The Aston Villa Foundation is a registered charity (number 1152848) that delivers the community and charity work of Aston Villa Football Club. Over the last 30-years, Aston Villa’s community work has continued to cater to the needs of local residents, community members and fans, laying the important foundations for Aston Villa’s presence in the local community today.
We work with children, young people and young adults both within the immediate areas surrounding Villa Park and the wider Birmingham population, providing a holistic landscape of opportunities to support them on their life journey. Through our three key strategic functions of Delivering, Connecting and Supporting, we share a drive for the Foundation to be seen as excellent, collaborative and innovative, with the ambition to be seen as an outstanding social impact charity. In all we do, we follow our mission statement of “Working together to Enrich Lives.”
Everybody’s Game is designed to bring more inclusive opportunities for British South Asian communities and Women and Girls to get involved across mainstream football, either as players, volunteers, coaches or referees. The initiative is funded by the Premier League, the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) and Islamic Relief.
Villa Vision, designed and delivered by the Foundation’s dedicated eyecare team, is funded by the Premier League and Professional Footballers Association, and strategically supported and funded by Aston University, The Wesleyan Foundation, and The OneSight Essilor Luxottica Foundation.
The initiative is the first of its kind in the UK, delivering workshops, vision screenings, and eye testing in primary and secondary schools across Birmingham.
With funding provided through the Premier League Charitable Fund and Living Well UK, the Teamwork Plus initiative offers up to 12 weeks of free 1:1 wellbeing sessions for young people aged between 8-25.
Referrals are received from within the Foundation through our programmes, and participants who attend provisions and sessions taking place in the community, in schools and at Villa Park.
Wellbeing support is offered by our in-house Wellbeing Practitioner, Sean Holding, with sessions focusing primarily on self-esteem, coping strategies, emotional regulation, anxiety, thought processes and goal setting.
Our School Sport and Education team at the Aston Villa Foundation provide education provisions to primary schools across Birmingham. The aim for our programme is to enrich a school’s curriculum through supporting teachers and inspiring children by using the power of football and Aston Villa to unlock learning potential in unique ways.
Funded through a central partnership between the Premier League, the Aston Villa Foundation delivers Premier League Kicks sessions at various locations across Birmingham, engaging with over 1,400 participants each year. The programme uses the power of football and the value of sports participation to help hard-to-reach youngsters in some of the most high-need areas.
Aston Villa’s Premier League Kicks aims to increase the number of young people developing a sporting habit for life and to create youth-led responsive projects with a culture of volunteering.
The Premier League Fans Fund provides grants to support football clubs at all levels of the game to strengthen connections between them, their fans, and local communities.
The fund supports a range of fan-focused and fan-led projects, helping to foster a sense of belonging through meaningful engagement. This includes schemes for under-represented groups, to further develop an inclusive and welcoming matchday experience for everyone.
In 2023, the Aston Villa Foundation was successful in its bid to become the Lead Coordinator for the Youth Endowment Fund’s (YEF) Neighbourhood Fund in Lozells and Newtown.
The YEF’s Neighbourhood Fund was set up to understand how empowering local people to make decisions about their own neighbourhoods can prevent children from becoming involved in violent crime and anti-social behaviour.
SAFE (Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed) is a Department for Education-funded programme aiming to get upstream of serious violence by tackling the education indicators that are also associated with a young person being more at risk of involvement in serious violence.
Working with our dedicated SAFE Mentors, young people can be offered different levels of 1-to-1 or group mentoring, depending on the individual needs of the young people.
