Need to get a sports grant or looking to grow your club?
About me
Bagshot Tennis Club
My name is Gren Gale, I was a member of the committee at Bagshot Tennis Club for 7 years. When I joined the committee we had 30 juniors in lessons, 70 adult members and almost no links to the community. The way I saw things, with so few juniors and an ageing adult membership, without change the club would cease to exist in 20 years time.
Gren Gale being awarded Surrey Club of the Year Award 2017/8
To address this I put together a strategy to move the club forward. This was approved by our full committee in December 2013 and a whole raft of initiatives put in place that has resulted in a growth of our juniors to around 180 and our adult members to 120 in six years.
In October 2017 we won the Surrey Heath Sports Club of the Year award, quickly followed in December of that year by the Surrey Sports Awards Club of the Year. There are thousands of sports clubs in Surrey so this was an amazing achievement for a small 4 court tennis club.
During that time I applied for 11 grants and won 9 of those, a success rate in excess of 80%. All 9 were won from different granting bodies and have been used to resurface courts, build a new court and a wide range of projects to help expand the club. Over £100,000 was raised in all.
Canal Society in Surrey
I headed up the efforts to raise £160,000 to purchase an electric community trip boat for the canal society in 2021. In a very difficult environment for fund raising we managed to raise all of that money within a two year timeframe making use of a variety of methods of fund raising including applying for grants.
How I can help you?
I feel confident I can improve your club too, whatever your sport. I can help you find ways of increasing your membership and consequently your income and I can provide sports grants consultancy to help you win grants.
Sports grants consultancy
I have a high percentage win record for the grants I’ve applied for. Following the grant process is the easy bit. Making sure you win is the tricky part and is where my expertise comes in.
Tendering for work
All granting bodies will need to be reassured that you know what you want. Most will require 3 quotations for the work you want to carry out. These need to be tendered for in a professional manner. I can help you do this.
Raising funds
Raising funds isn’t just about applying for grants. There are other very effective ways of raising money that will also enhance your ability to win grants by showing community support. We can help with this.
Project Management
Raising funds requires persistence and stamina. The demand for funds far exceeds the supply and getting from the starting line to the finish involves a lot of work from many contributors while usually experiencing a mixture of success and failure along the way. It’s important to have someone in place to drive the process and keep everyone going and motivated to achieve the objective.
Increasing your membership
We all want to attract more members, it makes your club more vibrant and increases income which allows you more flexibility. I can look at what you do now and propose new ways you can attract more members.
What do I charge?
For sports grants consultancy: If you’re a small organisation not looking for big grants, I appreciate that you won’t have a lot of money to spare, so I’ll be happy to charge you a much reduced fee if we don’t win the grant. The amount I charge will be dependent on the size of the grant and/or the work I need to put in, but I’ll let you know this at the start. I’m not looking to get rich doing this but I can’t give up my time totally for free! As long as it sounds interesting I’ll get involved and charge a fair fee for the time I spend.
If you’re a bigger club it’s more likely that with the sums being requested there will be a lot of up front work, so we may have to agree a different arrangement. We’d need to discuss your particular situation and what you’re trying to achieve.
For consultancy on how to grow your club where there is no target of raising sports grants: Call me and I can give you lots of free advice on this and can discuss a fee should you require my services.
