Whilst you may be able to run your Community Games for minimal expense, relying on in-kind donations and volunteers, there will probably be some expenditure. In order to identify the scale of your event and what it will include, you need to know how much money you have to spend. You may have funds available or you may be starting with nothing.

Don’t despair - there are lots of different ways of obtaining funds if they are required. You can contact your Lead Officer for more guidance on this, and it is one of the topics that will be covered in the workshop, should you choose to go to one. Your Lead Officer will have information on organisations that may offer grants or funding for community events, along with their websites. Many of these provide guidance on how to apply and also how they assess applications.

There are other creative ways of raising funds to support your Community Games, and these provide another good opportunity to engage the community. For example, you could try:

• Holding raffles (with donated prizes)
• Holding a car boot sale
• Charging stall holder fees at your Community Games
• Hosting a quiz night

Bank account

It’s a good idea to open a specific account to use for your Community Games. Running the event through your own personal account can become confusing and is not recommended. Also, if you are lucky enough to secure some funding for your Games many funders will not pay into personal accounts.

Setting your budget

Ultimately the amount of funds you have at your disposal will determine the type and scale of event that you can deliver. The key items that you may need to budget for include the following:

• Venue hire costs
• First aid provision
• Insurance
• Event equipment (marquees, chairs, tables etc)
• Marketing your event
• Licences
• Sports equipment (balls, cones, marking tape etc)
• Competition/activity fees
• Volunteer catering

Compile a draft budget at the outset; you can then identify any major shortfall in funds at an early stage. Include an emergency/reserve amount which will give you the ability to deal with any unexpected payments.

An example of a budget document you can use can be found in the Toolkit online appendix