Mayor launches Go! London fund to help under-served young Londoners get into sport and physical activity

• Mayor teams up with The London Marathon Foundation and Sport England to launch biggest ever community sport fund. 

• Fund aims to transform the lives of under-served young Londoners, aged 4-24.

• £10m investment into grassroots sports initiatives by 2025. 
• Charities, youth groups, social enterprises and faith groups can apply for grants from £40k to £150k. 

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today launched the capital’s biggest ever community sports fund to help under-served and vulnerable young Londoners to access and enjoy sport and physical activity. 

Go! London will see £19.5m being spent on improving the lives of young Londoners facing physical, social, economic or educational challenges.     

The fund has been established as part of a ground breaking new partnership between City Hall, which has given £4.5M, The London Marathon Foundation and Sport England, which have given £7.5M respectively, supported by London Marathon Events and London Sport, to improve the accessibility of sport across the capital.

The partnership aims to invest at least £10m into grassroots sport and physical activity initiatives by 2025 and to leverage an additional £3m into the Go! London fund by 2027.   

Go! London aims to use sport and physical activity to empower young people to fulfil their potential by improving physical and mental wellbeing, safety, employability, and community relationships.   

Applications for the first set of grants open today, with charities, youth groups, social enterprises and faith groups able to apply for grants of up to £150,000 this month to improve existing sport and physical activity programmes and deliver new services, such as youth mentoring and extra support for young people with special educational, disability and mental health needs.

The fund will run for at least five years from March 2023 with several funding opportunities available later this year and in 2024.  

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “I’m thrilled to be launching my new Go! London fund, my biggest ever community sport fund, to improve the accessibility of sport for under-served young Londoners.   

“I know the huge difference that sport can make to physical, mental and emotional wellbeing and it’s vital that all young people can take full advantage of these benefits, no matter their personal circumstances. 

“City Hall will work closely with our Go! London partners to seek new opportunities to support London’s youth through sport, building a better, safer, more prosperous London for all.”  

Catherine Anderson, Executive Director of the London Marathon Foundation, said: “The creation of the Go! London Partnership is a unique collaborative project and we are proud that the London Marathon Foundation is a founding funder and London Marathon Events is a strategic partner for what will be the biggest community sport fund in London.   

“Our vision is Inspiring Activity and, since the London Marathon was founded in 1981, we have worked to inspire people to get active. The Go! London fund will create exciting new opportunities for children and young people to lead active and healthy lives. We look forward to seeing projects and initiatives supported by Go! London using the transformative power of sport and physical activity to bring about long-term, positive change across the capital.”   

Emily Robinson, CEO of London Sport, said: “As the biggest community sport fund in London this partnership, backed by National Lottery investment from Sport England, will change the lives of thousands of young Londoners and help them reap the physical, mental and social benefits of an active life.

“London Sport is proud to contribute to this unique collaboration, and we’re excited to work with some of our biggest partners to tackle inactivity and inequality in the capital.”  

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS –  

More information about the funding process and grants available can be found at: https://golondon.org.uk/

About the Go! London fund  

Beneficiaries of the Go! London fund will be children and young people aged 4-24 who: 

• have special educational needs, are deaf or have other physical and learning disabilities; 
• have been, or are, excluded from school or college; 
• are not in education, employment or training (NEETs); 
• have, or are, associated with gangs or impacted by exploitation; 
• are experiencing, or have been impacted by, domestic violence and abuse; 
• refugees or asylum seekers; 
• have a social worker (looked after children, those with a protection plan, children in need and care leavers); 
• come from low-income families and or those living in poverty; and 
• are less active or inactive¹. 

The following will be eligible to apply for funding: 

• community, charity and voluntary sector organisations; 
• sports development organisations; 
• social enterprises; 
• young people led organisations; 
• young Individuals (aged 16-24) including start-ups and perhaps with a fund holder organisation to start off with – testing grants only; 
• schools; and  
• faith groups. 

Profit making organisations and organisations/projects proposing to work outside of London are not eligible to apply for funding. 

About The London Marathon Foundation 

The Foundation is the parent charity of London Marathon Events, and both organisations share a mission to ‘Inspire Activity’. London Marathon Events inspires activity by organising some of the world’s best mass participation sporting events. Every year, after costs, London Marathon Events GiftAids its surplus income to The Foundation, who in turn inspire activity by funding projects that support people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to be active. 

Since its founding in 1981, The Foundation has awarded more than £98 million to more than 1,500 projects, in every London Borough and across the UK. 

The Foundation is the majority funder of this new sports and physical activity fund. This is one of the first partnerships announced as part of The Foundation’s new funding strategy launched last Autumn 2022, which puts inspiring activity for children and young people and increasing participation for underserved groups at the heart of The Foundation’s work. 

About Sport England 

Sport England is a public body and invests up to £300 million National Lottery and government money each year in projects and programmes that help people get active and play sport. 

It wants everyone in England, regardless of age, background, or level of ability, to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. That’s why a lot of its work is specifically focused on helping people who do no, or very little, physical activity and groups who are typically less active – like women, disabled people and people on lower incomes. 

London Sport is a system partner of Sport England and will act as a strategic partner in the fund. London Sport is an independent charity working to ensure more Londoners live happier, healthier lives through access to sport and physical activity.