Donate – Lewes Community Football Club

Football for good:

Donate

Written by: Stuart

Two questions we are often asked are “how can we help?” or “what can we do to support your projects and causes?”.  As a small, community-owned football club, trying to compete against some much bigger organisations, we value every penny and every minute that fans can give us.

Our volunteers are the lifeblood that keeps us going, especially on a match day, but for us to grow and continue to be the football club that is prepared to do things differently, we would welcome any donations.

Below you will see some of the projects and causes we support, and how you can contribute and really make a difference.

Be our 12th Player

We’re heading into another season, looking to build on the exciting seasons that both our Men’s and Women’s teams enjoyed.  From the last day Play-Off drama for our Men’s side in the Isthmian Premier League to the historic FA Women’s Cup Quarter-Final at The Pan where our Women’s side hosted Manchester United.  Whatever your memories are of the season, I’m sure you can’t wait to see what unfolds in the next twelve months.

What is certain is that we will face even more challenging opponents on the pitch as every team will step up to challenge for honours.

Every penny of our playing budget is vital for our managers to build squads capable of challenging for honours and so we are reintroducing our 12th Player Funds to give fans the opportunity to contribute directly to our on the field success.

The 12th Player Funds, one each for our first team squads, have previously been used as a way of bolstering the squads in helping to push up the table.

What difference does the 12th Players Fund make?

Men’s Manager Tony Russell gives his thoughts.

“It can make a massive difference. The club provides the management staff with a playing budget at the start of the season and then anything added to the 12th Player Fund is treated as additional playing budget.

Some clubs assign the fund to specific players, and we have done in the past, but it can be used to fund more than one specific player. The key thing to remember, it goes solely towards bringing players to the club, not the general running costs of the club.

We have previously spent the money in a variety of ways. It has allowed us to bring in a player when we were already maxing out the playing budget. Clubs can often spend earlier in the season because you play around a third of your games by the end of October.”

Every penny goes direct to helping our first team squads so if you can spare anything, be assured you are playing your part in the push for promotion.

To donate to either (or both schemes), click on the link below to go to our PayPal donations page to sign up, or make a one-off donation.


Dual Careers Programme

In football, a dual career is when a player undertakes education and/or work alongside their playing career.By donating to the Dual Careers Programme you will helping to support a player with career development skills and experience that will serve them well for the future too.

Football is a hard career. The pay won’t currently provide a player with long-term security when they hang their boots up, and an injury can end a career at a moment’s notice. Football also needs these players to stay within the game post on-pitch career, as they are best placed to use their experience and their learnings to grow and develop the game the best way possible.

With your donations, we will help provide players with additional income but also hands-on learning opportunities, helping players to think about how to prepare themselves for life outside of their sporting career and to support them in having other interests and activities alongside their pursuit within football.

Benefits of this for the player include:
– The opportunity to enhance current skills, develop life skills and become more well-rounded.
– The chance to expand social networks beyond sports.
– Enhanced employment prospects with transferable skills for the future.

To donate to our Dual Careers Programme, click on the Donate button below.

Sustainability and environmental impact

We are all responsible for protecting our planet for future generations. Enhancing environmental sustainability also means that clubs can make financial savings in the long-term by eliminating energy inefficiencies and upgrading to environmentally sustainable infrastructure. It can also attract unique sponsors – another attractive form of income.

We have already made good progress through the solar panels on top of our main stand, and our community garden, setup by men’s player, Bradley Pritchard.

But there is a lot more we can do. We want to be able to introduce new forms of sustainability such as reusable cups, LED lighting, more sustainable heating systems for pitch maintenance, water cooling in changing rooms and offices all of which would make the Dripping Pan a more ‘smart stadium’. By donating to this pot you will help us make changes that will have long-lasting impact for us but also for our planet.

Infrastructure

We love the Pan, but – as we know you agree – our facilities definitely need a bit of a revamp in places!

For a while now we have wanted to update and improve our toilet facilities, introduce a physical club shop, make improvements in the Rook Inn bar and kitchen and extra funding can help us do it!

We have planning permission for the toilet block and a partial grant in place, but we do need extra funds to get it off the ground.

The Dripping Pan is on every groundhopper’s bucket list; it appears in multiple books and publications as one of the most attractive grounds in the country, and we really want to make sure we can keep up that trend!

If you donate we will let you know what we will put in place – but you’ll also hopefully notice it on match day too!

Impact on the World
At Lewes we are passionate about football done better and using football to impact positively on society. We are best known for our work to promote gender equality on and off the pitch as well as our stance on the gamblification of football.

If you care deeply about our campaigning work, you can help us by donating to this pot for specific campaigns or activations. For example, with funding we can support players to visit schools, clubs and community groups to deliver assemblies and talks on our campaigning.

This funding could also offer the opportunity to provide bursaries for underprivileged kids to have a place in our Pathway teams, through supporting them with travel or kit.

This will help a real problem we face within women’s football where research shows that underprivileged girls are still not able to access opportunities. It’s also a huge help for our boy’s pathway. There’s been a lot of success across the country with many professional footballers in the men’s game coming from targeted, underprivileged backgrounds.

Thanks so much for your support!