When the new Wembley Stadium was rebuilt, Sport England provided £120 million in the form of lottery funding. In recognition of this generous award, it was decided that after five years of operation, the Stadium would donate 1% of its gross annual takings into an independent charitable grant-making trust.

Five years on and the Wembley National Stadium Trust (WNST) has gone live, with applications being accepted for the initial round of funding. In this round of funding, WNST will focus on clubs, groups and organisations either based in the London Borough of Brent.

There are currently two programmes available, the Community Awards and Strategic Awards:
Community Awards – grants of up to £2,500 for local clubs and groups.

Strategic Awards – larger grants to more established organisations to support more substantial projects.

Applications can be made at www.wnst.org.uk and there is a comprehensive FAQ on the site about the Trust itself and the application process. The deadline for receipt of applications on both programmes is 5pm on Friday December 7.

WNST will have an official launch event at the start of 2013, in which announcements regarding the beneficiaries of the initial bursaries will be announced.

For further information and further details of the WNST grants programmes you can go online at www.wnst.org.uk.