Sport Northern Ireland: Creating Opportunities
Eligibility and pledge criteria
Version dated: May 2026
About this fund
Get up to £5,000 to help your sport Level The Playing Field. We're encouraging the sports sector who play an important role in keeping their community active to get involved.
You need a crowdfunding project to apply for funding. Start or continue adding your project and, if eligible, you'll be prompted to apply.
Eligibility criteria
The Creating Opportunities programme encourages clubs and organisations to be innovative and creative in delivering sport and physical activity. Creating Opportunities is not overly prescriptive, allowing maximum creativity to achieve the programme outcomes. Sport NI will support projects that are delivering new or additional activities (not routine operations) and those promoting innovation and inclusion in sport and physical activity.
The following elements are key eligibility criteria to Creating Opportunities match
funding:
The project must aim to ‘level the playing field’ by addressing under representation in sport.
The project must be focused on increasing participation in sport and physical activity and must be new or additional.
All applications must include at least two rewards on their Crowdfunder campaign page (see FAQs or contact Sport NI for more information on rewards).
Projects must clearly demonstrate their eligible costs and timeframe for project delivery within the programme timeframe.
Campaigns requesting between £4,000 and (the maximum of) £5,000 must include a bespoke project video outlining who the organisation is, what the project will deliver, how it will contribute to ‘levelling the playing field’ and how you will spend the money raised.
Eligible projects will be seeking to engage at least one of the following priority groups:
Women and girls
People with disabilities
Children and young people (aged 11-18 years)
Older people aged over 65
Ethnically diverse communities
LGBTQ+ community
People living in areas of greatest need
People living in rural areas
Eligible organisations
To be eligible to apply you must be one of the following organisations:
A constituted sports club which is affiliated to a governing body of sport which is recognised by Sport NI
A community/voluntary sector organisation that delivers or enables sport and/or physical activity through this project
A charitable trust that delivers or enables sport and/or physical activity through this project
A constituted Parent Teacher Association (PTA) that delivers or enables new/additional extracurricular sport and/or physical activity
Eligible Costs
Some examples of eligible project costs are shown below (this is not an exhaustive list and will be at the discretion of Sport NI):
Outreach project engaging any of the priority groups within a local community
setting.
New coaching or volunteer development initiatives.
Adapted or specialist equipment enabling participation for people with disabilities.
A project designed to include, promote and develop increased levels of female participation within an organisation.
Innovative projects that connect communities through sport.
Reasonable, project-specific running costs essential for delivery, such as coaching, venue hire or facilitator costs.
Who we can't support
This fund is designed to help grassroots sport and physical recreation providers which means we are not able to help the following organisations through this fund:
Local authorities
Schools (excluding PTA's), colleges and universities
Commercial sport and physical recreation providers, e.g. private gyms
Leisure operators
Individuals who are either employed or self-employed within the sport and physical recreation sector
National Governing Bodies of Sport
What we will not fund
As Creating Opportunities is all about being innovative and creative in how you deliver your sport or diversify your offer as a club or organisation, we are not being overly prescriptive in what we will fund, but projects must be new and/or an additional activity to address the challenges and 'level the playing field'.
We are allowing clubs and organisations the opportunity to be as creative as you can and we will consider supporting almost anything (within reason) if it delivers the outcomes of the programme.
There are however a few things that we cannot invest in:
Routine club activities or existing programmes.
Capital projects over £10,000, not relating to a specific participation project or requiring statutory approvals.
Salaries, loan repayments, or general running costs.
Entertainment, food, or beverages.
Education courses (e.g., A Levels, degrees).
VAT recoverable from HMRC.
Activities promoting religious or political beliefs.
Retrospective costs or costs incurred before the Letter of Offer.
Insurance, affiliation, entry fees, or membership fees.
Accommodation or travel outside Northern Ireland.
Strategic planning or consultancy fees.
Team or individual kits.
Any other costs deemed unreasonable by Sport NI
Pledge criteria
How much can you apply for?
If your application is approved, you'll be offered match funding of up to 65%* towards your initial crowdfunding target, up to a maximum of £5,000.
*If your club/community group is in an area of high social need or a rural area, you may be eligible for an enhanced 75% contribution from Sport NI, up to a maximum of £5,000.
The pledge will be made onto your project, once you have met the 'fund conditions':
1. Raise at least 25% of your initial target
2. Raise this from a minimum of 25 unique supporters
If either of these fund conditions are not met, the pledge will be withheld until both have been met.
If these two fund conditions are met, Sport NI will add the Creating Opportunities pledge, which means in most cases, the campaign will then be at 90%. You must then raise the remaining 10% from your crowd, to achieve 100% of your funding target, and therefore receive the Sport Northern Ireland funds.
To secure the Sport NI match funding, you must raise at least 100% of your project target before your project closes.
Additional conditions
An applicant will be provided with an offer which will be valid for 2 weeks after the date of notification. If the applicant does not launch a crowdfunding campaign within 2 weeks of notification, the offer will be rescinded
If an applicant does not achieve the funding target within the 6-week time period (4 weeks if applying in January), Sport NI reserves the right to withdraw its support. If an applicant is within 10% of their target- Sport NI may increase the time period
If the project fails to reach 100% of the target, the Sport NI funding pledge will be cancelled. The project owner will be encouraged to review what went wrong and, if appropriate, to attempt to crowdfund again
Funded projects will be required to agree to the Creating Opportunities: Conditions of Grant.
A full copy of the programme guidance note can be found at http://www.sportni.net/funding/creating-opportunities/