Free for eligible clubs

Your club changes lives every week.
Most clubs have no idea that's worth anything.

Every week your club generates wellbeing value, saves health services money, and turns volunteer hours into something the community depends on. Most clubs have no idea what that's worth — and that's why they're missing out on funding they should be getting. Proof of Play puts a number on it, in the language funders, local authorities and commissioners use to make decisions. Whether you've applied for funding before or never thought you could — your number changes the conversation.

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Get funding you didn't know you could apply forSport England, Football Foundation, National Lottery, Barclays. Your report is the evidence they require.
🏟️
Protect your pitch and your facilitiesLocal authorities cut budgets. A club with a social value report has something concrete to put in front of a council.
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Tell your story with numbers, not wordsFor your AGM, your sponsors, your volunteers, your local press.
Real example
Ampthill Town FC
Bedfordshire · England Football Accredited 2 Star
Estimated Annual Social Value
£1.31M
Evidence-informed estimate · HM Treasury WELLBY methodology · 40% deadweight adjustment applied
Participant Wellbeing Value£1.02M
Health & Productivity Savings£46K
Volunteer Contribution£239K
Social Value to Cost Ratio £4.92 per £1 invested
425 participants · 88 volunteers · completed in under 10 minutes
What you get

A full report. Ready to use.
In about ten minutes.

  • 📊
    Your social value total
    Annual social value broken down by participant wellbeing, health and productivity savings, volunteer contribution and community programme value. Every figure labelled so you know what's a club record and what's a model estimate.
  • 📈
    Social Value to Cost Ratio
    For every pound invested in your club, how much social value does it generate? This ratio — calculated with full cost accounting and a 40% deadweight adjustment — goes straight into grant applications and is the figure funders look for.
  • 🏥
    Health & productivity savings
    Your club keeps people active. Active people visit GPs less, need fewer mental health interventions, reduce demand on health services and improve workforce productivity. Your report shows what that's worth.
  • 🙌
    Volunteer economic contribution
    Every hour your volunteers give has an economic value. Your report calculates it using published national rates — the same figures used in public sector social value assessments.
  • 📰
    Press release
    A ready-to-send press release built around your club's numbers. Local media, partner communications, stakeholder updates.
  • 📱
    Social media posts
    Posts written around your club's own figures, ready to publish across your channels.
  • 💰
    Funding guide
    Which funding pots your report evidence is most relevant to, and how to use your figures in each application.
How the numbers are calculated

Proof of Play applies published proxy values from HM Treasury's WELLBY framework and Sport England's 2023/24 Social Value Model to your club's own data. Every source is named and every assumption is documented. The full methodology is publicly available.

Figures are evidence-informed estimates — not independently audited. Present them as such and pair with your own local qualitative evidence for the strongest impact.

Read the full methodology →

HM Treasury WELLBY Sport England 2023/24 ONS ASHE 2024 NHS Digital
Why it matters

Your club does more than play sport.
Now you can prove it.

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Funding applications

Sport England, the Football Foundation, Barclays, the National Lottery — they all want community impact evidence. Not a paragraph about what you do. Numbers. Your report gives you exactly that.

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Pitch lease conversations

Local authorities are cutting budgets. A club that can show £1.31M in community social value is having a different conversation to a club that says "we've been here forty years." Both can be true. Only one saves the lease.

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Sponsors and partners

Businesses increasingly need to show social return on their community investment. A club with a social value ratio and health savings estimate gives a sponsor something to put in their ESG reporting. That changes the conversation.

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AGM and club communications

Tell your members, your committee, your volunteers what their club is actually worth. The collective effort of 157 volunteers contributing £764K in economic value is a different conversation to the usual AGM report.

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Local media and PR

"Local club generates £1.31M in community value" is a story. A press release built around a credible number gets picked up. Generic club news doesn't.

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NGB & governing body submissions

Accreditation, welfare submissions, NGB development programmes — your report gives you structured, evidence-backed data you can draw on across all of these, whatever sport you play.

⚡ Funding deadlines coming up

Your report takes ten minutes. These funding pots are open now and require community impact evidence to apply. Don't submit another application without your numbers.

  • Barclays Community Sport Fund — closes 27th May 2026 · £1.4M per year
  • Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme — open now · £85M for 2026/27
  • Sport England Movement Fund — ongoing · up to £15K
  • National Lottery Community Fund — ongoing · £600M per year
  • Football Foundation & Sport NGB Grants — ongoing · up to £25K
Proof of Play → The Funding Bench

Then we help you fund what comes next.

Once your social value report is built, your club's profile flows straight into The Funding Bench — our matching engine for live grants. Same answers, no re-entry. We rank every grant your club is eligible for, filter by your sport, postcode, legal structure and demographic focus, flag match-funding requirements upfront, and email you when new ones open. About two extra minutes after Proof of Play.

  • 1
    Proof of Play · ~10 min
    Build your evidence-backed social value report. HM Treasury WELLBY methodology, Sport England framework, government-grade.
  • 2
    The Funding Bench · instant
    Your profile auto-loads. Live grants from the Football Foundation, Sport England, the National Lottery Community Fund, NGB pots and your local authority — ranked, filtered, with eligibility breakdowns.
  • 🎯
    Matched to your legal structure
    Unincorporated, charity, CASC, CIC, NGB-affiliated — every grant filtered against what your club actually is.
  • 📍
    Filtered by sport, postcode, demographic focus
    No generic lists. We surface only funding your specific club is eligible to apply for.
  • ⚠️
    Match-funding flagged upfront
    Some grants require you to raise cash first. We tell you before you waste an evening on the application.
  • 🔔
    Live email alerts
    Email when new matching grants open. No spam, no third parties.

Free · ~10 minutes · Your matched grants list unlocks at the end

How to access

Free through your County FA,
Active Partnership or NGB.

  • 1
    Contact your County FA, Active Partnership or NGB
    Proof of Play is licensed to the organisations that support your club — County FAs, Active Partnerships and National Governing Bodies. Your first step is asking yours if they have it. Football clubs go via their County FA. Cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics and all other sports go via their Active Partnership or NGB.
  • 2
    They share your access link
    If they're licensed, they'll send you a direct link to the tool. County FA and Active Partnership links are area-specific. NGB links are sport-specific — same tool, same report, just routed through your governing body.
  • 3
    Complete the assessment
    Participants by age and gender. Volunteers and their hours. Community programmes. Club infrastructure. Annual income if you want a social value ratio. About ten minutes.
  • 4
    Your report is ready immediately
    Full social value breakdown, social value ratio, press release, social posts and funding guide — all generated from your club's own numbers, ready to use straight away.
Proof of Play is licensed to County FAs, Active Partnerships and National Governing Bodies — they pay for access so their clubs don't have to. The cost stays with the organisations that have the budget for it.
The figures are evidence-informed estimates based on published national proxy values from HM Treasury and Sport England — the same methodology local authorities and funders use. They're not individually audited, so present them as estimates and pair them with your own local evidence for the strongest impact.
Yes — that's exactly what they're for. Present model-estimated figures as evidence-informed estimates grounded in published national research, and pair them with your own qualitative evidence. Your funding guide explains how to use each figure in different application types.
Tell them about it — and use the link below to get in touch with us directly. We'll point you in the right direction and can reach out to your CFA or AP on your behalf if that's helpful.
Yes — it covers all grassroots sport. Football clubs access it through their County FA. All other sports access it through their Active Partnership or directly through their National Governing Body if their NGB is a licensed partner — ECB, RFU, LTA, England Athletics and others are now onboard. The methodology applies across every sport.
Ready?

Your numbers are
waiting to be counted.

Contact your County FA, Active Partnership or NGB and ask if they have Proof of Play. If they do, they'll share your access link directly. If they don't, get in touch and we'll help.