Six grants. One year. In their words.

Fit Like Joggers have been getting people off the sofa and onto the road for over nine years. Their twice-yearly Couch to 5k programme attracts up to 60 beginners at a time, and many of those runners never leave, which explains how the club has grown to be one of the biggest in the country, all without ever charging a membership fee.

Unlike some beginner running programmes, which leave people wondering ‘what next?’, Fit Like Joggers gives members the structure and motivation they need to turn running into a lifelong hobby, and that’s what we really loved about this project.

None of what the club has achieved would be possible without a group of 30+ volunteer leaders, who, between them, lead 13 running groups every single week. The Go Far Fund grant went towards hi-vis tops and winter arm lights to keep those leaders safe and visible on dark runs, with a little left over for personalised t-shirts so new members always know who to follow.

Since then, the club has barely stopped. Highlights from the past few months include a group trip to the Palma half-marathon, big numbers at RunBalmoral, and four members toeing the line at the 2026 London Marathon.

When we first spoke to the Queer Running Club team, they opened our eyes to challenges we hadn’t really considered before. Running with other people can feel exposing at the best of times, but for many trans and queer runners, that vulnerability is heightened by the fear of judgement from people who don’t share their experience. It quickly became clear to us just how vital it is to have dedicated spaces where members of the LGBTQIA+ community can run together in a safe environment.

Back in July 2024, Queer Running Club launched TRANSCEND, a free 5k and 10k running and walking event on Hackney Marshes, held the week before London Trans Pride. The route was planned with input from a trans wheelchair user to make sure it worked for everyone, and 220 people took part in the first year.

It was a great starting point, but Kole and the team realised that by focusing on the event itself, they had missed an opportunity to reach people who weren’t yet ready to race. That was how they came up with the idea for TRANSCENDERS, a free 16-week beginners running academy for the Trans+ community, with sessions on Monday evenings in East and South London. They just needed the funding to make it happen, and that’s where the Go Far Fund grant came in. Attendance fluctuated over winter, as it often does, but a regular group of five or six people now shows up week after week.

If you lost your sight tomorrow, would you know how to stay active? It’s not something most of us think about, and before we came across Metro Blind Sport, it wasn’t something we’d considered either. The assumption is often that visual impairment and sport don’t mix, but why should that be the case? Metro Blind Sport has been challenging that assumption since 1973, making sport accessible for people with visual impairments across Greater London.

The numbers behind the need are stark: 76% of blind or partially-sighted people experience loneliness, and 80% say that sport would help. It’s not hard to see why, and that’s what drew us to this project.

Metro’s Primary Sports Programme offers regular, accessible cricket, bowls, football, tennis, and goalball sessions across London, alongside walks and social events aimed at the most isolated members of the community. A ‘meet and greet’ service where volunteers and staff meet members at agreed locations and travel with them ensures no one is put off by the journey.

The Go Far Fund grant of £500 helped Metro reach the minimum threshold for Big Give’s Christmas Challenge, a matched-funding campaign where donations made during a set window are doubled. The single contribution helped generate over £5,000 in total.

This project was a particularly personal one for Dan. Having lost his mother to cancer, he’d seen first hand how important both physical activity and social contact are for older people. When he read about Age UK Westminster’s Active Ageing Project, which provides weekly exercise classes for people aged 50+ at the Beethoven Centre in Queen’s Park, it resonated with him immediately.

The sessions are designed to work for all mobility levels, from seated to standing, and are led by instructor Sharon, whose participants clearly think the world of her. After each class, there’s time for refreshments and a chat, which matters as much to many attendees as the exercise.

Age UK is a name most people know, but the local branches aren’t bankrolled by the national charity. Each one has to find its own funding and keep its own doors open. So while £1,000 might not go far for a national organisation, it made a real difference for a local project like this one.

The Go Far Fund grant helped cover the cost of the fitness instructor, venue hire, and post-class refreshments, enabling 51 people to participate in 183 sessions between September 2025 and March 2026.

Running is often held up as the most accessible sport there is. But for a lot of women, it’s not that simple. There are safety concerns to navigate, spaces that don’t always feel welcoming, and for many girls, sport drops off the radar entirely during their teenage years and sadly never comes back.

sheRUNS is working hard to change that, providing a safe, welcoming space where women of all abilities can run, build confidence, and work towards their first race. When we came across their application, it was an easy decision. They were doing brilliant work, but they were running out of funding, and those Friday track sessions felt too important to let them disappear.

The grant provided funding for 10 additional sessions and supported a training programme to elevate walkers to runners and help runners to advance.

The numbers show just how big of an impact sheRUNS has had, reaching just under 500 female runners since April 2024. 92% came from ethnically diverse backgrounds, and 82% were inactive or had never previously run before. That’s a huge achievement.

For children with additional needs, missing out on mainstream activities doesn’t just mean missing out on sport. It also means missing the friendship and confidence that comes with it.

Me2 Club is one of those projects that felt like everything the Go Far Fund is about. Rather than creating a separate provision for kids with additional needs, the club recruits and trains volunteers in the Wokingham and Reading boroughs to buddy up one-on-one with them so that they can join the same swimming, football, basketball, and dance sessions as everyone else.

What we love about this idea is that the benefits flow both ways. The children with additional needs are treated the same as everyone else, taking part alongside their peers, and the children without additional needs get to interact with others who experience the world differently, learning empathy and patience in the process.

The Go Far Fund grant funded induction training and DBS checks for 15 new volunteers, enabling 15 more children to take part in activities they otherwise would never have been able to.