Celebrate

The Commonwealth community represents a third of the world’s population and brings together 71 diverse cultures. Now the four Scottish Lottery distributors, Big Lottery Fund, Creative Scotland, Heritage Lottery Fund and sportscotland have come together and created Celebrate – to offer Lottery funding support to communities across Scotland as they celebrate and are inspired by this landmark event.

Celebrate has a budget of £4 million and will make grants from £500 to £10,000 to communities across Scotland to come together to hold arts, heritage, sports and local community celebrations of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Celebrate will also support communities to celebrate the diversity of the Commonwealth and create a legacy of community and Commonwealth connections.

 Find out more about celebrate at www.celebrateit.org.uk.

Celebrate will support new and existing events and activities that celebrate the 2014 Commonwealth Games through arts, heritage, sports and local community celebrations. It will fund local celebration events and activities which stimulate greater involvement in community activity and develop our understanding as citizens of the Commonwealth.

Celebrations can be a one off event or activities which end with a celebration event.

To achieve our aim we want to fund projects that meet one or more of the following outcomes:

• Communities come together through arts, heritage, sports and local celebrations of the Commonwealth Games.
• Communities celebrate the people, places and culture of the Commonwealth.

 Our outcomes are the differences we want our funding to make. We will consider how well your project meets our outcomes during our assessment. You must show how your project meets at least one of them to be considered for a grant.

You can apply to Celebrate if you are a:

• voluntary and community organisation
• community council
• statutory body (such as a school, local authority or health board)

 But we will not fund:

• individuals and sole traders
• profit-making organisations
• non-departmental public bodies
• government departments.

We are unlikely to fund organisations that are in poor financial health or those that have had a previous grant from Big Lottery Fund, Creative Scotland Heritage Lottery Scotland or sportscotland which has not been managed satisfactorily.

The organisation filling in the form must be the same organisation that will receive the grant and manage the project. We will not consider an application made by one organisation on behalf of another.

Are you looking for inspiration on how to Celebrate? Then go to our website www.celebrateit.org.uk to read more about the kind of groups and projects Celebrate will fund.

 If you can answer Yes to all these questions then Celebrate may be right for you...

• Do you need between £500 and £10,000 to hold an event or events that will celebrate the 2014 Commonwealth Games through arts, heritage, sports and local community celebrations?
• Are you a voluntary or community organisation, community council or statutory body (such as a school, local authority or health board)?
• Do you have a UK-based bank or building society account in the name of your organisation (or, for schools, a local authority bank account) that requires at least two people (who are unrelated and do not live at the same address) to sign cheques or make a withdrawal?
• Can you send us an application at least three months before your project starts and complete your project within one year?
• Can you explain the need for your project and the changes that will happen because of it?

 If you answer No to any of them please reconsider and look at other funding streams available from:

 Big Lottery Fund

Creative Scotland: www.creativescotland.com

Heritage Lottery Fund: www.hlf.org.uk