Case Studies
Natland & Oxenholme Table Tennis Club
Peter Leahy of Natland and Oxenholme Table Tennis Club had a dream of opening a satellite club in Cark-in-Cartmel. Peter had identified that despite there being numerous clubs in the Kendal and Barrow-in-Furness area there was nothing in-between these locations. The club committee agreed that this would be a great idea and Peter set to work with writing a budget, contacting local schools and seeking out funders.
After a while Peter found himself a bit stuck - he had a wealth of information about what the club would look like, a planned timetable and had secured some funding. The £16,000 he needed to raise felt a bit daunting so he called us and asked if we could support him.
We started supporting Peter by writing a 'Case for support' that he could use for further grant applications, this really helped identify the need for the project and clearly explained the benefits of Table Tennis to participants and local community. The next task was a Crowdfunding campaign -The Sport England movement fund kindly pledged a grant of £4750 which could only be unlocked if we achieved the same amount through Crowdfunding. We supported Peter with the set up, launch and running of the campaign. Peter did and incredible job of persuading his wide network of table tennis enthusiasts to donate and the target was met before the deadline. Grants from Active Cumbria and The Charles Godwin Foundation helped NOTTC hit their target of £16,000 and the club was up and running in less than a few months.
“Whilst
NOTTC had some experience at raising funds through local Trusts we had not
experience in raising anything like the magnitude of sums required to establish
a new table tennis club at Lower Holker Village Hall. Our project budget of
over sixteen thousand was a daunting challenge. We also felt we lacked local
knowledge - instinctively we felt that there would be demand for table tennis
in the local area but grant applications required some concrete evidence and
often wanted specific input on demographic groups that would benefit. Our own
research identified that others had raised funds in the local area for other
projects and that led us to Welburn & Wood.
Instead of pressing ahead on our own and wasting an enormous amount of time in building our own learning curve, we have been able to obtain immediate and informed advice and guidance on a range of issues in support of our campaign. Notably, sources of funding, the nuances of grant applications to different bodies, a raft of advice about Community Amateur Sports Clubs and support in preparing our crowdfunding site and strategy for the crowdfunding campaign.
Has it been successful? Yes!
Would we seek support again from Welburn and Wood for future fund raising? Yes!
Would we recommend Welburn and Wood? Yes!” - Peter Leahy (NOTTC)
Flookburgh Community Playground
Flookburgh Community Playground worked with Welburn & Wood over a 2 year period to raise £175k for this capital project. This project transformed a muddy field into a mixed age playground facility for this small village.Welburn & Wood worked with the trustees to develop the project so it was ready to apply for external funds. This included addressing land ownership issues, charity structure and VAT, conducting a transparent tendering process and identifying potential donors. A fundraising strategy was developed which included a compelling case for support document setting out the need of the community for the new playground. Welburn & Wood prioritised potential funding streams, and submitted grant applications to secure funds. In addition Welburn & Wood worked on community and business fundraising, to secure the final funds.
The playground opened in Nov 2017 and has been loved by the community ever since!
“Welburn & Wood were professional, hardworking and excited about the project. I would urge anyone that is thinking about fundraising for a project to use professional fundraisers like Claire and Katie” – Cllr Gill Gardner (Chair)
“Claire and Katie have excellent organisational and communication skills as well as attention to detail. These skills were particularly demonstrated during the fundraising and tendering for this project” – Lyn Prescott (Secretary)
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Cartmel C of E Primary School Grounds Project
Welburn & Wood worked with the school staff and governors to develop a new capital project for the school to develop their school grounds to offer more to their young people. The school’s main playground was described as a ‘concrete jungle’, and ideas had been put forward for how this could be improved but no one knew how to take this forward to make a difference. Welburn & Wood set off on a journey of discovery working with the staff, governors, stakeholders and local community groups to discover ‘the need’ for the project.
We are pleased to say that we now have a design plan, we have gained necessary permissions from landowners, consulted with the community, developed a budget and fundraising plan and planning permission is in progress. We have divided the project into 6 phases, each of which will be delivered as we hit the target. This is a project that will span a number of years. We are pleased to be working with the school to help them achieve their dream.
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Jonathan Thornburn was a man with a vision, his original idea was a bike pump track in the playing field near his house. Sufficient funds were raised to turn this vision into a reality, it was a great success but everyone agreed that they wanted an even better track. Welburn & Wood worked with Jonathan to help develop his ideas into a fundable project and to help identify and support with fundraising applications through mentorships and grant writing. We advised on maximising crowdfunding income and supported him with communications and meeting funder expectations. The funding target was successfully met and the pump track was officially opened 15th April 2023.
Allithwaite Pump Track (bike track)
Jonathan Thornburn was a man with a vision, his original idea was a bike pump track in the playing field near his house. Sufficient funds were raised to turn this vision into a reality, it was a great success but everyone agreed that they wanted an even better track. Welburn & Wood worked with Jonathan to help develop his ideas into a fundable project and to help identify and support with fundraising applications through mentorships and grant writing. We advised on maximising crowdfunding income and supported him with communications and meeting funder expectations. The funding target was successfully met and the pump track was officially opened 15th April 2023.
“I’d like to thank Welburn & Wood Fundraising Solutions for their advice, help and boundless enthusiasm during the fundraising for my community cycletrack project. They took my passionate and meandering funding request ramblings and distilled them into a clear vision for the project and how it could be delivered. Highly recommend” – Jonathan Thornburn
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Cartmel Priory School Multi Sport Courts
When Cartmel Priory School asked us to fundraise for their new modern outdoor sports facility we were delighted. Capital projects are our speciality. We advised them throughout the design phase, developed a robust tender process and helped them raise the funds required to make this dream a reality. To the school this was a large project, we developed a fundraising plan and researched prospective donors to show the school that this was possible. The fundraising really started in 2021 but as this was during the pandemic we found that many funders were choosing to fund ‘Covid Recovery’ projects. We decided to go ahead with community fundraising to kick start the project and raise awareness, this was a brilliant success. The students, parents and local community were all invested and excited about the project. In addition to this the governors made a generous pledge to the project. This provided a strong foundation to begin writing funding applications in the Summer of 2021. The community fundraising had provided a solid foundation, the local support provided the evidence of the need for this project. The facility was successfully built by the Summer of 2022.