Arts Fund

Please note that we will only be answering questions submitted in advance due to high attendance. Questions can be submitted by following this link.

Please note that we will only be answering questions submitted in advance due to high attendance. Questions can be submitted by following this link.

Charities, CICs, private companies limited by guarantee and private companies limited by shares are all able to apply. Before CICs, private companies limited by guarantee or private companies limited by shares are awarded a grant, restrictions may need to be placed on the grant to ensure that the grant is used for charitable purpose and benefit and that it can be accounted for as such. In these instances we will work with you to ensure that there is a clear shared understanding of how the grant can be used.

You can apply for up to 50% of your turnover for each year of your grant request. We calculate the 50% based on the turnover of the last financial year. For example, if your turnover last year was £120,000, then you can apply for a grant of up to £60,000 per year, which is up to £180,000 for a three-year grant. However, if there are significant differences between this figure and the average over the last three years or there is other information that has led you to request a higher grant than our guidelines state and you would like to make us aware, there is an open text field for you to provide additional information of this kind.

One option we can offer for organisations who are looking for more than 50% of their turnover would be to apply for 50% of your turnover and, if successful, front load the grant so that you receive slightly more in Year 1 and less in Year 3, giving you time to raise other funds.

We recognise that our funding does not work for all organisations’ circumstances. The decisions that we’ve taken regarding turnover limits are based on where we feel that our funding can be most impactful, and this is in giving organisations significant and sustainable support to develop with multi-year funding, without becoming the sole majority funder of an organisation. It will inevitably preclude some smaller organisations from applying to us. However, we don’t want anyone to use their valuable time applying for a fund if the likelihood of receiving funding is really slim.

All applications go through the same assessment process regardless of when they are submitted. We are benchmarking all eligible applications received in the same window as a batch. However if we receive your application earlier in the round and we feel confident that it is not going to benchmark strongly against others, we will let you know as soon as we can.

If you have previously applied to the Arts Access and Participation fund and you have been unsuccessful, then you would have been told that you cannot apply for 12 months from the date of declination. As we have now changed our application process and are no longer open all year round, we may not be accepting applications on the date that your 12 month period elapses. In that case, you can apply from the first round that begins after your 12 month period elapses.

For example, if you were declined on April 10th 2023, then you would have been eligible to reapply on April 10th 2024. In our new application process, you can apply in the round which began on April 4th 2024.