Getting Skateboarding Projects Funded
The energy and spirit of skateboarding are superpowers for getting amazing things done.
But funding can often feel like the biggest challenge, whether it’s financing a new skatepark, enabling free beginners’ sessions or a skateboarding event in your town/city. The following guide for UK-based skate projects aims to get you started with some of the key steps, language and approaches that will help you finance your amazing ideas.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN TYPES OF FUNDING?
There are three main types of funding that you can access as a community skate project in the UK:
- Crowdfunding and donations.
- Grant funding. Government bodies, such as Sport England or the Arts Council, charitable organisations and Local Government all provide ‘grants’ to eligible organisations.
- Capital grants fund physical ‘things’, such as facilities, building works and materials. If you want to fund a new skatepark, or get an existing skatepark repaired or updated, you will need capital grant funding.
- Revenue grants fund activities, people and time. If you want to deliver skate sessions, or workshops, or an exhibition, or fund ‘operating’ costs, a revenue grant could help.
- Service delivery. This is when a Local Authority, school, company, charity or Government body pays you to deliver a given service.
Of the capital and revenue funding sources currently available, you could investigate:
HOW CAN OUR PROJECT ACCESS FUNDING?
Crowdfunding, at first glance, seems easiest. You can set up a Crowdfunder UK or Go Fund Me page and start fundraising. However, doing this successfully and hitting your funding target requires a lot of thought and planning. Check out our toolkit with Crowdfunder UK, which gives you an idea of how to get started and information on potential ‘match funding’, which are programmes that will match every pound you raise from your supporters, up to a certain amount – if your project meets the match funder’s eligibility criteria.
For grant funding and service delivery you will need to establish a legal entity that funders can trust. Broadly speaking, you have three choices:
- You can be an unincorporated community group or small charity. This is quickest to do with the least administration, but significantly limits the amount of funding you can raise.
- You can incorporate as a charity, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) with the Charity Commission. This requires significant administration but has several benefits, including tax exemptions and eligibility for a wide range of grants.
- You can incorporate as a social enterprise, a Community Interest Company (CIC) with Companies House. This requires less administration than being a CIO, but you may need to pay Corporation Tax on any profits. You can access most grants as a CIC.
A fourth model is a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC), which may be optimum if you are taking on a facility.
View our crowdfunder page
NEXT STEPS
After you have decided what organisational form is best for you, you can start looking for funding. At Skateboard GB, we are always happy to offer advice, provide letters of support and comment on draft applications. We can also connect you to other organisations that you may be able to partner with, increasing the size of resource that you may be able to access whilst also sharing costs and learning from each other.
At Skateboard GB we’re leading the way amongst international skateboarding National Governing Bodies in establishing a community skateboard network and support infrastructure, which will include shared tools and resources. More information on this network will be available very soon.
We’re always here to provide advice and link you up to projects who might share your objectives.
Once you have downloaded and read the Full Funding Document, you can email us on [email protected] or use our contact form.