FAQs

All projects need to take place at spaces, places and facilities that will be open to all the community to use. 

The following groups and organisations can apply:

• Community and voluntary sector organisations
• Community enterprises
• Community Interest Companies without share capital
• Organisations or companies with at least three directors who are not related by blood, marriage, civil partnership, or relationship, and do not live together
• Faith centres
• Local authorities
• Registered charities
• Schools, statutory bodies and other educational establishments (please see additional information, below)
• Sports clubs
• Unincorporated associations 

All applicants must have:

• filed at least one year's financial statement (which can be audited or unaudited statutory accounts) under their Charity Commission or Companies House filing history
• more than two Directors who are unrelated 

Schools may apply only if their project is open for wider community use outside of school hours. Sport England’s Use our School resource provides guidance on how schools can open up their facilities to community groups.

Applications should demonstrate existing relationships with community groups (for example, groups already using the school’s facilities for sport and physical activity), and letters of support from these groups should be included as part of the application. We also want to understand how the school will manage the practicalities of opening facilities outside of school hours, and how the activity will be sustained beyond the funding period. 

We will not fund projects that are solely for the use of the school community (pupils, families or staff), or any revenue funding towards posts or salary cost. 

No – the Active Spaces Fund is only open to organisations supporting communities in the 32 London boroughs and City of London.

Your project must support children, young people and/or underserved groups and communities to lead active and healthy lives. Within these audiences, we want to support those who are currently inactive or have the least access to sport and physical activity. 

Equipment 

Yes, we’ll fund major equipment which is integral to a project, including fixed equipment (eg, playground and gym equipment) as well as non-fixed equipment (eg, rowing boats and adapted bikes). If applying for non-fixed equipment, you’ll need to demonstrate that the equipment will be well maintained and safely stored.

We won’t fund any personal equipment or clothing that will become the property of individuals (eg, team sports kits).

Vehicles

No, we won’t accept any applications for purchasing vehicles (including tractors, minibuses or ride-on lawnmowers).

Our funds are limited and we’re unlikely to be able to fund the entire costs of a capital project. If you’re submitting a request for a capital project, we advise you to consider how the entire project will be funded before applying.

For smaller capital projects requesting less than £80,000, we expect to see a contribution from other sources (eg, from other funders or your own organisation).

For larger capital projects requesting more than £80,000, we’ll need to see evidence that significant funding has either been secured or applied for (eg, from other funders or your own organisation).

We’re unlikely to support applications where our funding represents only a small portion of the entire capital project costs.

Yes - you can apply in partnership with the site owner, who will need to submit the application on your behalf. For example, a community group using a local authority owned site will need the local authority to complete the application. 

If you’re applying for capital funding, we will need confirmation that the site owner gives permission for any proposed changes to the property. 

We also require a minimum lease period, which varies depending on the level of funding applied for:

If your organisation has already received Active Spaces capital funding, you must wait two years from the date of the final grant payment before applying again for a different project. This will help ensure our funding reaches new organisations and community groups. Any future application should also reference the impact of your previously funded project.

If your project has already benefited from the Foundation’s funding, you cannot apply for funding for the same project again, as we aim to support organisations to sustain their projects beyond our funding period. 

All faith-based organisations with charitable or social aims are eligible to apply for funding and are subject to the same checks and due diligence as other applicants.

Instances where we typically can’t fund faith-based organisations include:

• where the proposed project includes activities that promote religion or seek to convert individuals to a specific belief system, since it may risk excluding communities with different beliefs and practices where the intended project does not benefit the wider community outside of the religious community.
• The only instance where we may fund a project that does not benefit the wider community is where in doing so is proportionate and intended to achieve a legitimate aim, ie - a women-only space for young Muslim girls to participate in sports.
• If your project predominantly serves the local community, but will also be used for faith practices, we’ll only fund the proportion of your project that benefits the wider community. For example, if your proposed capital refurbishment or build will be used for 30 hours a week (75%) by the local community and 10 hours (25%) for religious or faith-based activities, we’ll fund only 75% of the total project cost.

When applying for funding, please include details in your application about your connection to the wider community beneficiaries, residents, and groups that will benefit from your project.

Stage One: Expression of Interest (EOI)

If your EOI is successful, we’ll contact you and invite you to submit a full stage 2 application. This will need to be submitted within 12 months from the date of your successful EOI notification. 

Stage Two: full application

If your application is successful, we’ll contact you to let you know. You’ll then be emailed your official paperwork, including a Letter of Offer, Grant Terms and Conditions and Project Delivery Plan. Our Funding Team will provide all the information you need to complete the paperwork and will be on hand to support you throughout the delivery of your project.

If your application is unsuccessful, we’ll contact you and provide clear feedback explaining why it was unsuccessful. 

If we’ve confirmed you may re-apply for the same project, you must wait at least four months from the notification date and address the feedback provided to strengthen your re-application. We always endeavour to be realistic, and if you are not invited to re-apply, we will provide feedback as to why your application is not a strong fit for the Active Spaces Fund. 

Please email us first, outlining if there have been any changes to your project since submitting your EOI. 

We’ll then let you know if you can submit a full application, or if you need to start a new EOI.

If your full application (stage two) is successful, we can provide some flexibility with the payment of your funding, to support you with managing the cashflow of your project.

The funding can be split into two payments within the delivery of your project, including upfront (before the project starts, which is for revenue costs only), interim (during the project delivery) and/or on project completion.

Your Funding Manager will agree to the payment plan with you before your project starts.

No – we will only accept one application at a time from the same organisation. The exceptions to this are statutory bodies including local authorities, Multi Academy Trust schools, network/ federation or family of charities, and not-for-profit housing associations with multiple offices.  

At the beginning of your funding period, your Funding Manager will work with you to agree to the outcomes you want to achieve through your project. This means from the start of your project you’ll know what outcomes you need to monitor and report on.

One year from when your project is complete and your grant fully paid, you’ll need to complete an Annual Project Impact Report to share how your project has worked towards the agreed outcomes - see our Impact Reporting Guide for more information.

You can get in touch with us at any time, but will need to complete a short Progress Report every six months during the delivery of your project, to let us know how things are going. This is done through our Funding Forms Portal and, when it’s due, you’ll receive an automatic email with a link to the form.

Typically, we provide funding of between £10,000 and £80,000 towards total project costs. 

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may award more than £80,000 for capital projects where an exceptional case for inspiring activity for our priority audiences is made.  

If you’re planning a capital project and want to apply for more than £80,000, you may be eligible in some circumstances:  

• Only projects that make an exceptional case for inspiring activity for our priority audiences are likely to be funded. 
• At this level of funding, our focus is on capital projects that will leave a long-term legacy for our priority audiences. 
• Partnership funding is required. During the application process, you’ll need to demonstrate the partnership funding you have secured, or plan to secure, to deliver your project. 

You'll need to complete an Expression of Interest (EOI), providing a summary of the project and the outcomes you hope to achieve, along with a project budget.  
 
If your EOI is for an eligible project that addresses our priorities, you'll be invited to stage two.  
 
Before applying, you can preview the EOI form to see the questions you’ll need to answer.   

When you're ready to apply, you can log in to the Funding Forms Portal to complete an EOI.

If you've not applied for funding from us before, you'll first need to follow these instructions to set up a Blackbaud ID (Blackbaud is the grants management software we use).

If your Expression of Interest (EOI) is successful (around 28% are), we’ll contact you and invite you to submit a full application. 

In the full application, you’ll need to provide more detail on which group(s) within our priority audiences the project will support to be active and how. You’ll also be asked about your project outcomes and information about your organisation, including your approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, sustainability and the real Living Wage. 

You’ll also need to submit the following supporting documents: 

• A project budget
• Project plan (including timeframe of delivery)
• Governance documents
• Policies (including a Child Protection Policy and Safeguarding and Vulnerable Adults Policy)
• Two to three letters of support for the project (for school applications, the letters of support should be from community users)
• If applying for capital funding, you’ll also need to provide evidence of security of tenure, planning permission (if required), project designs, a copy of your project budget, evidence of other project funding and photos. 

Before applying, you can preview the full application form to see the questions you'll need to answer.  

Your full application must be submitted within 12 months of your successful EOI notification. If you do not apply within this timeframe, your application will be declined. You will then need to wait six months before reapplying for the same project, and you may only re-apply once.

In stage two, the full application, we need to see information about your project budget. If you’re only applying for capital funding, please provide a copy of your own detailed budget for the project. If you’re applying for any revenue funding, please use this revenue budget template to detail the revenue funding you're applying for and upload a copy of this with your application form

Stage One deadline 
You can submit an EOI at any time throughout the year. We’ll aim to let you know if your project is eligible to submit a full application (stage two) within 30 working days.  
 
Stage Two deadline 
If your EOI is successful, you will be invited (via email) to submit a full application. There are four rounds of application each year. The deadlines for funding requests under £100,000 are listed below, along with when you can expect to hear the outcome of your application.

If you're requesting funding over £100,000, we will take about a month longer to communicate the outcome, but we will keep you updated over email.

While we expect most full applications to be submitted within one year, we’re committed to being flexible, so please contact us before applying if it’s been more than one year since your EOI was successful.  

Please note, if you’ve applied to Go! London for funding and not yet heard back about your application, or if you already have a project funded by Go! London, you can’t also apply for funding from the Active Spaces Fund. This is because London Marathon Foundation is a Go! London partner and funder and we only process one application or fund one project at a time through these funds. Read our FAQs for more info about application requirements. 

If you’ve already started an Active Spaces Fund application, you can continue the application by logging in to the Funding Forms Portal. You’ll need the same email address and password used when the application was started.  
 
Login to the Funding Forms Portal to continue an existing application. 

If you’re a funded organisation and need to submit a progress report, you can do this through the Funding Forms Portal. You’ll need the same email address and password that was used when applying for funding.  
 
Log in to the Funding Forms Portal to submit a report.  

We’re a small team and would be grateful if you could  read our FAQs before contacting us with any questions about the Active Spaces Fund or application process. 

The best way for us to get an understanding of your project is for you to complete the short EOI form. Instead of contacting us with specific questions about your project, we invite you to submit an EOI and we’ll then be in touch should we need any further information.  

If you have any communication support needs that will make the application process difficult for you, please email us and we’ll be happy to work with you through the application process.