The D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust

The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust funds United Kingdom Registered Charities operating in the UK in the fields of the advancement of the arts, health and medical welfare and environmental protection or improvement.

The charity focuses around three priority areas for funding:

• THE ARTS (overcoming barriers to participation, engaging with young people, performance development opportunities)
• MEDICAL WELFARE (music and art therapy, alleviating the suffering of people with medical conditions, support for carers)
• THE ENVIRONMENT (social and therapeutic horticulture projects, hands on conservation activities for young people, rural crafts and skills in heritage conservation)

The next grant making meeting will be on the 29th October 2024.

Grant amount: £500 to £6,000 

Deadline: Tuesday 24th September 

Find out more:

Imperial Community Impact Fund

Imperial Polythene is offering grants of up to £1,000 for charities, charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs), and community interest companies (CICs) across the UK to deliver projects and activities that benefit local communities across the themes of environment, sustainability, creativity, and local problem-solving.

Through the Imperial Community Impact Fund, a total of £10,000 is available annually for projects that drive meaningful change through environmental conservation, creative community participation, and solving pressing local challenges.

To apply, groups must have an annual income of between £25,000 and £500,000 in their latest set of accounts.

Grant amount: £1,000

Deadline: Thursday 26 September

Find out more:

Music for All

Music for All, the charity of the UK musical instrument industry, is offering an instrument-only funding round to community projects and to schools in the UK who are looking to enhance and expand their music provision. Priority will be given to applicants who are most in need of help.

Groups can apply for:

• audio equipment
• guitars
• ukuleles
• drumkits
• keyboards
• pbuzz instruments
• a grant of up to £5,000 for schools looking to deepen their music provision and support groups of music makers within their school. 

Deadline: Monday 30th September

Find out more: 

Unlimited UK and International Partner Awards 2024

The UK and International Partner Awards are intended to support disabled artists and foster connections and international collaboration across the arts sector. The focus is on artworks that engage communities in meaningful ways, challenge audience perceptions, and enhance visibility for disabled artists.

The awards available are:

• UK Partner Awards - awards range from £15,000 to £60,000 depending on where the artist is based.
• International Partner Awards - up to £50,000 for collaboration between UK-based and international disabled artists.

UK Partner Awards are open to professional disabled artists, or disabled artists leading the creation of work within disabled-led companies, who are based in England, Scotland or Wales.

International Partner Awards are open to professional disabled artists, or disabled artists leading the creation of work within disabled-led companies, and collaborations led by a disabled artist based in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales.

Deadline: Monday 30th September

Find out more:

The Hedley Foundation

The Hedley Foundation provides grants to smaller charities operating across the spectrum of social need.  Last year they supported hundreds of small charities, improving lives and lifting people’s aspirations.

PRS Foundation Composers' Fund

PRS Foundation’s Composers’ Fund is an opportunity for composers with a strong track record, giving direct access to funding at pivotal stages in their career.

A contribution of up to £8,000 – £15,000 is available to composers who are already making a significant cultural contribution in the UK and have the potential for greater impact in the UK and overseas.

Managed by PRS Foundation, The Composers’ Fund supports up to 15 composers per year who can make the case for the kind of support that would enable them to make a significant step change in their career.

Previous projects have included recordings, the promotion and performance of existing works, international co-commissions and development, performer collaboration, residencies, sabbaticals or childcare costs and project or promotional support.

Grant amount: £8,000 to £15,000

Deadline: Monday 7th October

Find out more:

Alzheimer's Research UK Inspire Fund

Inspire Fund provides funding for projects that engage the public with the topic of dementia and the life-changing research going on into the condition.

Inspire Fund projects must meet both core criteria:

1. Projects must engage with underserved audiences on the topic of dementia, such as minority ethnic communities, marginalised or socioeconomically disadvantaged people.
2. Build knowledge and understanding about brain health (in the context of dementia risk reduction) and explore ways to encourage behaviour change.

Grant amount: £5,000

Deadline: Monday 14th October

Find out more:

Our Local Nature Grants from Linnean Society

Linnean Society is offering grants for community organisations linked with young people to deliver projects and activities that engage young people with local nature and natural spaces and improve their understanding of local biodiversity.

Community groups and other organisations working directly with children and young people aged 16 and under can apply for funding for a variety of activities, such as:

• Running a school festival about nature.
• Painting community murals showcasing biodiversity in the area.
• Building or restoring a community garden.
• Creating a nature walk.
• Hiring a speaker to come and talk about local foraging.

Grant amount: up to £1,000

Deadline: Thursday 24th October

Find out more:

Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Teacher Development Fund

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation envisions a more equitable school system where high-quality arts-based learning is a core part of all children’s education. They believe that arts-based teaching and learning can add value and help schools achieve their aspirations for pupils. This fund achieves this by: 

• focusing on pupils who experience systemic inequity and enabling them to access and make progress in their learning;
• supporting arts organisations and schools working in equal partnerships to exchange and enrich their expertise;
• recognising teachers are critical to pupils’ outcomes;
• creating high-quality inspiring professional learning for teachers;
• enabling teachers and artist practitioners to learn and work together in the classroom;
• building a body of evidence and practice and understanding how the work improves equity for pupils; and
• generating sustainable changes in teaching and learning in schools for the long-term.

Grant amount: up to £165,000

Deadline: Wednesday 13th November at 12 noon

Find out more:

Youth Music NextGen Fund

The NextGen Fund provided by Youth Music is intended to help early-stage musicians and wider music adjacent creatives to invest in their own projects and make their ideas happen. The fund is especially aimed at those whose lack of finance holds them back from pursuing their goals.

The tenth round of the programme is accepting applications from 18-25 year old creatives (under-30s who identify as d/Deaf or disabled) in the UK to support the development of a creative project or idea. Applicants may include singers, rappers, songwriters, producers, DJs, A&Rs, managers and agents, right through to roles that have yet to be defined.

Priority will be given to:

• People who do not have the financial means to invest in themselves to get their ideas started
• People that are too early-stage to be funded by larger grant programmes such as Arts Council England and PRS Foundation
• Those who might be discriminated against, for reasons that could include gender, race, disability, location or other characteristics
• People who are creative, entrepreneurial and are multi-disciplinary - even if they do not recognise themselves as such

Grant amount: up to £2,500

Deadline: Friday 15th November at 5pm

Find out more:

Cultural Bridge

Cultural Bridge supports arts and cultural organisations across the UK and Germany to develop partnerships that explore social arts practice.

By enabling new and existing connections, the programme supports a growing network of organisations committed to sharing expertise and skills, exchanging ideas and collaborating on artistic practices and projects that explore themes and issues faced by communities across both countries.

Grant amount(s):

• Tier 1: up to £10,000 per partnership
• Tier 2: up to £30,000 per partnership

Deadline: the 2025-2026 Cultural Bridge programme application portal will be open from Tuesday 15th October to Tuesday 26th November 2024.

Find out more:

The Foyle Foundation

The Foyle Foundation is a major funder of arts charities across the U.K. The foundation will consider applications towards core project costs, projects, environmental efficiency, equipment and capital through both their grant schemes:

Main Grants Scheme: they consider applications from charities with a core remit of the Arts to both sustain the Arts and to widen audiences. They look for clear artistic mission, value for money, long term benefit and sustainability in projects they support.

Small Grants Scheme: aimed at supporting small charities with a turnover of less than £150k per annum.

Grant amounts:

• Small grants: between £2,000 and £10,000
• Main grants: £75,000 and over

Deadline: open until 31st January 2025

Find out more:

Idlewild Trust Arts and Conservation funds

Idlewild Trust support two grant programmes: 

• Arts: Nurturing Early-Stage Professionals - grants to support training opportunities for emerging professionals, working creatively and backstage, within the performing and visual arts, post-training, and at an early stage in their career.
• Conservation: Objects and Works of Art - grants to support the conservation of cultural heritage of recognized national and international importance in museums, libraries, galleries, historic buildings, or landscapes accessible to the public. Priority will be given to applications that include a knowledge sharing element as an outcome of the project. Applications must include a treatment proposal from an accredited conservator.

Grant amount: maximum of £7,000

Deadlines: Round Two opens 2nd December 2024 and closes 14th February 2025.

Find out more:

Paul Hamlyn Foundation's Arts-based Learning Fund

The foundation supports arts and cultural organisations to work in partnership with schools and make arts-based learning a core part of education.

The fund envisions a more equitable school system where high-quality arts-based learning is a core part of all children’s education. They believe that arts-based teaching and learning can add value and help schools achieve their aspirations for pupils.

The fund achieves this by:

• supporting arts organisations to work in partnership with formal education settings leading to a mutual exchange and enrichment of expertise;
• focusing on pupils who experience systemic inequity and enabling them to make progress and overcome barriers to learning;
• exploring the role of arts-based learning in addressing issues of inclusion, especially racism, in education;
• creating more opportunities for high quality arts-based teaching and learning in education settings, especially in those which have not had this work in the past;
• enabling arts-based learning to be embedded in curricula and practice for the long-term; and
• building a body of evidence and practice, and understanding how the work improves equity for pupils.

Grant amount: between £30,000 to £100,000

Deadline: rolling

Find out more:

Historic Houses Foundation

The Historic Houses Foundation gives grants for the repair and conservation of rural historic buildings and structures in England and Wales, including their gardens, grounds and outbuildings. They also give grants for the restoration and conservation of works of art in historic house collections open to the public.

Grants are made to owners (charities, institutions, local authorities and individuals) who demonstrate a sustainable and long-term commitment to the care, management and public access of the historic country houses in their care.

They aim to make grants for projects which either do not qualify for funding from any of the mainstream sources or have been awarded only partial funding. They will also consider making grants to kick start a project but will expect further funding to be in place within 1 to 2 years.

Grant amounts: The minimum grant amount is £1,000, the maximum is £250,000 though awards of this size are only made in exceptional circumstances. Most grants are less than £50,000.

Deadline: rolling

Find out more:

National Lottery Heritage Grants

National Lottery Heritage Grants form part of the National Lottery Heritage Fund's new 10-year strategy, Heritage 2033, that aims to invest £3.6 billion across the UK with grants ranging from £10,000 up to £10 million.

The strategy is centred around a simplified framework of four investment principles:

• Saving heritage.
• Protecting the environment.
• Inclusion, access and participation.
• Organisational sustainability.

Grants are available to support projects of up to five years that care for and sustain heritage in the UK. This could include nature and habitats, historic buildings and environments, or cultures, traditions and people’s memories. 

Grant amounts: there are two levels of grants available £10,000 to £250,000 or grants from £250,000 to £10 million

Deadline: rolling

Find out more here: