We partner with brilliant people and organisations embedded within their communities who use tennis to improve lives.
The funding we provide through the Grant Making Framework is solely for the grassroots of the game, and, as the LTA’s official charity, we’re committed to working in all parts of Great Britain with a particular focus on diverse and underserved communities where the game is less well established.
We believe tennis should be for everyone, and we want to work with anyone who can help open up the sport.
Is your organisation eligible for a grant?
We’re not currently accepting applications, but you can take our quick eligibility check (takes approximately one minute) to find out if your organisation may qualify in the next funding round.
Since launching our Grant Making Framework, we’ve been inspired by the incredible work of our funded partners to improve lives through tennis. In our next round, we are focusing on continuing our support for existing partners, helping them build on the progress and impact already achieved.
While we won’t be opening applications to new organisations this year, we will offer opportunities to connect and apply again in 2027.
We want to partner with other tennis charities and a wide range of organisations across the ‘sport for development’ and third sectors more broadly.
We can accept applications from many organisation types if they are deemed properly constituted. Being properly constituted normally means having a Constitution, Articles of Association or rules in place.
Examples of the types of organisations we can fund could be:
- A registered charity
- A charitable incorporated organisation
- Company limited by guarantee
- Community interest company limited by guarantee
- A school, college or university
- A Local Authority
Whilst we can support tennis clubs, this will generally be through exceptional circumstances and is not the primary focus of the Grant Making Framework.
Unfortunately, we cannot directly fund individuals or private companies limited by shares. We will not consider applications from community interest companies (CICs) limited by shares, unless they have adopted Schedule 2 articles of association permitting dividends to be paid only to specified asset-locked bodies.
If you’re unsure about whether or not you fall within our eligibility to fund, please complete our short eligibility check as above. Alternatively, get in touch and we’d be happy to help:
We fund projects across Great Britain – i.e. England, Scotland and Wales. We’re unable to fund projects in Northern Ireland.
At certain times, we may focus our grant-making towards particular geographic areas, but this will be made clear in the specific guidance at the time.
We’re not able to fund international projects or organisations not registered in Great Britain.
We’re not currently accepting applications, but you can take our quick eligibility check as above to find out if your organisation may qualify in the next funding round.
Since launching our Grant Making Framework, we’ve been inspired by the incredible work of our funded partners to improve lives through tennis. In our next round, we are focusing on continuing our support for existing partners, helping them build on the progress and impact already achieved.
While we won’t be opening applications to new organisations this year, we will offer opportunities to connect and apply again in 2027.
Any project we support must align with our vision of ‘tennis opened up’ and our mission of ‘improving lives through tennis’.
Any application must robustly focus on specific groups or societal outcomes, where the project can genuinely improve lives.
| Innovate | We want to partner with organisations who challenge the status quo and develop creative solutions to open tennis up and improve lives. We're open to some risk and are interested in the reasons why activities work, or don't work, and in capturing and sharing this learning. |
| Scale | Have you got a project that improves lives through tennis and a concept that is proven to work? It could be so much bigger and better, but limited resources are holding you back? We want to partner with you to demonstrably scale it up. |
| Recover | We hope this theme is rarely accessed. We operate it to provide reassurance, so organisations know we’ll be there if they experience short term financial hardship, or operations ceasing, due to an economic, environmental, or other societal crisis. |
| Overview | We want to partner with organisations who challenge the status quo and develop creative solutions to open tennis up and improve lives through doing so. We’re open to some risk, this is about testing and learning. Pilots don’t -and shouldn’t - always work. |
| Suitable for | Any organisation, if it is properly constituted (see ‘Who we fund’ section) |
| Min/max grant available |
£5,000-£50,000 total award. As a responsible grant making charity, our assessment process looks at the financial records of applicants. As a general rule, we would not make an award that was more than 20% of your previously reported annual income. |
| Max duration of funding | Ideally a one year project, although a maximum of two years is allowable, to include all project set up, delivery and the completion of all monitoring and evaluation work. |
| Typical projects might focus on |
The project should focus on one or more of the following groups and/or outcomes, from both a participant and workforce perspective: Groups who are more likely to experience inequalities of access, which could include:
Outcomes:
If your project covers a group or outcome not listed above, please get in touch to discuss. |
| Other points to be aware of |
We’re unable to award unrestricted (core) funding via this theme. Whilst this theme currently has a broad and flexible approach, we reserve the right in future funding rounds to focus on particular groups and/or outcomes. This theme has been developed to support revenue, rather than capital projects. Capital project applications will not be considered. Please refer to the LTA Tennis & Padel Facility Funding pages for capital support options. We encourage applicants to demonstrate an element of partnership funding, which can be monetary or in-kind. We don’t stipulate a specific percentage. Any partnership funding must be from a legitimate and legal source. Consortium applications from two or more organisations are welcomed in this theme – please make this clear in the application form. |
| Overview | Have you got a project that improves lives through tennis and a concept that is proven to work? It could be so much bigger and better, but limited resources are holding you back? We want to partner with you to demonstrably scale it up. |
| Suitable for | Any organisation, if it is properly constituted (see ‘Who we fund’ section) |
| Min/max grant available |
£5,000-£75,000 per annum. As a responsible grant-making charity, our assessment process looks at the financial records of applicants. As a general rule, we would not make an award (per year) that was more than 20% of your previous reported annual income. |
| Max duration of funding | Three years |
| Typical projects might focus on |
The project should focus on one or more of the following groups and/or outcomes, from both a participant and workforce perspective: Groups who are more likely to experience inequalities of access, which could include:
Outcomes:
If your project covers a group or outcome not listed above, please get in touch to discuss. |
| Other points to be aware of |
Within this theme we can award unrestricted (core) funding, as long as the application and subsequent monitoring and evaluation demonstrate the impact of our investment. Whilst this programme currently has a broad and flexible approach, we reserve the right in future funding rounds to focus on particular groups and/or outcomes. This theme has been developed to support revenue, rather than capital projects. Capital project applications will not be considered. Please refer to the LTA Tennis & Padel Facility Funding pages for capital support options. We encourage applicants to demonstrate an element of partnership funding, which can be monetary or in-kind. We don’t stipulate a specific percentage. Any partnership funding must be from a legitimate and legal source. Consortium applications from two or more organisations are welcomed in this theme – please make this clear in the application form. |
| Overview | We hope this theme is rarely accessed. We operate it to provide reassurance, so organisations know we’ll be there if they experience short-term financial hardship, or the operations ceasing, due to an economic, environmental or other societal crisis. |
| Suitable for | Tennis charities only |
| Min/max grant available | £5,000-£25,000 total award |
| Max duration of funding | One year |
| Typical projects might focus on | N/A |
| Other points to be aware of |
This theme is not operational via our online application form. Please get in touch if your circumstances align, and we will open up a conversation. Whilst we can support organisations who have faced significant financial hardship due to a genuine societal crisis, we are unable to provide support where the hardship is, in the main, due to prior poor management – financial or otherwise. |
We know how time-consuming it is submitting grant applications and the significant amount of funds charities spend doing so. We’re also aware of the research which shows how inefficient and disproportionate many grant application processes often are.
That’s why we support, and are officially signed up to The Institute of Voluntary Action Research’s (IVAR) eight commitments around open and trusting grant making:
Explore IVAR's eight commitments
We hope that by being an open and trusting grant maker we can enable our funded partners to achieve more, help more people, and make more of an impact.
If you have any queries at any stage in the process, require the application form in a different format, or indeed if you think we could do anything better in relation to IVAR’s eight commitments, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and we’d be happy to help
Applications are initially assessed by colleagues at the LTA, who make recommendations to LTA Tennis Foundation’s Board of Trustees. These Trustees make the ultimate decision. You can view a copy of the Assessment Checklist which guides the assessment process below:
We look forward to receiving your application soon and hope that we can support your project to improve lives through tennis.
LTA Tennis Foundation asks all funded partners to provide a light touch six-month update on activity, and a more in-depth impact evaluation form annually.
Please be reassured that we adhere to IVAR principles, and while keen to hear the difference made, we are committed to respectful, collaborative, and proportionate reporting.
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Check out our FAQs page if you need any more information about our grants.
