Learning
What we are learning from our grant making.
Where does our funding go?
Dress rehearsal, Brighton People’s Theatre. Photo credit: Rosie Powell
Find out more about our grant making and our different funds.
Main areas of funding
In 2023/24, we approved 265 grants totalling £57.1 million. Nearly three quarters of our grants and nearly half the value of our funding went towards our six strategic priority areas of funding.
These areas each have an open fund anyone can apply to: Arts Fund, Ideas and Pioneers Fund, India Fund, Migration Fund, Youth Fund, and both our Arts-based Learning Fund and Teacher Development Fund which come under our arts education strategic priority.
Open funding
The vast majority of grants in our six priority areas are made through an open application process.
Grant spend by fund 2023/24
- The redesigned Arts Fund and Migration Fund were launched in April 2024 so the figures here refer to the Arts Access and Participation Fund and the Shared Ground Fund, respectively.
- The Education and learning through the arts portfolio is made up of two funds; Arts-based Learning Fund and Teacher Development Fund.
- Grant spend in the Nurturing Ideas and People portfolio was lower than usual because the Ideas and Pioneers Fund was closed for review during 2023/24.
- The Youth Fund comprises approximately half of the value of funding made in our Investing in Young People portfolio, with the other half made up of invitation-only funding.
Applications
In 2023/24, decisions were made on 778 applications to our UK open funds, resulting in 117 grants. On average, 15% of applications across all of our UK open funding were successful.
Application approval rate by fund
Racial justice funding
We have conducted an annual racial justice audit of our UK grant-making since 2020/21, using the toolkit provided by the Funders for Race Equality Alliance (FREA).
Overview
Of the £28.7 million funding audited in 2023/24, 44 per cent went to projects to benefit communities experiencing racial inequity, returning to the level reported in 2020/21.
However, after increasing for each of the last two years, the percentage of funding on grants ‘by and for’ racialised communities slightly decreased between 2022/23 and 2023/24, from 20 per cent to 16 per cent.
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As defined by the DEI Data Standard, ‘led by’ organisations have at least 75 per cent of the board and 50 per cent of senior staff from communities experiencing racial inequity.
Applications
This chart compares the application approval rates by fund and the applicant organisation’s leadership.
As part of our commitment to anti-racism we are seeking to increase the proportion of applications from ‘led by’ organisations, for instance by raising awareness of our funding opportunities and improving the accessibility of our application processes.
As last year, the approval rate for applicants from organisations ‘led by’ racialised communities was consistently higher than the approval rate for all applications.
Reflections on funding racial justice
Our Director of Grants, Abdou Sidibe, examines the results of our 2023/24 racial justice audit.
Related content
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Funding
Our funds focus on arts, education and learning, migration and young people.