Frequently Asked Questions

Repayable finance is a broad term encompassing many financial products such as overdrafts, secured and unsecured loans, bonds and equity investment. It refers to any fund that must be repaid with interest over a set period and is a type of investment. In recent years, awareness of the positive (and negative) outcomes of investing has grown, leading to practices such as negative screening (where certain types of companies are excluded from consideration, often on moral or ethical grounds), responsible investing (taking into account environmental, social and corporate governance issues) and impact investing, which explicitly seeks out positive social and/or environmental impact as well as a financial return. Social investment and impact investment are often used interchangeably, especially when it comes to investment funds focused on tackling social issues. We prefer to use impact investment or, for the avoidance of doubt, social impact investment.

Social impact investment is the use of repayable finance to achieve a social as well as financial return. There is a lot of information on how impact investment works and what funding and support is available for organisations seeking to take on this type of investment, available on our Resources page.

We invest in organisations working in the creative and cultural sector. Different funds have specific eligibility criteria depending on their objectives and the investors backing the fund. For more details, please see the page of the fund you are interested in applying to or contact a member of our team.

We do not fund individual artists. If you are an artist looking to raise investment, you could apply in partnership with an incorporated organisation or set up your own enterprise. There are also other forms of funding and support available to individual artists, such as Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice fund. We list some of these on our Resources page.

Our funds have different eligibility criteria due to the requirements of our investors. The Arts & Culture Impact Fund is open to organisations across the UK. You can check the full eligibility criteria for each fund we manage by visiting that fund’s page.

You are not required to submit a formal application form. You can send an enquiry for finance using the Enquire page on our website or get in touch with us using the contact details provided in the footer at the bottom of this page.

A member of our team will assess your enquiry against the eligibility criteria of each fund to determine whether it could proceed to the next stage of the investment application process. If unsuccessful, we will notify you via email. Should your enquiry go through to the next stage, we will be in touch for further information, which will help us decide which fund your enquiry is most suitable for and whether your organisation is ready to take on investment. If your application reaches the investment proposal stage, you will be expected to provide further information and meet with the Figurative team as part of a due diligence process. More information about this process is available on our Resources page. You can always contact us if you would like further feedback about your investment enquiry or our decision.

The time it takes to go through the investment process – from initial enquiry to the signing of a loan agreement – varies and is largely dependent on the strength of the investment case and the quality of the applicant’s supporting information (e.g. business plans, financial forecasts, social impact reports). This process is likely to take at least three months and could take as many as 12. If your enquiry is time sensitive, we would suggest getting in touch with us as soon as possible. Additional time may be required if your organisation needs further support to take on investment and depending on the date of our next investment committee meeting.

Applications for investment to our funds are open on a rolling basis. Please visit the Arts & Culture Finance page for more information.

We work with organisations to identify and address specific barriers or challenges they face before we can invest with them. If our in-house capacity or resources prevent us from providing the necessary support, we can refer you to apply for targeted support in one or more areas from the Reach Fund, of which we are a designated Access Point. Other organisations also offer investment readiness support, you can see some of them on our Resources page.

Interest rates are variable depending on which fund you receive investment from and on the circumstances of your organisation. The rates we offer are fixed rates and are not affected by changes in the Bank of England base rate. Please visit the Arts & Culture Finance page for more details.

At the initial stages of an enquiry, a member of our team decides whether it meets the basic eligibility criteria for investment and if your organisation is ready to take on repayable finance. If successful at this stage, we work with organisations through a process of due diligence and write an investment proposal, which we present to an Investment Committee comprising fund stakeholders and independent professionals from the cultural and creative and social finance sectors. The Committee will assess the investment proposal and make a final decision as to whether or not your organisation has been successful in securing investment from us.

Anyone may raise a concern about an organisation that has applied to us or has received investment through us. We will always take such concerns very seriously and will ensure that they are thoroughly investigated. If you would like to raise a concern, or make a complaint about Figurative, please email us after reading our full complaints procedure here.