We believe culture and creativity can be a powerful force for making change.
We are focusing our support on two ways in which culture and creativity can build a fairer future:
- Creating a cultural workforce that is more reflective of UK society, by enabling more people to progress in their career in the arts who identify as D/deaf, disabled or neurodivergent, are from communities experiencing racial inequity, or who are economically disadvantaged.
- Supporting young people to build their own creative lives and to use arts and creativity to influence the world around them.
What we want to achieve
We're working towards two long-term outcomes:
1. A representative cultural workforce led by a new and diverse generation of cultural leaders.
Targeting our support: We make 8-12 grants a year towards a more representative cultural workforce. As demand is very high, we encourage applicants to consider how closely their work fits what we want to support as this informs our decision-making. Read our guidance to learn more.
We will prioritise funding organisations that:
- Are led by and for underrepresented groups that need support to grow their work
- Have strong networks and evidence of contributing to long-term change and share power with underrepresented groups.
We also want to allocate more of our funding outside London, and to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
2. Youth-led creativity builds on young people's power to make change, using creativity to enhance their lives, develop their careers, and influence the world around them.
We are working with our Involving Young People Collective to co-design the process and specifics for the next iteration of the Youth-Led Creativity programme, including taking learning from the first cohort of organisations funded. We are planning to make grants in 2026, and will be sharing more information about how the funding will be distributed in due course.
Learn more about the first cohort of organisations funded through the Youth-Led Creativity programme.
