ACE's Developing your Creative Practice

Arts Council England’s (ACE) Developing your Creative Practice awards grants of between £2,000 to £12,000 to support the development of independent creative practitioners. This programme allows individuals the opportunity to take a dedicated period of time to focus on their own creative development, and take them to the next stage in their practice. Developing your Creative Practice encourages development by allowing artists and cultural practitioners to innovate and take creative risks, work in new ways and to eventually reach new audiences. Activities can be up to one year in length.

Note: individuals cannot apply to both the Developing your Creative Practice and Project Grants at the same time. If you apply to one, you will need to wait until you have received a decision from ACE before you will be eligible to apply to another programme.

Deadline: Ongoing. Next application rounds open on 25 July and 14 November.

Apply here.

ACE's Cultural Development Fund

The Cultural Development Fund offers capital investment in construction projects for culture and creative industries purposes.

The fund is open to local partnerships led by a local authority, Local Enterprise Partnerships and other similar bodies, as well as places that have a strategic vision for their development and can demonstrate both cultural maturity and commitment to culture-led growth but need investment in physical and/or digital infrastructure or other assets to accelerate and maximise their impact.

Applicants can apply for a maximum of £700,000.

Deadline: expressions of interest to be completed by 12pm, 15 March 2024.

Apply here.

Albury's Charitable Foundation

Albury's Charitable Foundation make grants to small charities based in or near to Croydon, Dartford or the Medway Towns engaged in four key areas:

• those providing relief for children in need
• helping young artists to develop their careers in musical theatre
• protecting animals indigenous to the UK or providing a welfare environment for displaced domestic animals, and, occasionally,
• supporting major charities at the time of an international emergency.

Deadline: apply any time.

Apply here.

Creative Scotland

Launched by Creative Scotland, the National Lottery Open Fund for Organisations is for artistic, creative or cultural organisations based in Scotland whose work has a public benefit. Grants of £1,000 to £100,000 are available to support activity for up to 18 months and the fund is open all year round.

Deadline: rolling.

Apply here.

Creative Scotland's Open Fund for Individuals supports freelance and self-employed artists and creative practitioners living in Scotland to conduct a period of research, development and/or delivery of creative activity for up to 24 months.

Deadline: rolling.

Apply here.

Foyle Foundation

The Foyle Foundation is an independent grant making trust that distributes grants to UK charities. They welcome applications from across the country and encourage applications from all areas outside London and the South East. The Main Grants Scheme supports charities registered and operating in the UK with a core remit of the arts or learning. Smaller arts or learning charities with a turnover of less than £150,000 per annum are usually more suited to the Small Grants Scheme.

Deadline: none currently. Please note the Foyle Foundation will complete its grant giving programme in 2025.

Apply here.

Garfield Weston Foundation

The Garfield Weston Foundation is a family-founded grant making trust which has been supporting charities across the UK for over 60 years. From small community groups to large national institutions, the Trustees’ aim is to support organisations that have effective solutions to helping those most in need. The foundation awards grants for capital, project and revenue costs and accepts applications from organisations working in the areas of welfare, youth, community, arts, faith, environment, education, health and museums and heritage.

Deadline: none currently.

Apply here.

Granada Foundation

The Granada Foundation supports the study and appreciation of the arts and sciences, and promotes education, with a focus on the North West of England (Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, and Cumbria). The Foundation encourages fine arts and sciences, advances education, and supports recreational facilities for social welfare. Eligible organisations include those with charitable status or not-for-profit status in the North West. Grants range from £500 to £10,000, with an average award of £2,000. Larger grants may be given for particularly innovative projects.

Deadline: Friday 18 October 2024.

Apply here.

Grand Plan

Grand Plan award £1,000 grants to creative people of colour based in the UK who want to make a new cultural project happen. It can be anything from: poetry, paintings, fashion, zines, music, food, flowers, photographs to workshops or events. It can cover the cost of equipment, courses, your time, materials, travel, whatever your project needs.

Deadline: applications closed until Early April.

Apply here.

National Lottery

The Heritage Fund from the National Lottery prioritises heritage projects that will boost the local economy, encourage skills development and job creation, support wellbeing, create better places to live, work and visit, and improve the resilience of organisations working in heritage. Every project will need to achieve their inclusion outcome, ‘a wider range of people will be involved in heritage’. They will also expect all projects to demonstrate that they are building long-term environmental sustainability into their plans, as appropriate.

Deadline: none currently.

Apply here.

Nesta

The Arts and Culture Impact Fund from Nesta is a £20 million impact investment fund for the UK’s arts, culture and heritage social enterprises. The fund offers loans between £150,000 and £1 million repayable over a period of up to ten years. The fund sets out to achieve several objectives for the arts, cultural and heritage sectors.

Deadline: none currently.

Apply here.

Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Applications are open annually for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation's Teacher Development Fund Awards, offering eight grants of up to £165,000. The fund supports effective arts-based teaching and learning in schools. The fund's priorities include:

• Primary schools.
• Children and young people experiencing systemic inequality and disadvantage.
• Learning through the arts.
• Long-term, inquiry-based projects supporting teachers’ professional development.
• Contributions of school leaders and artists as professional learners and supporters of embedded learning through the arts in the curriculum.
• Approaches involving the following art forms: craft, creative writing, poetry, dance, design, film, music, opera, photography, media, drama, the visual arts and cross-arts practices.

Deadline: applications open in September 2024.

Apply here.

PPL Momentum Music Fund

The PPL Momentum Music Fund offers grants of £5k-£15k for UK based artists/bands to break through to the next level of their careers. Activities eligible for support include recording, touring and marketing.

Deadline: check deadlines before applying. Next deadline: 20 May 2024.

Apply here.

The Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF)

This programme from The Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF) supports projects that will contribute to the transformation of high streets and town centres in England helping them become thriving places, strengthening local communities and encouraging local economies to prosper. The AHF can provide grants to help with assessing the viability of a project, or to help fund development costs or to match funds raised through crowdfunding and community shares. They will also provide a small number of capital (delivery) grants for transformational projects.

Deadline: see website for further details.

Apply here.

The Ashley Family Foundation

Support is offered to organisations based in Wales, particularly in mid Wales, in the areas of Arts, small-scale arts projects and organisations that provide a wide range of educational and creative activities as well as funding arts education with a focus on helping promising young Welsh talent.

Support for: Rural projects that open up opportunities and help alleviate isolation and other rural hardships that affect communities.

A range of projects that bring people together to help each other out and make their community a better more joyful place with a focus on helping those who suffer from isolation and/or social disadvantage.

Deadline: 31 March 2024.

Apply here.

The Cruach Trust

The Trust provides grants of up to £2,000 for projects on the natural environment, including gardens, and for community and music-related organisations throughout the United Kingdom. Registered or recognised charities, societies, trusts or other bodies. The Trust will only consider applications from Scottish organisations with an income of less than £500,000. Grants awarded previously include supporting a horticultural apprenticeship, arranged through the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and grants for gardens, wildlife and the natural environment; for organisations working with children, young carers, the elderly, vulnerable and homeless; for music, the arts and cultural charities and for medical research and support.

Deadline: applications open in March 2024.

Apply here.

The Dulverton Trust

The Dulverton Trust is an independent grant making charity. They support UK charities and CIOs (charitable incorporated organisations) tackling a range of social issues, protecting the natural world, and preserving heritage crafts. The trust will prioritise organisations that are medium-sized (with an income between £200,000 and £3 million), have a national footprint and do not receive a significant proportion of income from government or local authority contracts.

Deadline: rolling.

Apply here.

The Golsoncott Foundation

The Golsoncott Foundation awards grants (normally up to £3,000) to arts organisations with projects that demonstrate and deliver excellence in the arts, be it in performance, exhibition, artistic craft, or scholarly endeavour. The Foundation’s objective is to promote, maintain, improve and advance the education of the public in the arts generally and in particular the fine arts and music. The trustees particularly favour applications from arts organisations whose raison d’être is the art form itself, and its perfection or excellence in performance. Additionally where applications concern young people, the trustees are interested in a long-lasting connection between them and the art, rather than a project offering little scope for further involvement.

Deadline: Ongoing. Apply a few weeks before trustees' meetings in February, May, August and November. High volume may prompt early closure, so apply early for thorough consideration.

Apply here.

The Linbury Trust

Theatres Trust's Small Grants Programme, supported by The Linbury Trust, funds small projects that make a big impact to a theatre’s resilience, sustainability, accessibility or improving the diversity of audiences. This scheme provides grants of up to £5,000 for essential works to enable not-for-profit theatres across the UK to be viable and thrive in the future. Priority will be given for improvements to buildings that protect theatre use and remove barriers to participation and attendance. Applicant must own or manage theatres with titles or signed leases of more than five years on buildings in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; run a year-round programme of live performance, of minimum 30 performances a year and be a bona fide UK charitable or not-for-profit legal structure and be able to provide certified or audited accounts for at least two years.

Deadline: 7 June 2024 (noon).

Apply here.

The Shears Foundation

The Shears Foundation welcomes applications for grants of £5,000 from registered charities. The Foundation will support core costs, including staffing but will not contribute to capital projects. Charities must be working in one of their priority areas, currently:

• The development of culture and the arts.
• The development and provision of educational opportunities for adults and / or children.
• Protection, preservation or enhancement of the natural environment.
• Creating stronger / better / more sustainable communities.
• Promoting health and medicine, with an emphasis on research or education. They currently don't consider applications from Hospices.

Deadline: applications considered on a quarterly basis. The next deadline is 29th February.

Apply here.

The Wolfson Foundation

The Wolfson Foundation's main grants programme provides support for places. These grants are for capital initiatives, for example buildings (new build or refurbishment) and equipment. They fund a broad range of organisations working across the fields of education, science and medicine, health and disability and arts and humanities.

Deadline: January and June.

Apply here.

Youth Music Catalyser Fund

Grants of between £30,001 and £300,000 are available to organisations in England that want to support children and young people facing barriers to make, learn and earn in music. The Youth Music Catalyser Fund will support organisations who want to make music activity more inclusive either by sustaining or scaling up their work or changing sector practice. Children and young people should be involved in the planning and development of programmes which must focus on at least one of the following themes: early years; Disabled, d/Deaf and neurodivergent young people; the youth justice system; young people facing barriers; young adults; or organisations and the workforce.

Deadline: 10 May.

Apply here.