The National Lottery Good Causes Awards initiative has six categories that projects can apply under. These are:

•    Sport
•    Health & Wellness
•    Community
•    Youth
•    Arts & Culture 
•    Heritage

2018 is the first year of these awards open to any community project, club or individual who has received National Lottery funding from the years 2014, 2015 and 2016.
 
How the competition works
The competition will consist of three rounds of judging. The first is a county stage where six category winners will be named from each county in the Republic of Ireland.

These winners will then go to the next stage of the competition: the regional stage where six regional winners from each category will go forward to the National final. This will culminate at a Gala Awards ceremony in the Clayton Hotel, Burlington Road in Dublin on Saturday 3rd November where six of these projects will win a €10,000 cash prize for each category.

The winning does not stop there as one of those winners will go on to be crowned as National Lottery Good Cause of the Year 2018 and win a whopping cash prize of €25,000 to be re-invested in the important work that the project does in its community.

Nearly 30 cent in €1 spent on National Lottery games goes back to Good Causes all over Ireland in the area of Sports, Arts and Culture, Heritage, Youth, Health, Community and the promotion of the Irish Language. By playing National Lottery games, you, our players have helped us raise more than €5 billion since 1987. This funding has a huge impact on communities all over the country.
 
DETAILS HERE. Closing date for receipt of applications is Friday, 29th June 2018