The following guidance is to help applicants complete Sport England’s Inspired Facilities application form.
There are suggestions on how to complete the main narrative sections of the form, giving you hints and tips on how to write a good quality application and hopefully increase your chances of success.
Click on the headings below to help you navigate through the different sections.
What the Sport England Grants Officer will do when they first receive your application form?
Recent changes to the Inspired Facilities Fund
Essential – Check the Checklist!
Your Project Description
Points mean Prizes! How Sport England assess their application forms
Section 1 - The Need for your project
Section 2 - What Sport England wants to see in return – The Impacton your sport!
Section 3 – Community Involvement
Section 4 - Sustainability
How to get a Brucie Bonus!
Help!
Letters of Support
What the Sport England Grants Officer will do when they first receive your application form?
It is useful to know how Sport England process the application forms they receive. When your application is submitted to Sport England, it will be passedon to a grants officer to assess. The first checks they will do, will include making sure that all the sections of the form have been completed, that all the relevant paperwork has been submitted, and that all the paperwork (the application form, bank account, accounts, constitution etc.) are in the same name. They may also do a search on the internet about your club and check your website. The assessor may take about half a day to do this. Once the grants officer is happy with their checks, they will then go on to assess your form. They will score each of the main narrative sections. Therefore, it is important to make sure that all the sections have been completed and that you attach or forward all supporting documents.
Recent Changes to the Inspired Facilities Fund
If it is a while since you last looked at the guidance notes for the Inspired Facilities Fund, it is worth noting the following changes:
1)Firstly, applicants can now only resubmit a previously unsuccessful application once. Therefore, if you’ve had your bid knocked back twice in the past, unfortunately you won’t be able to go back to this fund for a third try.
2)Secondly, with the exception of Local Authorities, all other organisations can only receive one award under the Inspired Facilities programme.
3)Finally, applications from London based projects will be considered a priority. This doesn’t mean that projects from Derbyshire and elsewhere won’t get a reasonable chance to apply. What it means that if bids from Derbyshire and other areas are borderline alongside bids from London, then Sport England will prioritise the London applications. Have a look at the section which details how Sport England assesses their Inspired Facilities application form.
Essential – Check the Check List!
Before you do anything else, spend a couple of minutes going through Sport England’s checklist for the Inspired Facilities fund. This will quickly flag up whether there are any issues which need to be addressed or whether there is anything which you won’t be able to sort out. If everything is okay, then make sure you are familiar with the guidance for the fund. Click here or the picture below.
Your Project Description
Although the description section isn’t one which Sport England will score, it is an important section to help the person assessing your application to quickly understand what you need the funding for. You have 100 words to clearly describe your project.
The suggestion below uses guidance actually relating to Sport England’s Small Grants programme. However, this does provide a nice concise way to describe your project which will help the person assessing your application, immediately understand what you need the funding for. Use the bullet points to think about what you want to do, how you are going to do it and what will result once you have completed the facility development.
- What are you going to do
- How you going to do it
- What will result
E.g. “We will use the funding to upgrade the cricket pavilion by refurbishing and extending the changing rooms, installing a new boiler and purchasing new cricket equipment. The changing rooms are no longer fit for purpose and the current boiler doesn’t adequately heat the pavilion, particularly for use during the winter. The improvements will provide a better environment for existing users and will help to attract new people to play cricket. The additional equipment will allow us to develop a new women’s team”. (82 words)
Points mean Prizes! How Sport England assess their application forms.
Points mean Prizes! Sport England decides who to award funding to by scoring the four sections of the application form. The more points you can get in each section, the more likely you are to get a grant. If you have one weak section, it will drag your overall score down. So, it is important to make sure you give the best answers you can for each of these four sections.
- Need For Your Project (25%)
- Impact on Your Sport (25%)
- Community Involvement (25%)
- Sustainability (25%)
The score is out of 100 points and is equally divided between the four sections. The benchmark score is 80%, so each section needs to be picking up at least 20 points. This sounds high, but obviously is achievable. Success rates have been quite high for a grant programme of this size. Nationally, success rates through this fund have been somewhere between 33% and 39%. However, I suspect with the changes which have been introduced recently, it would appear that competition for funding is increasing.
You get 500 words to complete each of these sections.
Section 1 - The Need for your project
The Evidence of Need section is the first ‘scored’ question.
Sport England has said that they assess this section in four parts (see below). Therefore, try to write something around each of the four key areas detailed below. The bullet points are suggestions of what you could include. Don’t worry if not all the bullet points are relevant to your project as long as you can say something about each of the four key areas.
Pointers to help complete the section
1)The Physical Need for the project – what needs sorting, e.g. the roof of the pavilion has a hole in it and it needs fixing.
2)TheDemandfor the project
- Waiting lists
- Gaps in provision. Does your club, or will your club provide something which is not otherwise available locally (remember the focus is on people aged 14+).
- Losing members
- Encouraging new members
3)TheStrategic fitof the project to
- Local, regional, national strategies e.g. Derbyshire Sport’s strategy, Active Derbyshire and the local authority’s sport development strategy if applicable.
- Sports statistics, local statistics e.g. Active People data and National Statistics.
4)The Support for the project
- Consultation / surveys with members, users and other stakeholders.
- Letters of support (make sure you attach them!)
Don’t hesitate to contact me, if you want some pointers relating to local strategies and statistics for Derbyshire. If you know anyone in sports development at your local (district / borough) council, then it is worth contacting them too, as well as your local NGB officer, if you haven’t already. Ask them for a letter of support. Also ask other stakeholders for a letter of support, e.g. schools or other clubs which you work with or are looking to work with. Think about using Survey Monkey as well as paper surveys to get feedback on your project.
Finally, don’t forget to attach Photos! Particularly if they will help you show what is wrong and what is needed to be fixed by the Inspired Facilities grant.
Attach Photos!
Section 2 - What Sport England wants to see in return – The Impact!
Sport England’s current focus is on getting more people aged 14+ to participate in sport, and for those not doing much sport, to do more. This is what Sport England wants projects to achieve in return for the grant funding!
The Impact Section links to a Sports Development Plan. It is probably worth completing the Sports Development Plan at the same time as thinking about what you will write in this section. You can use Sport England’s template for the plan or you can use your own. However, if you do use your own, make sure that you cover all the sections detailed within Sport England’s template.
To open a copy of Sport England’s Sports Development Plan click here or on the picture below.
Complete your sports development plan for up to 5 years. If successful, Sport England will monitor your project over 5 years, so make your estimates are as realistic as you can.
Pointers to help complete the section
- How will the grant improve sport - e.g. will it create or provide:
- New teams?
- More training sessions?
- More competitions?
- More coaching opportunities?
- Training more coaches to deliver more?
- More opportunities for those currently involved?
- Work with other sports?
- Focus particularly on what this project will help you to do rather than what your club already does.
- Think about the next 5 years!
Remember the key to this section is to think about how the facility development will help more people aged 14 years and over to be involved in sport, and for those already involved, to do more sport.
Section 3 - Community Involvement
Some of the evidence you will have gathered to complete earlier sections such as the ‘Need’ section will help you complete this section too. For example the letters of support and the feedback gathered from your consultation. Get other members and users of your club’s facilities to help you with your consultation. They may have family / friends / work colleagues / neighbours who think that the project will have an impact on them. Or, they may be able to think of other organisations which could work with your club in the future. This information will also help with the completion of last section which looks at sustainability.
It depends on your project, so see which of the following bullet points below will help you think about how more local people will benefit.
Pointers to help complete the section
- Have local people been involved in developing the project? Will they continue to be involved?
- Use evidence from your consultation / letters of support. They may help identify new community links.
- Think about the involvement of:
- Other clubs and groups
- Local councils (town, district and county)
- Local schools
- Wider community / community events
- Volunteers
- Future fundraising
- Spectators
- Near neighbours
- It depends on your project, so some of the following suggestions may be more appropriate for pavilion / club house improvements:
- Current timetable / future timetable? Would this show increased usage
- Think of all types of usage
- Receptions / birthday parties / functions / meetings
- Other sports – formally or informally or for events or meetings
- Attach a brief marketing plan.
Competition for funding through this programme is getting much stronger. I am aware of Sport England’sgrants officers now suggesting to applicants who have not been successful in previous rounds, to now provide a marketing plan.
Section 4 - Sustainability
This section links in part to anincome and expenditure forecast. To open a copyof Sport England’s template income and expenditure forecastclick here or the picture below.
How will you ensure that the facility will be managed and maintained in the future? Sport England want reassurance that your club won’t need grant funding to support the same project in a few years.
Approach the ‘Sustainability’ section in two parts:
1) Consider future revenue generation, and
2) The strengths of the management to take your club forward
It depends on your project as to how many of the following suggestions will be relevant.
Pointers to help complete the section
Revenue Generation:
- Increased membership
- The role of other organisations using the facility
- Details of any confirmed future use (or otherwise)
- Forecast bookings
- Marketing and promotional plans
- Pricing policy / hire charge sheet
- Advertising boards
- Income / funding from any other sources
Include estimates within the Income and Expenditure Forecast. Show a realistic surplus over 3 years.
Management:
- Provide some background to the club – e.g. when was the club established and a brief history of how it has evolved?
- Details about the committee structure
- Detail your management strengths
- Show how ongoing maintenance will be covered
- How other users will contribute
Don’t forget to include within your forecast a ‘sinking fund’ to cover the cost of future maintenance.
How to get a Brucie Bonus!
Hopefully your application will be pretty strong by now and is towards the top of the pile to get a grant! To help you get even further up the pile, make sure you let Sport England know whether you meet any of their priorities.
- If you can offer local opportunities to people who don’t currently play sport, then stress this within the ‘Impact’ section and the Sports Development Plan. If you haven’t included anything for this, think carefully about whether you can. For example, what about linking with other local clubs or organisations which may involve groups of people who perhaps tend to be more sedentary. Think about the feedback you’ve received from your consultation. Did this flag up any non-sports groups which might be interested in working with your club?
- Also, if your facility is the only public sports facility in the local community, then stress this in the ‘Need’ section. Sport England doesn’t define what they mean by the local community, so I think that it is down to the applicant to do this. If you have other sports clubs in your local area, but there aren’t any other clubs in your sport, then detail the importance of your club to your sport. This won’t pick up this priority, but it will help evidence the need for you club.
- Finally, if you haven’t received a Sports Lottery grant of more than £10K, then stress this within the ‘Other Information’ section. If in the past you’ve received a couple of Small Grants which total more than £10K, then that’s fine, you still meet this priority.
Help!
- Check the checklist!
- Read Sport England’s guidance
- Read the online notes which are part of the application form
- ‘?’
- Tel. 08458 508 508
- Club Matters’ website for help regarding governance etc
- Feedback on draft application?
Don’t forget to check the checklist. Click here for a reminder. Read the guidance notes relating to the fund. The notes aren’t long but they are certainly worth reading. At the side of the online form, you can find some of the tips detailed above. Also, click on the ‘?’s on the online application form. These will give you hints and tips relating to completing the various sections of the form. If after all this, you still have a query, phone Sport England’s helpline. Sport England has a team of approximately 40 people who work on their grant programmes, so they are happy to help applicants.
If you need help with writing a brief marketing plan or other support with e.g. governance, then it might be worth checking out the resources on Sport England’s Club Matters website.
Finally, it is always helpful to get someone who doesn’t know anything about your project to feedback on your draft application form. They will be in the same position as the person who will assess your application! So, please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like me to feedback on your draft bid if it is for a project located with Derby or Derbyshire.
Letters of support will help strengthen the ‘Need’ section of your form. Sport England like to see letters of support from Local Authorities, NGBs, and your County Sports Partnership (CSP)as well as schools and other local organisations. Derbyshire Sport is the CSP for Derbyshire. Please contact me if you would like any further funding advice or support regarding sport and active recreation projects in Derby and Derbyshire.
And finally, the best of luck with your application!
29th July 2015
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