County Grants Fund
We are delighted to anounce that the ECB 2026 County Grants fund is now open?
The County Grants Fund aims to support ECB affiliated Cricket Clubs, which are actively engaged with women’s cricket, girls’ cricket and/or disability cricket, to create welcoming environments or to provide enhanced playing or changing facilities, in an effort to increase the number of women’s, girls’ and disability cricket teams, and to achieve the game’s vision to become the most inclusive team sport (Inspiring Generations 2025 – 2028).
Who is eligible to apply to the County Grants Fund?
Cricket Clubs affiliated to the ECB via Cornwall Cricket Board.
Priority will be given to Clubs engaged in providing cricket for at least one of the following target groups:
- Women’s Cricket: a minimum of one women's team playing a minimum of three competitive soft ball or hard ball fixtures in league, friendly, indoor or outdoor cricket in 2025/2026, as recorded on Play-Cricket.com
- Girls’ Only Cricket: a minimum of one girls' team playing a minimum of three competitive soft ball or hard ball fixtures in league, friendly, indoor or outdoor cricket in 2025/2026, as recorded on Play-Cricket.com
- Girls’ Only Dynamos Cricket: Clubs delivering a Dynamos Cricket programme specifically for girls in 2025/2026, as registered on ClubSpark.
- Dynamos Cricket for Girls’ Activation Clubs: Dynamos Cricket for Girls delivered by Clubs which have been selected by their Recreational Cricket Board (RCB) or Cricket Foundation (CF) to deliver Dynamos Cricket for Girls in 2025/2026 that specifically leads to the creation of girls’ teams at the selected Clubs, as registered on ClubSpark.
- Disability Cricket: a registered Disability Champion Cricket Club or a registered host for the Disability Premier League in 2025/2026.
How does a Club apply to the County Grants Fund?
Access to the County Grants Fund application is via the online Investment Management System (IMS) at https://ims.ecb.co.uk/
Service Level Agreement - Cornwall Specific
- All clubs in reciept of a County Grants Fund award in 2026 will be expected to have an active Club Development Plan and sign up to a Service level Agreement with Cornwall Cricket Board. This SLA will remain in place for a period of upto three years. There will be an expectation that one of the conditions to recieving a CGF will be that they host County Pathway or Senior Womens side fixtures (up to 6 tbc).
2026 Guidance Notes - To download the latest guidance notes please click here
2026 County Grants Fund - FAQs
To assist clubs in assessing where they may need to improve their facilities to make them more welcoming and inclusive, the ECB has developed a couple of self-assessment documents.
2026 ECB Creating a Welcoming Environment (including a checklist)
HOW WILL THE COUNTY GRANTS FUND BE MANAGED?
There are a few key points we would like to make to clubs at this stage:
- There will be two windows to apply,
- Deadline one will be 20th March 2026 - 5:00pm
- Deadline two will be 30th June 2026 - 5:00pm
- Prioritising – Only applications from club's that are actively engaged with Women’s, Girls’ Cricket and Disability Cricket will be considered.
- Local management – The County Grants Fund will be administered locally, with an Independent Review Panel for award decisions. Clubs will be notified as soon after that time as possible.
- Scale of support – The County Grants Fund is provided by the ECB and has set the priority for supporting the recreational game and the ambitions of it's Inspiring Generations Strategy V2. There are positive levels of investment attributed to the fund for Cornwall. However, there are still finite levels of funding available to us which is why we must work closely with cricket clubs to identify appropriate projects which deliver strong outcomes.
If your club has any questions please feel free to ask, please contact:
