Lottery Community Facilities provides grants to help the community, hapū and iwi while also ensuring that:
- community facilities are safe, comfortable and accessible, contributing to the well-being of community, hapū and iwi
- people are engaged with the facility through activities that increasingly improve community relationships and connections
- investment in facilities enables community , hapū and iwi groups to achieve their goals and aspirations.
Outcomes / Ngā Hua
Organisations receiving grants are expected to demonstrate how their projects will contribute to one or more of the following outcomes:
Capability, Capacity and Self-Reliance
- Increasing equitable access to activities to build capability
- Enhancing community, social and cultural capital
- Enabling communities, hapū, iwi, and hapori Māori to be self-reliant
- Supporting and recognising Māori, Pacific peoples’ and ethnic communities' concepts of capability, capacity and self-reliance
- Enabling the voluntary sector to support increased capacity and capability.
Locally-led Sports and Recreation
- Increasing equitable access to a diverse range of locally-led recreation activities
- Increasing equitable access to a diverse range of locally-led sports
- Increasing accessible sports and recreation opportunities for people with disabilities
- Increasing people in rainbow communities’ equitable access to sports and recreation
- Supporting multipurpose sports and recreation facilities for community, hapū and iwi to connect
- Increasing women’s equitable access to sports and recreation
- Increasing people in rural communities’ equitable access to sports and recreation.
Cultural Wellbeing
- Growing revitalisation projects originating from hapori Māori
- Removing barriers to diversity, equity, inclusion and access within arts, culture and heritage
- Promoting ethnic communities’ arts, culture, heritage and language initiatives
- Increasing intercultural capability and cultural wellbeing
- Strengthening Pacific peoples’ languages, cultural practices and identities
- Supporting people with disabilities’ equitable access to diverse arts, culture, and heritage activities
- Supporting rural people’s equitable access to diverse arts, culture, and heritage activities.
Connection, Collaboration and Inclusion
- Enabling people with disabilities to participate in their communities by increasing accessibility and mobility
- Strengthening partnerships towards shared goals through connection and collaboration
- Advancing connection and inclusion for people in the rainbow community
- Increasing inclusion of people from ethnic communities, former refugees and migrants across all sectors of society
- Increasing recognition of hapori Māori connections and actions as community connectors
- Increasing opportunities for social participation and connection for older people
- Increasing collaboration and collective work between Pacific groups to benefit Pacific peoples
- Young people building strong connections and relationships to strengthen inclusion and belonging
- Advancing connection and inclusion for people in rural communities.
Priorities / Ngā kaupapa matua
Lottery Community Facilities prioritises organisations that support the needs of groups named in the Gambling Act 2003:
- Māori
- Pacific people and other ethnic communities
- Older people, women, youth, and people with disabilities
- People facing barriers to participation in society
What we fund / Ngā kaupapa ka tautokona ā-pūtea
Lottery Community Facilities is for projects where the total project cost is over $50,000.
Requests for capital works projects where the total cost is $50,000 or less should be made to a Lottery Community fund.
The following may be funded:
- projects to build new community buildings or facilities
- projects to improve or extend existing community facilities
- feasibility studies to work out if planned projects are needed, can be achieved and fit the long-term vision for the community
- seismic assessments.
- building purchases (but only if this is a better and less costly option than building a new facility).
As well as community centres or community buildings, a community facility may be a stadium, marae, performing arts complex, community swimming pool, skate or dirt park, or a capital works project that improves local digital accessibility.
Building or renovation project costs may include:
- earthquake strengthening or building extensions and new construction projects
- improving or adding kitchens or bathrooms, including ovens, fridges and dishwashers
- professional fees for architecture, quantity surveying or for managing the project
- administration costs associated with the project
- professional fees for a qualified project manager, who is not part of the decision-making group for the project.
Requests must show required project planning has been done to reflect the scale of facility.
Requests must show the project improves opportunities for people to participate in community activities and has wide community support.
The Committee is more likely to fund requests that show the project:
- has strong governance and financial management
- involves tradespeople who are qualified or experienced to do the work
- meets all regulations and requirements for building and health and safety
- provides access for disabled people
- provides essential services, such as plumbing, wastewater and sewerage systems, and electricity and fire protection
- has support from your community, such as people ready to working as volunteers.
You also need to show how your project will meet requirements for standards for building or renovating community facilities to make them fully functional, safe and meet any requirements.
Partnership funding
For all requests except for feasibility studies, applicants must have secured at least 1/3 of the total costs as partnership funding prior to submitting a request.
Project feasibility studies
Funding requests for projects with a total cost of $250,000 or more must provide a study showing whether the project is feasible or not.
A feasibility study may not be required if the project does not require any consents, permits, or is straightforward or the project has progressed to a point where a feasibility study would not add any value.
Contact a Lottery Community Facilities Advisor to discuss whether your project requires a feasibility study, email lcffund@dia.govt.nz
What we don't fund / Ngā kaupapa kāore e tautokona ā-pūtea
Lottery Community Facilities committee does not fund:
- items that are listed by the Lottery Grants Board as ineligible for funding, see Lottery Grants Board does not fund
- individual people
- building projects or equipment purchases where the total project cost is $50,000 or less (requests for minor capital works like these should be made to a Lottery Community fund)
- purchases of bare land
- capital works projects that emerge in response to an emergency natural disaster event that has occurred within 9 months of the request submission.
- activities not directly related to building or improving a community facility, such as:
- corporate boxes and hospitality suites
- carparks and roads that are not on the community facility's land
- housing projects for individuals, including rest home projects
- landscaping
- routine maintenance and operating expenses, such as administration or staffing
- equipment purchases that are not part of a larger capital works project, are not needed to make a facility functional, or do not contribute to finishing a capital works project (such as sports, computer or art equipment, or musical instruments)
How to apply
- Understand your group's eligibility based on legal entity status, see What funding options are available for non-registered or informal groups
- Set up a personal profile and an organization profile in our grants management system, see Logging into the grants management system
- Provide the correct supporting documents, see What documents do I need to send with our Lottery Community Facilities request
For more information see Lottery Community Facilities funding request questions (.pdf 175 KB)
Important funding dates
Find out about the next opening and closing dates for Lottery Community Facilities requests and committee decision meetings: