Sport for change
As well as the more obvious health and participation benefits, there has been growing awareness within society of the broader social, emotional and cohesion opportunities that sport can bring.
Comic Relief is interested in understanding these particular benefits from sport, rather than health or participatory benefits. While sport alone will never be the solution to injustice or poverty, we believe it can bring about positive changes as part of a broader programme of work.
We have developed this programme to support a range of innovative projects that are using sport as a tool for making a real difference in the communities in which they are based.
The aim of this programme is to understand more about how sport can play a part in delivering positive change within the lives of individuals and communities.
We also want to understand how sport can be used to tackle identified social issues as part of a broader programme to achieve a measurable social change.
By “broader programme” we mean other activities that are seen as part of a coordinated approach to a social issue or concern that supports or links to sporting activity. This might be workshops, educational sessions, awareness raising, work experience, volunteering, or mentoring.
Organisations we fund need to show how their work will help deliver one or more of the following outcomes:
- An increased sense of inclusion and wellbeing for marginalised and disadvantaged people
- Greater community involvement
- An increased understanding of how sport can help bring about positive changes in the lives of individuals and communities
- Greater knowledge across the community and sports sectors about effective work which uses sport as a tool for social change.
Please read the additional important information for Sport for Change applicants document on the resources page for some extremely important guidance notes that will help you with your application.
Value of grants: The maximum grant size in this programme is £100,000 in total. We will NOT award grants of less than £10,000 and if you apply for less than £10,000 the proposal will be rejected. Please read the additional information link above for information about applying for smaller grants of less than £10,000.
Full Proposal: If your application is chosen for further consideration, you will be invited to submit a full proposal, again online. We are usually able to let you know the outcome of your first stage application within 3-4 weeks of the cycle deadline. You will then have 3-4 weeks to submit your second stage application.
If your work is national or provides a model that could be replicated, we may be able to fund at a higher level. Please call us to discuss this before you submit an application.
You should also read our UK Grants Strategy
The Sport for Change programme is open for applications from 10th April until midday on 8th June.