The London Marathon Charitable Trust (The Trust) is the parent charity of London Marathon Events (LME), and both organisations share a mission to Inspire Activity. The Trust does this by awarding funding to initiatives that enable everyone – regardless of age, ability, gender or background – to take part in sport and physical activity. Its income is generated solely by LME, with the surplus from the London Marathon and other events organised by LME passed to The Trust via corporate GiftAid.

The Trust was created in in 1981 by London Marathon founders John Disley and Chris Brasher, originally to raise money for sport and recreation facilities in London. As the London Marathon has grown, so has The Trust, and it now funds a wide variety of projects that create active spaces in London and across the UK, with the aim of supporting communities that need the most help in leading active and healthy lives.

Since its founding, The Trust has awarded £98.3 million to more than 1,500 projects in London and across the UK. Last year, The Trust has achieved the following:

• Made the biggest funding announcement in its history as a founding funder of a new £17 million multi-year sport and physical activity fund that will improve the health and wellbeing of young Londoners, in partnership with the Greater London Authority and Sport England.
• Celebrated the opening of two new BMX tracks in Bristol and Sheffield supported by The Trust’s funding, so more local communities across the UK can have access to free cycling activities.
• Added Essex as a new core funding area thanks to the partnership between Essex County Council and the RideLondon cycling event (organised by LME) and awarded £1 million to inspire activity in communities across the county.
• Awarded nearly £250,000 to community projects in Barking and Dagenham to address the high levels of inactivity within the borough by engaging more people in community-led sports and activities.

To see The Trust’s work in action, watch this short video about its support of the English National Ballet’s Dance for Parkinson’s classes. The English National received funding from The Trust so it could safely re-launch the classes after the Covid-19 pandemic and use dance to support people living with Parkinson’s Disease.

Having had to close to new applications due to the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Trust is now preparing to re-open to new applications in early October 2022. It will look to fund projects that inspire activity for children and young people and increase participation in physical activity for groups who need the most help to be active.

For more information about The Trust’s work, visit lmct.org.uk and follow @LMCT on Twitter.

The Trust is a registered charity, number 283813, and registered company number 1550741.