Crawley Run Crew

Having co-founded Crawley Run Crew in 2016, a voluntary running club, the support received from Crawley Community Action (CCA) has been invaluable both in helping us to get started and, in our growth over the past 4 years. The support has always been exemplary, quick and helpful but more importantly, the support we have had has saved us time, which as volunteers, is invaluable.

Initially the CCA supported us in accessing funding to get started, both from CBC and from a local trust, neither grants I would have been aware of without CCA. Having someone at the CCA who can make introductions would have been very important in the success of our application. This meant as a club we were able to grow, training more volunteers and support more local people to lead healthier and happier lives as well as get the equipment we needed to deliver activities.

Even more helpful than this has been the proactiveness of the CCA to approach us when they identified opportunities which might benefit us, one example being a fund from the Sussex Community Foundation we would not have applied for had it not been for the CCA which led to a £5k grant being received. Without this support, 4 of the opportunities we have received funding from would not have happened. This would have meant less local provision and no upskilling of volunteers.

The CCA fundamentally do the leg work which allows us to focus on what we do best, they pass on opportunities we would not know about and they generate local investment which otherwise would go to other parts of the county/region.