Lmct Awards Its Largest National Funding

The London Marathon Charitable Trust (LMCT) has revealed its first Strategic Partnership Grants, which will see six projects benefit from £2.6 million in funding – the organisation’s biggest national funding programme in its history.

Since it was founded in 1981, the LMCT has awarded grants totalling more than £76 million to over 1,330 organisations within London and Surrey.

However, under a new shift in strategy, The Trust is to expand its impact across the UK with aim of getting 50,000 people more active, across sporting activities including swimming, cycling, running, football, basketball and outdoor exercise.

National organisations such as Access Sport, Swim England and Street League are to now benefit with the LMCT’s long-term goal of establishing proactive partnerships that challenge the inequality of access to sport for its target audiences of children, young people, women, girls, disadvantaged communities and those with disabilities. 

Profits from the mass participation events organised by London Marathon Events each year are gifted to The Trust in perpetuity, which in turn distributes grants with the aim of inspiring thousands of people to take part in physical activity.

Each year, nearly 200,000 individuals take part in mass participation events organised by London Marathon Events’, which includes the Virgin Money London Marathon, Prudential RideLondon, Vitality London 10,000 and Swim Serpentine.

Of the six projects to gain from the Strategic Partnership Grants for 2018/19, Access Sport has received the largest funding boost.

A figure of £845,000 will go towards Access Sports’ three-year programme that is to help deliver four new BMX tracks and clubs, but also support a network of 50 clubs nationally to engage 6,000 youngsters through cycling activities.

Commenting on the funding, Mark Hardie, CEO of Access Sport, said: “This investment will be a big step towards achieving our vision of making cycling more inclusive and we will be supporting clubs nationally to launch programmes for those from underrepresented groups.”

Swim England are to receive £750,000 to enhance access to swimming at 20 pools across the UK through training, accessible swimming programmes and the provision of PoolPods, a sliding, submersible platform designed to aid those with mobility limitations.

Jane Nickerson, Swim England CEO, said: “We have an enormous opportunity to support the health and wellbeing of the nation through water-based activity and we’re very grateful to The London Marathon Charitable Trust for helping us to make swimming more inclusive.”

Street League, which helps young people participate in team sports and nutrition programmes in areas of high deprivation in London and Surrey, will utilise £500,000 to get 5,000 youngsters aged 14-24 to be more active.

Sir Rodney Walker, chair of The Trust said: “The long-term health and wellbeing of the population is at serious risk due to the prevalence of sedentary lifestyles.

“Our new strategy enables us to reach all four corners of the country by partnering with organisations that are skilled at inspiring more people to reap the enormous physical and mental health benefits that activity provides.”

Of the remaining projects, Sported are to receive £244,000 to fund a two-year programme to get more women and girls into physical activity across the UK, working closely with 380 clubs and groups to reduce barriers to sporting participation for 5,000 girls and women.

London-based community project Our Parks has received £200,000 from the LMCT to help expand its free and low-coast outdoor exercise programmes into London boroughs across the capital, which will help a further 20,000 people into exercise each year.

Completing the funding, GoodGym will receive £100,000 to help boost its workplace-based initiatives across London, encouraging more employees to get away from their desks and combine activity with volunteering in the local community.  

The Trust selects Strategic Partnership projects on an invitation-only basis and the grants are in addition to the recently announced £5 million of facilities grant funding that will be made available to London and Surrey until September 2019.