Olympic Legacy Fund
Introduction
The Olympic Legacy Fund (2026/27) is a £2million investment programme, delivered by Sport NI in partnership with Crowdfunder UK.
The fund aims to improve the quality of community sports facilities and equipment, encouraging people to engage in sport and physical activity. In 2026/27, funding will be made available in two tranches – £1m in September, and a further £1million in November. Subsequently there will be at least two opportunities to apply for funding.
To be eligible to apply you must be one of the following organisations:
- A sports club, community group, or charity that delivers or enables ‘recognised’ sport and/or physical activity as your primary activity.
- Your sports club, community group or charitable trust is based in Northern Ireland, and benefits people living in Northern Ireland.
An application organisation will be deemed ineligible where:
- The applicant organisation received funding in the previous financial year; or
- A connected organisation, affiliate, management committee, community association, sports club, or other entity associated with the applicant received funding in the previous financial year for the same facility, membership, or core activities.
Sport NI reserves the right to determine whether two or more organisations should be treated as connected entities for the purposes of assessing eligibility. However, this eligibility criteria will remain under review, and should circumstances change, your organisation will be contacted directly by Sport NI.
To ensure a prioritised distribution of funding, Sport Northern Ireland will apply a ‘Place Based’ and ‘Active Membership’ assessment methodology. An applicant’s geographical location will be assessed relative to five demographic groups which are under-represented in sports participation. This ‘place based’ and ‘active membership’ method use publicly available population data and will provide a ranking to determine which applications are considered for funding first.
Pledge Criteria
Sports clubs and community groups can propose a crowdfunding campaign between £5,000 (minimum) and £50,000 (maximum) in value. Sport NI will make a 65% contribution to your crowdfunding campaign, while the remaining 35% must be raised by your “crowd.”
Sport NI will also consider projects over £50,000 in value, projects greater than £50,000 in value must evidence additional partnership funding at time of application. All projects are required to be completed by 31 June 2027.
Apply Here
You can apply for Olympic Legacy Funding here
The application window for the 2nd allocation of £1m will open on 9th November and close on 29th November
Important Documents
The linked documents will provide support for creating your campaign page
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Olympic Legacy fund team, at infrastructure@sportni.net and for any specific crowdfunding inquiries, feel free to reach out to our crowdfunding team, at support@crowdfunder.co.uk.
Note – Sport NI reserve the right to vary the pledge criteria; projects will be notified if their pledge criteria will vary from the stated terms above. Before completing your application, you will need to read the full Eligibility and Pledge Criteria as detailed in the programme guidance document on our website. Funded projects will be required to agree to the terms and conditions of award.
Register for the webinar
Crowdfunder Learn: Introducing the Olympic Legacy Fund
Thursday 19 November 2026 | 12:00–1:00 pm
