Every August the treasurer at your grassroots netball club works through what grants for netball clubs are open for the coming season, what the deadlines are, and what the club realistically qualifies for. This guide covers every UK grant a recreational netball club is eligible to apply for in the 2026-27 season, laid out in the order most clubs work through them.
England Netball funding routes
England Netball does not run a single national grants pot a club applies to directly. Funding for netball clubs instead run through three routes. First, County and Regional Netball Associations hold their own bursaries and hardship funds, varying in size and criteria by area, so a conversation with your county association is the genuine starting point for your netball clubs’ funding rather than a search for a single named fund. England Netball has previously run a Junior Club Starter Fund supporting new junior sections and clubs for High 5 (under-11s) and juniors through to under-18s, though current amounts and whether a 2026-27 round is open were not confirmed at the time of writing, so check directly with your regional Netball Development Officer. England Netball has also partnered with Crowdfunder, giving netball clubs access to Sport England match funding of up to £15,000 on top of whatever a club raises itself, with real examples including Lifeline Netball Club securing £5,000 in match funding for a court resurface and Earlsdon Highway Netball Club securing £10,000 towards new courts.
Sport England Movement Fund
A £160 million four-year fund was launched by Sport England in April 2024, which has replaced the previous Small Grants and Together Fund routes into a single, simpler application. The Movement Fund awards grants and crowdfunding pledges from £300 to £15,000 for projects getting more people active and reducing inequalities in participation.
There is no fixed application window. The fund runs on a rolling basis, with guidance to apply at least 12 weeks before the money is needed. The £15,000 cap applies across a rolling 12-month period per organisation. Netball clubs qualify when the project fits Sport England's Uniting the Movement priorities, and girls aged 5 to 16 sit explicitly among the named priority groups, a genuine advantage for a club growing its junior or Bee Netball section.
National Lottery Community Fund: Awards for All
Awards for All is the National Lottery Community Fund's small-grants stream, running from £300 to £20,000 for projects lasting up to two years. Applications run on a rolling basis with no closing date, and decisions typically land within 12 to 16 weeks of a complete submission.
Netball clubs applying tend to succeed when the project is framed around community benefit rather than the netball side alone. A grant to run open sessions, a Back to Netball programme, or a disability-inclusive strand converts better than one for a set of playing bibs.
The Movement Fund's women's and girls' priority
Sport England's previous Together Fund, a separate £20m pot aimed at reducing inequalities widened by the pandemic, closed in 2024 and folded into the Movement Fund described above rather than continuing as its own scheme. There is no standalone women's or girls' sport fund replacing it. What genuinely helps a netball club is the Movement Fund's own priority-group weighting, which names girls aged 5 to 16 explicitly. Since netball is already the most played female team sport in England, a club's Bee Netball or junior girls' programme sits close to the front of the queue for Movement Fund applications on the strength of the participant group alone, without needing a separate scheme built specifically for netball.
Cash4Clubs
Cash4Clubs is funded by Flutter UK & Ireland and delivered in partnership with the charity Sported, awarding grants of £2,000 to community sports clubs. The 2025-26 round ran from 8 September to 8 December 2025 and, by the 2026-27 season this guide covers, has already closed. Watch for the next round rather than treating it as currently open.
The eligibility restriction matters more than the timing for most netball clubs. The 2025-26 round supported adult-only organisations exclusively: any club with junior members or running junior activities was not eligible. Given how many grassroots netball clubs run a junior section alongside the senior team, this rules out most clubs. It remains a genuine option for standalone adult and Back to Netball groups running independently of a junior structure, and the same restriction is likely to carry into future rounds.
Local council community grants
Most district and borough councils run small community grants open to grassroots sports clubs, typically £250 to £2,000, with applications open year-round or on twice-yearly cycles. Some councils also give individual ward councillors a small discretionary fund. A direct approach to a ward councillor is often faster than a formal grant application for a specific, small purchase, and a councillor with a netball-playing electorate rarely turns down a request putting local girls and women on court.
What grants do and do not cover
Grants for netball clubs are strong for new sections, equipment, and facility investment: a resurfaced court, new posts, or a starter grant for a junior section. They are weaker for the routine annual costs of running a club, subs, hall or court hire, and league affiliation, and grants rarely repeat funding year after year.
The kit line sits in the awkward middle. No grant programme running in 2026 funds an annual kit refresh across every team at a club. Kit Funder covers exactly this gap: a full netball kit for a squad of nine costs £309 through the platform, matched with a local, regional, or national sponsor at no cost to the club, with 5% of every invoice added on top and donated to a local mental health charity. Grants and sponsorship work best run alongside each other rather than as competing routes for the same budget line.
How to build a grant application the funder rewards
The strongest applications share four features. They lead with the community outcome rather than the club's own need. They include specific numbers on who the project reaches, junior members, adult players, a wider community group. They document the club's England Netball affiliation, safeguarding and governance clearly. They include a realistic, broken-out budget rather than a single lump figure.
A club applying for the first time is better off starting with a smaller, faster route, the county association or the local council, to build a track record before moving on to the Movement Fund or Awards for All, both of which weigh a club's history of delivery when awarding larger sums.
The one thing to do this month
Contact your County or Regional Netball Association to ask what bursaries or hardship funds are currently open, and check whether a Movement Fund or Awards for All application fits a specific project the club has coming up, a resurface, new posts, or a junior section launch. While this conversation is warm, register the club on Kit Funder at kitfunder.ai/teams. Registration takes under five minutes, and kit sponsorship covers the line grants rarely stretch to, so the two funding routes work together rather than in competition.
Your Kit, Funded
Register your netball club free at kitfunder.ai/teams. Kit sponsorship covers the kit line grants rarely stretch to, so the two funding routes work together rather than in competition. For the full picture of how netball sponsorship works end to end, read the complete UK guide to grassroots netball sponsorship, or how to fund a grassroots netball club for the wider routes sitting alongside grants. A business weighing up whether to back a team at all should read how to sponsor a grassroots sports team.
Common questions about grants for netball clubs
What grants are available for grassroots netball clubs in the UK?
The main routes are County and Regional Netball Association bursaries and hardship funds, the Sport England Movement Fund (£300 to £15,000), National Lottery Awards for All (£300 to £20,000), Cash4Clubs (£2,000, adult-only clubs), and local council community grants (£250 to £2,000). England Netball's Crowdfunder partnership also offers match funding up to £15,000 for clubs running a crowdfunding campaign.
How much does the England Netball Community Netball Fund offer?
England Netball does not run a single named fund by this title. Club funding instead runs through County and Regional Netball Association bursaries, an England Netball and Crowdfunder match-funding partnership offering up to £15,000, and occasional targeted programmes such as a Junior Club Starter Fund, so the right first step is a conversation with your regional Netball Development Officer.
Do grassroots netball clubs apply for more than one grant per year?
Yes, applying to different funders within the same year is common and generally encouraged. The Sport England Movement Fund caps its own awards at £15,000 to one organisation across a rolling 12-month period, but this does not restrict a club from applying to other funders in parallel.
Does a netball club need England Netball affiliation to apply for grants?
Not for every funder, but it strengthens every application. Sport England, National Lottery and local council grants check safeguarding and governance rather than requiring England Netball affiliation specifically, though County and Regional Netball Association bursaries generally do require it.
How much of a grassroots netball club budget do grants typically cover?
Grants realistically cover around 15% to 25% of an actively-applying club's annual budget, rising in a season a new section launches and falling to zero in seasons where no application succeeds. Membership fees, court hire contributions, sponsorship, and fundraising cover the rest.
Sources
Sport England, The Movement Fund, sportengland.org.
The National Lottery Community Fund, Awards for All England, tnlcommunityfund.org.uk.
Cash4Clubs, funded by Flutter UK & Ireland in partnership with Sported, sported.org.uk/cash4clubs and cash-4-clubs.com.
Crowdfunder, Netball funding and crowdfunding, crowdfunder.co.uk/sports/netball.
England Netball, Junior Club Starter Fund (historical reference, current status unconfirmed), englandnetball.co.uk.
