National Lottery Awards

Since the National Lottery began in 1994, over £37 billion has been raised for Good Causes, funding over 525,000 different projects across the UK. In 2003 the National Lottery Awards were launched to honour some of these Good Causes. For every year since, the public gets to choose the schemes that they decide deserve special recognition. There are seven categories:

Best Arts Project
Best Education Project
Best Environment Project
Best Health Project
Best Heritage Project
Best Sport Project
Best Voluntary/Charity Project

Applications

Any National Lottery-funded project can apply for the awards - these are then reviewed by an independent body and a shortlist of seven causes in each category is drawn up and published. The public vote on the scheme they deem most deserving of the award in each category during the summer, with the winners revealed at a televised star-studded awards ceremony in September.

Each of the seven winners receives a £5,000 cash prize for their project and a trophy.