Institutional grants for sports are aimed at the City of Helsinki’s subsidiaries.
Institutional grants are discretionary grants.
Application period: see section application.
As a rule, the City of Helsinki’s institutional grants for sports and culture are awarded to institutions within the City Group with which the city has a formal relationship. Operators within this particular relationship with the city should primarily be the city’s own operators. Companies, foundations, associations and other entities in which the City of Helsinki has a controlling interest are controlled by the Helsinki City Group.
In addition to the City Group’s institutions, sports institutional grants are meant for the more expensive special circumstances of swimming and ice sports. Institutional grants for sports and culture cannot be awarded to operators without criteria that clearly distinguish them from other similar operators in Helsinki.
The application period for institutional grants for the year 2025 is 1.3. – 26.4.2024.
The grant is primarily applied for through institutional grant form for Sports.
Click here (Link leads to external service) for instructions on how to use the e-services to apply for a grant and how to log in.
In exceptional cases, the grant application may be submitted to the City Register Office at City of Helsinki Register Office, Culture and Leisure Division/Sports, PO Box 10, FI-00099 City of Helsinki, Finland (street address: City Hall, Pohjoisesplanadi 11–13). Applications submitted to the City Register Office must arrive by 15.00 on the last day of the application period.
For the application to be processed, applicants must attach the mandatory documents to the application form. The mandatory attachments to an institutional grant application are:
- Action plan and budget for the application year
- Financial statements (most recently confirmed)
- Annual report (most recently confirmed)
- Audit report (most recently confirmed)
- In order to improve the predictability of the City of Helsinki’s budget proposal, recipients of institutional grants are required to submit a three-year operating plan and associated budget along with their grant application.
In addition, the application must be accompanied by the completed questionnaires on institutional performance (ANNEX 1) and operating costs (ANNEX 2).
Final decisions on institutional grants are made by the Sports Sub-committee. Decisions are expected to be made in December. The grant decisions, including the instructions for appeal, will be sent for information to all applicants.
See previous decisions of the Sports Sub-committee on the page of the Sports Sub-committee (Link leads to external service).
The grant will be paid in accordance with the grant decision in four instalment into a bank account specified by the recipient. If the recipient does not have a bank account, they must open one. The City of Helsinki will only pay a grant into a bank account in the name of the recipient.
A prerequisite for the granting and payment of the grant is that there have been no discrepancies regarding any grants awarded by the city to the recipient in previous years. The city has the right to suspend the payment of a grant until the matter has been resolved if there is reason to suspect that the prerequisites for the recovery of a grant specified in Section 10 of the general grant criteria of the City of Helsinki are met.
The city has the right to set off the grant in whole or in part against a recoverable claim from the recipient.
The grant can only be used for the purpose stated in the grant decision. If the grant decision does not specify the purpose, the grant must be used for the purpose stated in the application.
The grant cannot be forwarded. The funds must be used for the operations of the association in general. The recipient must notify the City of Helsinki without delay of any significant change affecting the use of the grant.
The use of the institutional grant will be reported in connection with the application for the following year’s operating grant. The application form includes a separate section for this, and the mandatory attachments submitted with the application form are a part of reporting the last year's grant as well.
Read more about the other documents governing the award, use and reporting of grants for sports on the Guidance and support page(Link leads to external service).
The contact details of personnel providing personalised guidance on sports grants are available on the Contact details page(Link leads to external service).