Sports club hardship fund - help with application

[thelongandshortofit]

I help at my son's football club and we're setting up a hardship fund with a 'no questions asked' small pot available to existing members for reductions in subs or similar. We also have a larger pot intended to offer fully funded places to children who wouldn't normally be able to afford it. This is likely to be worth c. £600pa with subs, professional fees, subs etc so not a massive sum but comes from member donations and club fundraising so keen to make sure it's being managed correctly and reaches the right people.

Where I need advice is on the hardship application as there is currently a dispute about the level of disclosure required to access the larger pot of funds.
We are asking family income with proof of wages and /or any benefit payments but I'm the only one that thinks we should specify breakdown of assets. I think someone with multiple ISAs, shares or 2nd home should NOT be able to apply, but others think asset rich doesn't mean cash rich, plus it will be far too time consuming for what is a relatively small sum. My argument is most people needing to access a hardship fund can probably list their total assets in a matter of seconds and frankly, if anyone has a nice little financial cushion they can sell some of it to pay for their DC to play football!
AIBU to think anyone with large amounts of assets shouldn't be able to access a hardship fund?

No YANBU and of course people should declare assets
or
Yes YABU asset rich doesn't always mean cash rich and/or totally unnecessary for such a small sum of money

I think you are about to find out just how cheeky that cheeky fuckers can be.

Definitely have proper rules in place, or Mr ISA will have that hardship fund, and the family who really needs it and is too embarrassed to ask will miss out.

Yes I agree. It wouldn’t surprise me if you had someone with a household income of £200k apply because the mortgage rates on the holiday home in Devon is soooo high these days.

It depends what your cut off is.

Proof of benefits. If it’s Universal credit or another means tested benefit the.Lin capital
will be under 16k.

If it’s tax credits then capital doesn’t count only income from interest.

Many benefits are not available if you have more than a small amount of savings/assets, so it might be enough to ask for proof of benefits. If you're also offering smaller reductions with no questions asked, you're not leaving those not on benefits with no help.

A lot of places do it as 'proof of benefits'.

That covers against savings, but obviously also cuts out families with two working parents just above the threshold.

@CornishTiger being in receipt of benefits isn't a prerequisite - awards will be decided by a committee but I do think we need a full and clear picture of someone's financial position before we can make a decision. The club is in an affluent area so 2nd homes etc not unusual (& yes the example of someone's BTL not counting 'because it's my pension' is exactly why I want to stand my ground on this one!) but obviously not everyone is rolling in it and there are plenty of people on lower incomes who just wouldn't or couldn't consider joining our club as it is expensive.

How would you know if there was full disclosure though? Nightmare, I'd run for the hills rather than try to administer any such fund I'm afraid.

You need to have a set of rules that includes both income and no savings say £3000 but also have discretion available as sometimes there's a scenario you haven't envisioned

This is why a lot of clubs make access to a hardship fund subject to proof of receipt of certain benefits or a referral from a school of . How are you going to know that applicants have declared all their income, or savings, or the true value of their assets? It’s going to be a hugely laborious process to administrate with no guarantee that you’ve been provided all the relevant information.

I think that yeh first answer has it and you're going to have some cf trying for a reduction because they are only going on one holiday next year or they are not going to be able to get a BMW when it's time to replace the car or some nonsense.

Proof of benefits is simpler and involves less paperwork. Will you really want to look at wage slips, mortgage statements and trust people to disclose all investments and savings accounts ?

I would allow a child in care full access to club fees.

Thanks for your comments. It sounds like there's more thought needed. Perhaps a better way is children on care, & those in receipt of benefits (with evidence) automatically accepted and open to anyone else at the discretion of the committee with supporting financial documentation.

I still feel like we need to give some guidance as to who this is intended for - something like: hardship fund is not available for those with a family income in excess of X.
There will be plenty of people on lower (but not necessarily qualifying for benefits low) that wouldn't have the money for extra curricular activities we would happily support.

Sounds like a plan.
Plus where you advertise, to access the people you think would need it

The idea partly came off the back of an enquiry from a local secondary school and hope to work in partnership with them

If it's being done via the school, then for those on FSM?

HI @thelongandshortofit I have private messaged you to ask for advice on this situation also for my football club I volunteer at.

If anyone else has positive example of how they have got something similar to work in a sports club please share would be greatly appreciated :-)

Hi @sports1992

Will check & respond but happy to help.

I got so bored waiting for the club to agree how/if/who/why/when it would be run I just wrote what I thought it should say and circulated it to the 800+ members

I'm not advocating this approach but do most of the club comms anyway and it did kick start it! Fund is still live with donations ticking in and 3 awards made so feels like something good is happening.

I think you are stepping WAY beyond your remit to be asking for a full financial breakdown from people who might need help.

If it has to go to committee anyway (and, in truth, that itself would be off putting to so many families), then just say CIC and those on FSM. Then have a sentence afterwards that says something along the lines of "please speak to such and such a person if the cost is preventing your child(ren) taking part in the activities to see if we can help you".
You've set a firm idea of where the bar if (Free school meals) but have left yourself enough flexibility if someone comes to you with a specific reason why they think they deserve a bit of support.
..... 3 dc already established at club and sudden redundancy
...... having triplets and struggling to find the full cost for all 3 at the same time
type of thing, which can then be considered on a case by case basis.