Crowdfund Lancashire to welcome new applications

An exciting funding initiative that's empowering communities to back the culture and sport projects that matter the most to them will be welcoming new applications this month.

New applications can be submitted for round 2 of Crowdfund Lancashire between 16 May and 18 July 2023.

Crowdfund Lancashire is a relatively new scheme developed by Lancashire County Council, working in partnership with Spacehive, the UK’s leading civic crowdfunding platform.

Through the £500,000 Lancashire Culture & Sport Fund, Crowdfund Lancashire allows the county council to support grassroot projects through crowdfunding.

Organisations can apply for up to £20,000 to boost projects towards their funding target. Parish and Town Councils can apply for up to £5,000, while individuals and businesses could get £1,500 towards their live crowdfunding campaigns.

Following the first round of funding applications, a considerable number are now fully funded, which include the funding pledge from Lancashire County Council.

Tarleton Cricket Club raised £13,967 through their crowdfunding campaign to fund a much-needed refurbishment of the club's grounds.

Mike Webster said: "Tarle- ton Cricket Club is a vibrant community organisation that provides cricket and social events for people of all ages and abilities.

"We are particularly proud of the number of women and junior players that are now part of the club. The increased usage of our facilities meant that we were faced with making a large investment to continue with our activities.

"The crowdfunding project meant that we were encouraged to raise the much-needed amount and can now plan to undertake the work. The help from the team at Lancashire County Council has been invaluable and guided us successfully through the process."

Elsewhere, Rossendale Badminton league raised £2,063 to expand their junior coaching at The Adrenaline Centre. The club particularly want to target girls to the practice as the senior league has a shortage of female players, with a view to encourage individual clubs to 'adopt' young players.

The project also aims to organise a local Junior tournament, at grassroots level, to help promote the sport within Rossendale.

Claire Banfield said: "Haslingden has had a long heritage of world class badminton players, such as Peter Wood and Susan Whittaker.

"The funding we received to promote junior badminton in the Rossendale valley at The Adrenaline Centre was vital to keep this growing from strength to strength."

In Wyre, a project that is helping to improve people's health and wellbeing through dance has successfully crowdfunded £16,409 to enable it to continue this popular provision.

LPM Dance, an artist-led, not-for-profit organisation with charitable aims led by artists George Adams and Helen Gould have been running dance classes in the area since the first Covid lockdown.

Their successful Crowdfund Lancashire campaign, Keep Wyre Grooving, will help fund the programme for a further 12 months. Keep Wyre Grooving

LPM Dance runs weekly dance classes in Wyre

Helen said: "Our weekly classes have shown to make a real difference to the health and wellbeing of the communities who come to dance with us each week, the majority of whom live with disabilities and long-term health conditions.

"With funding coming to an end, it looked as if these sessions would be coming to an end.

"Fortunately, the success of our Crowdfund Lancashire campaign has secured funding for 12 months of activity that will enable our programme to continue and importantly, will provide more opportunities for people to take part across the wider district."

Lancashire County Council and Spacehive will hold an online launch event on Tuesday 16 May. Anyone interested in learning more about Crowdfund Lancashire is welcome to attend.

Two workshops to discuss potential project ideas will be held on Wednesday, 31 May and Thursday, 15 June.

To register for the launch event and/or one of our workshops, visit www.eventbrite. com and search for 'Crowdfund Lancashire'.

County Councillor Peter Buckley, cabinet member for cultural services, said: "We have been absolutely delighted by the response we've had to Crowdfund Lancashire so far.

“Over two dozen projects have already met their funding target with ideas and activities that which will greatly benefit their local communities.”

"Ultimately, this has been developed to support culture and sport projects in the community with the aim of improving people's health and well-being and cultural experience.

"We are confident the projects that are now fully funded will deliver this and are now looking forward to see what else people put forward during this next round of funding.

"If you have a culture or sport project that needs funding then please attend our launch event or one of our workshops to find out how you can launch your own crowdfunding campaign."

To find out more about Crowdfund Lancashire and to see what other projects you can pledge to, visit https:// www.spacehive.com/movement/lancashire