Arts & Culture Impact Fund

£150,000 – £1,000,000

An £16 million social impact investment fund for socially driven arts, culture and heritage organisations registered and operating in the UK. The Arts & Culture Impact Fund provides affordable repayable finance that can be used, among other things, to acquire new assets, improve built infrastructure, develop new ventures or scale up existing revenue streams. Currently accepting applications.

Active

Repayable finance

Currently accepting applications. Apply here.

Funding Available
£150,000 – £1,000,000

Loan Type
Secured and Unsecured

Repayment Period
Until May 2034

Interest Rates
From 4 to 8.5% Representative

Fees
1% completion fee
2% per annum, pro rata holding fee (when funds are held longer than 3 months)
No early repayment fee

Geographic Area Covered
United Kingdom (UK)

Find out more about the Arts & Culture Impact Fund below. If you are interested in applying for funding, please complete our enquiry form.

Background and History

The Arts & Culture Impact Fund brings together a mix of public, private and philanthropic investors – Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Better Society Capital, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Freelands Foundation and Nesta.

The fund builds on the success of the Arts Impact Fund, a pilot initiative launched in 2015 to demonstrate how impact investment could transform the arts and cultural sector.

The Arts & Culture Impact Fund sets out to achieve several objectives for the arts, cultural and heritage sectors:

Provide organisations with appropriate and bespoke repayable finance
Develop the financial resilience of borrowers
Support organisations to better monitor, evaluate and communicate their social impact
Attract additional investment into the sector to help organisations thrive
Promote the wider positive impact the arts, culture and heritage have on society and support more organisations to benefit individuals and communities through their work.

Funding

The Arts & Culture Impact Fund offers secured and unsecured finance between £150,000 and £1,000,000 with repayment term available until May 2034 and interest rates ranging between 4% and 8.5%.

Eligibility Criteria

Your organisation’s primary activity is in arts, culture and heritage
Your organisation’s core operations or activity should be based in the arts, culture and heritage. For example, a dementia charity using art to engage its beneficiaries would not be eligible to apply for investment. However, a theatre providing outreach performances in local schools to target disadvantaged children would meet our criteria.

Eligible organisations must work in one of the following disciplines:
- Architecture
- Combined arts
- Crafts
- Culture and heritage in the natural environment
- Dance
- Fashion design & textiles
- Film
- Graphic design
- Heritage
- Libraries & archives
- Literature
- Museums
- Music
- Sector support organisation
- Theatre and performance
- Visual arts
- Workspace provider
Your organisation is registered and operating in the UK

We can only work with organisations registered in the UK and primarily benefiting communities in the UK. Digital organisations will need to demonstrate their primary audiences are based in the UK.

We do not make loans to individuals, sole traders, partnerships or unincorporated bodies (unless their partners/members are exclusively corporate bodies).
Your organisation has a clear social mission, reflected in its structure and governance

To be eligible, your organisation has to demonstrate that has a clear social mission. This may include asset-lock and a restriction of the personal gain derived from its work. Charities, community interest companies and community benefit societies with a recognised charitable purpose are eligible for investment. Other incorporated entities, such as companies limited by shares, will be considered based on the strength of their social mission and whether the majority of their profit will be reinvested into that mission.
Your organisation is able to demonstrate measurable social impact on individuals or communities in the UK

When applying, you will need to show how your organisation delivers specific positive outcomes for individuals or communities. The expectation is that a plan will be put in place to evaluate progress towards these outcomes throughout the life of the investment. In general, we expect organisations to have articulated their theory of change either formally or implicitly as well as to have developed (or be in the process of developing) appropriate tools and processes for impact management.