencing short term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the impact of COVID-19”.
Sport England say that the types of organisations eligible to apply for up to £10,000 grants include “local clubs forced to close at short notice but who are facing ongoing costs around maintenance and utility bills and voluntary and community sector organisations who deliver or enable sport and physical activity”.
This will undoubtedly provide a huge boost to lacrosse clubs and organisations up and down the country who have concerns about cashflow in the present situation.
More information regarding this Emergency Fund as well as details on how to apply can be found below. England Lacrosse can also provide support to any clubs looking for assistance in applying to the Emergency Fund.
The announcement also included information regarding next year’s funding for organisations:
“Given the cashflow concerns in the sector, Sport England has also agreed that it will consider requests to release six months of the coming year’s funding (50% of awards) to its partners, meaning additional funding will be available sooner.
This latest announcement comes after Sport England’s recent decision to offer major flexibilities to those who currently receive funding, including the ability to change timings, targets, and redirect money to new activity in response to COVID-19.
All of these new measures have been brought in by Sport England following extensive consultation with England Lacrosse as well as other organisations across the sport and physical activity sector in England.
The full announcement as well as further information regarding each set of funding within the package can be found here: