Greentop Community Circus Centre is a registered charity and a company limited guarantee. It was established in January 1995 with the aim of bringing the art of Performance and Human Circus to the community in a particularly deprived area of Sheffield. Broadly we cover our core costs from our income producing activities and use grant funding to run the community work.

Community work - this involves running a Youth Circus for 6 - 16 year olds and Circus in Performance training ranging from basic circus skills to specialist training for professional artists. The latter is accredited with the National Open College Network. At the moment, BBC Children In Need funds the Youth Circus. In 2005 the Arts Council started to regularly fund Greentop and this year funded a new Centre Manager. We have also received funding from among others; Lloyds TSB Foundation, the Foundation for Sport and the Arts and Regional Arts Lottery Programme.

Income producing activities - the Circus Centre is fitted out with specialist circus skills equipment and has a performance license enabling us to hire it out for parties, rehearsals and cabarets.

We also have a social enterprise stream of income by marketing team building courses to companies and acting as an agency for corporate promotions work. The agency draws on a pool of professionals across Yorkshire which provides employment to local people.

Our mix of grant aid and earned income enables us to provide a thriving resource for the local community.

Case Study provided by the South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau (SYFAB) and Greentop Community Circus Centre.