Supporting Our Own is Aston Villa Football Club’s Corporate Social Responsibility strategy.
The strategy underlines the club’s commitment to the local community and the wider Aston Villa family. Managed by the Aston Villa Foundation, Supporting Our Own provides an identity for the club’s work in the community and its approach to corporate social responsibility.
The initiative sees the delivery of projects and activities through the club’s official Foundation in and around Birmingham to promote sport, health, wellbeing, education and inclusive opportunities. Alongside the project delivery, Supporting Our Own provides valuable assistance for local charities, voluntary organisations and sports clubs with their own fundraising efforts
“Supporting Our Own” Small Grants
Grants of up to £1,000 are available for community organisations with an income equal to or less than £500,000 (as shown in the organisation’s most recent annual accounts). Funding must be spent within 6 months and must meet one of the “Supporting Our Own” charitable objectives:
Engagement, Sport & Wellbeing
Providing children and young people opportunities to take part in sport & physical activity, supporting both physical and mental wellbeing.
Education & Employment
Promoting education and personal development from an early age, offering a range of skills, training and qualifications to enhance people’s long-term prospects and potential.
Villa Kitchen
The Foundation’s Villa Kitchen initiative was set up in 2019 to help provide hot food to those in need in Birmingham and the surrounding areas, supporting a range of organisations such as homeless outreach groups, migrant centres, women’s refugees, housing associations and schools.
One such organisation is Birmingham Support Group, who run a weekly distribution site in Dale End, Birmingham every Wednesday, and ran completely by volunteers. Since 2020, the project has provided around 30,000 meals, and is funded from donations through ticket round ups, and money raised from the Foundation’s annual Big Villa Sleep Out
Aston and Newtown Action Plan: Shared Prosperity Fund
From July 2024- March 2025, the Aston Villa Foundation will act as a delivery partner in the Aston and Newtown Action Plan: Shared Prosperity Fund, with funding provided through the UKSPF programme.
Working with the West Midlands Combined Authority, Birmingham City Council and Legacy West Midlands, the aim of the action plan is to achieve 5 overarching output and objectives: economic prosperity, road and community safety, healthy lifestyles, environmental impacts and improved communication, working with and distributing funding to organisations and services, to make a difference to the quality of life for the residents of Aston and Newtown. The plan offers much more control at a local level, and use of local knowledge to shape local delivery of services.
Iftar at Villa Park
Aston Villa Football Club is proud to have welcomed the local community to celebrate Iftar at Villa Park since 2023. Iftar is the first meal of the day for those who are fasting during Ramadan, which comes just after the call to the Maghrib prayer at sunset.
Over 800 people have attended to date, with volunteers from the Ramadan Tent Project and Aston Villa staff helping to organise the event.
The call to prayer is delivered over the Villa Park PA system, to not only be heard by those in the Holte Suite, but also those in the vicinity of the stadium.
Details of the next Iftar will be released via social media.
