National Lottery Syndicate

The National Lottery has raised over £24 billion for Good Causes to date. Over 330,000 lottery funded grants have been awarded.

Most recent: Dance Base, Learn Fund

"You have to be positive, enthusiastic and optimistic about the potential in people. You have to be a great motivator, creative and flexible. You have to be able to think on your feet." Janet Dick, outreach coordinator at Dance Base, Scotland's national centre for dance, is listing the qualities you need to be an outreach dancer. It's a daunting task, but luckily help is at hand at Dance Base, with a training project to turn dancers into outreach workers, funded by The National Lottery.

The dancers already teach community classes, but Janet says the difference between these and outreach work is huge. "At Dance Base, they've got a fabulous studio and committed dancers who want to come to class. In outreach work, you might be in a grotty school hall, and you probably won't have able or motivated people," she says.

Janet and her team of experienced staff lead sessions, while the dancers learn on the job. She also runs special training sessions - funded by The National Lottery - where disabled dancers demonstrate how to work with disabled people. "Taking on challenges like these inspires new ways of working," explains Janet.

Already, two new dance classes for adults with special needs have started at Dance Base: hip-hop and ceilidh. These aim to catch recent school-leavers, and the hip-hop class in particular is thriving. A nearby nursery school is also getting in on the action, swapping free dance classes for sessions in early years teaching. In 2009, Dance Base reached the semi-finals of The National Lottery Awards.