Call for Applications: True Venture Fund (UK)

Deadline: 06-Jan-2025

Community Foundation Wales, in partnership with True Venture Foundation, is seeking applications for the True Venture Fund to provide additional support to small community-based sports clubs working across North Wales with children and young people to encourage them to try sport, love sport and stay in sport.

The fund will prioritise groups that provide individual sports opportunities such as athletics, swimming, boxing, cycling etc and multi-sports such as triathlon etc, rather than group/team-based sporting activities such as rugby, football, hockey etc.

The fund will support:

• small sports clubs focussed on individual sports/multi-sports, as detailed above, to raise their standards to help them provide the activities and opportunities listed below.
• the provision of activities to encourage more children and young people to try sport via increased access to sporting opportunities, including, for example, taster sessions with a sustainable model
• activities that will encourage children and young people to love sport, by raising their aspirations to consider competitive sport and/or to compete at a higher level in their chosen sport/s
• activities that enable children and young people to stay in sport, by maintaining regular involvement in their chosen sport/s, whether competitively or in another aspect like coaching or officiating

They encourage groups to think about how they will increase accessibility to those who are underserved or vulnerable, including those from protected characteristic backgrounds as identified within the 2010 Equalities Act and individuals from the most deprived communities in Wales.

Third sector sports-based local community groups across Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Flintshire, Denbighshire and/or Wrexham are encouraged to apply for funding to support their work with children and young people.

Funding Information

• Grants of between £500 and £2,500 are available to groups who meet the above criteria.
• Examples of applications they’d expect to see are as follows:
  • Equipment to support increased provision of taster sessions
  • Programmes and marketing to attract children into the sport
  • Training courses for coaches to support children and young people to improve and grow
  • Increased venue hire to enable more or longer sessions, delivered via sustainable model
  • The cost of membership or affiliation to the relevant sporting body to improve governance
• When requesting project funding, keep in mind that the True Venture fund prefers to finance complete items rather than contributing to broader expenses. For example, in a recent funding round, the fund supported the purchase of 8 backstroke start wedges, but didn’t fund a section of fencing for venue security.

Eligibility Criteria

• The fund is looking to support grass roots, local community sports clubs, constituted groups and regional bodies, but will consider an application from a sporting body based outside of North Wales, if the application is to establish a local group in North Wales.
• You must be one of the following –
  • Constituted Group
  • Registered Charities or a Charitable Incorporated Organisation
  • Non-profit Company Limited by Guarantee with charitable aims and a named asset lock
  • Community Interest Company with a named asset lock
  • Social Enterprise
• The True Venture Foundation would love to hear from you, if you feel you have a project that is related to the aims of this fund but doesn’t meet funding limits or other key criteria.

For more information, visit Community Foundation Wales.