Grants for playgrounds

[ang]

Hi

I've recently joined our school PTA which is raising funds to improve the school playground. I'm about to start researching grants that may be available for such a purpose. Does anyone have any recent experience of doing the same thing or any hints and tips of grants we can apply for?

All advice gratefully received

Thanks

Angela

[Coach Beth]

Yes, I raise funds from grant-making trusts for Goose Green School/PTA (my son's school) as I was (in a former life) a fundraising consultant working with charities. Examples of bids we have successfully received are ?10,000 from Awards for All (Lottery funded programme) for our Steel Pan after-school project, ?390 from Peter Minet Trust for scooters for the early years trust and ?5000 from Greener, Safer Southwark for our mini Apple Orchard (apple trees planted in planters) and our sensory garden.

A good place to start is by going to the National Association for PTA groups. Your PTA should be a member of this organisation. If not, join! You will be able to access a very good online grant making trust database through them (I used this same database as a fundraising consultant). You can do searches for grant making trusts that fund schools, or trusts that fund activities that support children or that fund capital projects or that fund organisations in Southwark. If you go to this link, you can get more information. http://pta.org.uk/pta-fundraising/cash-for-grabs/trusts/

Good luck!