Improving lives through tennis – LTA Tennis Foundation launches
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Today marks the formal launch of the LTA Tennis Foundation. The LTA Tennis Foundation is a new tennis charity that partners with brilliant people and organisations to improve lives through tennis.
The charity shares the LTA’s vision of ‘tennis opened up’ and wants to use the sport to make a real difference to people across the whole country.
The Foundation’s goal is to inspire more people from all backgrounds to discover the joy of tennis, challenge the status quo to open the sport up, work collaboratively with existing charities and partners, and invest in people, programmes and places to play.
In short to enable as many people as possible to share in the enjoyment and benefits of taking part in tennis.
The charity’s focus is solely for the grassroots of the game, across all parts of Great Britain, with a particular focus on diverse and disadvantaged communities where the game is less well established.
Background
Many tennis fans will be familiar with the historical work of the Tennis Foundation and the LTA Trust.
The Tennis Foundation was an independent charity which was fully incorporated into the LTA in 2018. The LTA Trust was the LTA’s facilities investment charity and was responsible for providing loans and grants to venues to expand or improve their facilities.
Last year the Tennis Foundation and LTA Trust were merged to form The LTA Tennis Foundation, the new charity that launches today.
The charity’s work
The Foundation is a loan and grant giving charity, which will work with partners who can deliver projects that match the charity’s objectives.
The charity will give loans or grants to help partners deliver new projects or to scale up existing work so they can reach a larger number of individuals. The charity will also sometimes support projects delivered by the LTA if the Trustees feel these meet the charity’s goals.
The charity is already investing in some key projects. As well as supporting facility developments at clubs and local authority sites, using existing reserves, the charity is committing significant funding into the joint LTA and Government’s parks project, which will see hundreds of run-down tennis courts in local parks refurbished and fitted with new gate access systems to allow them to be booked and used more easily.
The Foundation is also supporting the delivery of tennis in schools by providing £250 worth of vouchers for tennis equipment to any school that signs up for LTA Youth – the LTA’s new junior programme created to help more children enjoy the benefits of playing and staying in tennis.
The charity wants to support more new projects in the years ahead, as well as conduct its own fundraising. Full details of how partners can apply for funding will be available later this year.
Tim Lawler MBE, Chair of the LTA Tennis Foundation Trustees said: “The Trustees and I feel very proud to be involved with the Foundation. As a group we share the LTA’s vision of ‘tennis opened up’, and we want to use the wonderful sport of tennis to make a real difference to people throughout Great Britain.
"Our priority will be to support the grassroots of the game, with a particular focus on diverse and disadvantaged communities where the game is less well established and the opportunity to get involved has been limited.
“We will work hard to build partnerships with existing charities and organisations to understand how we can best support them in the years ahead. We want to ensure we do everything we can to support the great work that is already taking place.”
To find out more about the LTA Tennis Foundation, explore below:
Learn about LTA Tennis Foundation
Scott Lloyd, Chief Executive of the LTA said: “I’d like to place on record my thanks to the former Trustees of the The LTA Trust and Tennis Foundation, who did much great work in bringing the sport to more people in this country.
"With the launch of the new LTA Tennis Foundation, there is a chance to go much further and use the resources at the charity’s disposal to support more projects and partners across tennis. The work that is already taking place in supporting facilities investment, parks and LTA Youth shows the value the charity can bring to British tennis. We’re looking forward to working with the Trustees in the years ahead.”
