Media centre

A dozen things you might not know about Good Cause Funding (February 2010)

• Lottery winners are keen philanthropists, with 91% reporting that they have given money to charity
• A total of 437 Olympic and Paralympic medals have been won by athletes funded by the Lottery, with Beijing 2008 being Britain's best medal haul for 100 years
• The Eden project in Cornwall was built using over £59 million of National Lottery funding - the project has generated £500 million for Cornwall's tourist industry
• The National Lottery has bought land nearly three times the size of the Isle of Wight to protect precious habitat for rare species
• Over £10 billion of National Lottery funding has gone to projects that benefit children and young people
• Since the Lottery began in 1994, over £1 billion has been raised for projects that support people's health and wellbeing across all its funding areas
• The National Lottery will contribute up to £2.2 billion to the delivery and infrastructure of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and their legacy
• Since the Lottery began in 1994, over 330,000 grants have been made to projects across the UK, nearly half of which have been for less than £5,000
• Lottery funding has enabled over 42,000 WWII veterans to revisit sites around the world where they served during the war
• Lottery-funded films have generated over 64 million UK cinema visits 
• The biggest Lottery grant to date was for £600 million to the Millennium Dome project, now the successful o2 arena.

And finally......

• A survey revealed two of the most popular places for jackpot winners to keep their tickets: "in their Bibles" and "in their underwear".

For further information, please contact:

• Caroline Wood, Head of Media, National Lottery Promotions Unit: 020 7211 3996.

• Rebecca Gowrley, Senior Media Relations Manager, National Lottery Promotions Unit: 020 7211 3894.