Start grant for sports

The start grant may be awarded to sports clubs that meet the following criteria:

1. The domicile of the association in accordance with its statutes must be Helsinki, and the activities must be open to all residents of Helsinki.
2. According to the statutes, the main activities of the association must be physical activities.

The sports club must comply with the principles of good governance, the ethical principles for sports communities and  principles of the UN convention on the rights of the child in all its operations.

• Read the ethical principles for sports communities(Link leads to external service) (pdf, in Finnish) 
• Read the principles of good governance for associations(Link leads to external service) (pdf, in Finnish) 
• Read the principles of the UN convention on the rights of the child (in Finnish)(Link leads to external service)

The start grant can only be awarded to a club once.

The start grant can be applied for all year round but in such a manner, however, that the application for a start grant from each year's appropriation must be submitted by around mid-December.

The grant is primarily applied for through general grant form for Sports. A link to the application form will appear on the left side of this page for logged-in users during the application period.

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.

The application must be accompanied with the mandatory attachments specified for each grant, a list of which is available below.

For the application to be processed, applicants must attach the mandatory documents to the application form. The mandatory attachments to a start grant application are:

• An extract from the Register of Associations 
• Rules of the association 
• Budget for the current or starting operating period 
• Action plan for the current or starting operating period
• A notice from the bank on the account holder or a copy of a bank statement (the applicant must have its own Finnish bank account into which the grant will be paid)

The decisions on start grants are made by the Sports Services Director. The aim is to process applications within one month of receipt. The grant decisions, including the instructions for appeal, will be sent for information to all applicants. 

Decisions by the Sports Services Director can be viewed here(Link leads to external service).

The grant will be paid in accordance with the grant decision in one 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 must be used for the association’s non-profit activities. The grant cannot be used for fundraising or for business and investment expenditure, or to increase the association’s financial assets or any other long-term investments. The grant cannot be forwarded to other associations or distributed as individual grants to members. The funds must be used for the operations of the association in general.

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).