Already contributing in the region of £800,000 annually through its dedicated ‘Community Fund’, local business Mick George Ltd has struck yet another lucrative partnership that is set to prove extremely advantageous for local sports clubs throughout Peterborough and Cambridgeshire.
At the 12th annual Living Sport Sports Awards ceremony, held last week at Burgess Hall, the company announced that they had joined forces with ‘Living Sport’ to form a bespoke ‘Sports Fund’ for those seeking financial assistance, and with the qualifying criteria appearing lenient, it will prove even more appealing for potential applicants.
Both parties are no strangers to the ‘funding’ environment, with the combination set to supply £60,000 annually, made up of six bi-monthly rounds throughout the year. Individual grants will be available between £500 and £1,500, for capital community sports projects or developments. These could include, but are not limited too; Changing Room improvements, Clubhouse renovations and training or facility maintenance equipment.
Essentially, the donation is available to all projects that are open to the general public, so with a possible 120 unique funding opportunities, the initiative should definitely assist Living Sports in their aspiration of improving health and well-being through the participation in sport and physical activity.
Simon Fairhall, Chief Executive at Living Sport said: ‘’We are passionate about sport and physical activity and ensuring that everyone has access to opportunities to participate whatever their circumstances. One of our goals is to establish relationships with those considered non-sporting operations, that can help extend our reach and impact on facilitating sport. The latest agreement with Mick George Ltd certainly achieves that and we’re delighted to be partnering with them.’’
The new ‘Mick George Sports Fund’ in partnership with ‘Living Sport’ is scheduled to commence 1st Jan 2018 with all encouraged to register suitable projects at www.livingsport.co.uk/mgfunding. All applications will be managed by Living Sport, with an independent judging panel having the final decision on which developments to support.
The new fund is an extension of a number of alternative funding channels provided by Living Sport, each of which target differing audiences with opposing end-goals, but all play a part in accomplishing the wider 2017-2021 strategic plan, which incorporates a number of Government Olympic Legacy initiatives.
Jon Stump, Finance Director at Mick George Ltd commented: ‘’The decision to create a new ‘Sports Fund’ has arisen as a consequence of the sheer volume of requests submitted to our ‘Community Fund’ that unfortunately do not conform with the criteria of that scheme. It demonstrated a huge requirement for assistance from often volunteer-led organisations, and that is something we were keen to support.’’
Stump continued: ‘’Since we launched our ‘Community Fund’ we have donated in excess of £2.5million to over 50 individual projects, so we know just how valuable this programme is to the local community and we expect that to be replicated in this instance. Living Sport is a fantastic concept and has tremendous experience in this domain, so we felt it was a natural progression to form this partnership.‘’