Sport New Zealand Rural Travel Fund
Applications open 1 February 2025
The Sport NZ Rural Travel Fund was developed in response to concern from councils about the lack of participation in sport by young people living in rural communities. Geographical isolation, urban drift, lack of employment opportunities and access to mainstream funding were identified as barriers to sport participation.
The Sport NZ Rural Travel Fund is designed to help subsidise travel for rural sports clubs and rural school teams with young people aged between 5 and 19 years who require subsidies to assist with transport expenses to local sporting competitions.
Purpose
The rural travel fund is designed to help subsidise travel for junior teams participating in local sport competition.
Grant Eligibility
Application for the rural travel fund is open to rural sports clubs and rural school teams with young people aged between 5 and 19 years who require subsidies to assist with transport expenses to local sporting competitions.
Applicant Eligibility
School club teams and sport club teams are defined as:
- A school club team participating in regular local sport competition out of school time, that excludes inter-school and intra-school competitions played during school time; and/or,
- A sports club team participating in organised, regular sport competition through club membership outside of school time.
Funding Criteria
The following criteria will be applied when considering applications for funding:
- Organisations and schools with participants aged between 5 and 19 years playing sport for a club or school team who meet the eligibility criteria.
- Funding is not provided for the purpose of travel to regional or national events or sports competitions.
- Individual players, coaches and or officials are ineligible to apply for the fund.
- Funding is not provided to assist coaches, managers or officials travel costs.
The national allocation of the fund is based on a population density formula for territorial authorities whom have less than 10 people per square kilometre. 45c per capita is provided with a baseline/minimum entitlement of $9,500 (Source: Census Statistics 2013).
Goods and Services Tax (GST)
When a territorial authority makes a grant to a GST registered organisation the territorial authority must pay the grant plus GST. The grant recipient must then account for the GST to the Inland Revenue (IRD).
If the grant recipient is not GST registered, the territorial authority will not add GST to the grant and therefore cannot claim back GST from the IRD.
Partial expenditure of funds
Sport NZ requires any unspent funds be returned to Ashburton District Council for the reallocation of funding. If ADC still has unspent funds as of 31 July 2024, the outstanding amount can be used in the following year.
Reporting
Sport NZ requires organisations that receive funding to return an accountability form to Ashburton District Council showing proof of purchases made within that period and attach any receipts. Accountability forms must be returned by 30 May 2024.
Applicants must be able to account for the total amount allocated
Please note: If applicant organisations who have received assistance do not return their accountability forms, it will jeopardise any future funding.
Useful Documents
