Cultural Impact Development Fund

£25,000 – £150,000

The Cultural Impact Development Fund offered small-scale repayable finance to socially driven arts and cultural organisations working with the people and communities in greatest need. This fund is now closed.

Inactive

Repayable finance

This fund is now closed

Investment window
September 2018 to December 2020

Funding available
£25,000 to £150,000

Repayment period
1 to 5 years

Repayment holidays
Up to 12 months’ capital holiday

Interest rates
5.5% to 8.5%

Fees
1% completion fee
2% holding fee per annum, pro rata
(minimum holding period is 6 months)
No early repayment fee

Geographic area covered
England

Find out more about the Cultural Impact Development Fund below. Please note: this fund is now closed.

Fund objectives

To enable enterprising, ambitious organisations in the arts and cultural sector to take on small-scale repayable finance in order to achieve social outcomes and financial resilience
To increase the capability of arts and cultural organisations to achieve, monitor, evaluate, and articulate their intended social impact

Funding available

The Cultural Impact Development Fund offers repayable finance of between £25,000 and £150,000 in the form of an unsecured loans and/or quasi-equity, tailored to the circumstances of each organisation. We also offer a blended loan and grant finance package whereby the level of grant funding is, on average, 10% of the total investment offer. We do not offer standalone grant funding.

The loan and grant funding are treated as part of our overall investment package and may be used in combination with each other for any approved investment purpose, such as:

Developing a new income stream
Growing an existing strand of work
Purchasing essential equipment
Refurbishing a building
Pre-funding a fundraising campaign

As part of our commitment to social impact, the Fund also offers financial offsets in recognition of the achievement of social impact targets. The financial offset takes the form of an annual reduction to the interest rate on the loan portion of an investment where the total repayment period is 3 years or more.

Additional support available

Alongside our investment, the Cultural Impact Development Fund offers a tailored package of guidance and support to each organisation in our portfolio. This includes:

Regular 1-to-1 support on business management, financial management, and impact management
Marketing and promotional support through our website, newsletter, and social media channels
Peer-to-peer learning and networking opportunities with other enterprising and socially driven organisations across the Arts & Culture Finance portfolio
Group training and webinar events with sector experts and consultants on topics of interest to organisations across the Arts & Culture Finance portfolio

Eligibility Criteria

Your organisation’s primary activity is in arts and culture
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 England

The Fund is financed by The National Lottery Community Fund and Big Society Capital. Because these sources include public money, we can only work with organisations registered in England and primarily benefiting communities in England. Digital organisations will need to demonstrate their primary audiences are based in England.
Your organisation has a clear social mission, reflected in its structure and governance
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. To be eligible, you must be able to demonstrate that your organisation:
- Has a clear social mission
- Distributes less than 50% of post-tax profits and reinvests at least 51% of surpluses into pursuing its social mission, and
- Has a constitutional or contractual lock on its social mission and dividend or surplus distribution policy (also known as an asset lock).
Your organisation works with people and communities within our scope of approved beneficiaries
To be eligible, your organisation should work with people and communities who fall within our scope of approved beneficiaries (although you do not need to work exclusively with these groups). This means that you must be able to demonstrate your organisation’s commitment to reaching and engaging these beneficiaries, understanding of their additional needs, and ability to support these needs.

If your organisation’s beneficiaries do not fit within the list below but you think your organisation may still be eligible for investment, please get in touch and speak to a member of our team, who will be able to advise you.

Approved beneficiaries
- People experiencing long-term unemployment
- Homeless people
- People living in poverty and/or financial exclusion
- People with addiction issues
- People with long-term health conditions/life-threatening or terminal illness
- People with learning disabilities
- People with mental health needs
- People with physical disabilities or sensory impairments
- Voluntary carers
- Vulnerable parents
- Vulnerable children (including looked-after children)
- Vulnerable young people and NEETs
- Older people (including people with dementia)
- Ex/offenders
- People who have experienced crime or abuse
Your organisation is committed to improving its social impact practice

As part of our objective to support arts and cultural organisations to develop their impact capacity, the Fund offers 1-to-1 impact management support to all organisations in its portfolio, tailored to the needs and goals of each organisation. This typically includes support developing tools such as your Theory of Change and evaluation framework, reviewing your impact reporting, and reflecting on and embedding learning into your approach. It also includes guidance on setting appropriate social impact targets for your financial offset.

We expect all organisations we invest in to be committed to improving their social impact practice and engaging with this impact management support. Engagement with this support is a requirement for receiving the social impact financial offset.
What we don't fund
- Individuals, sole traders, and unregistered partnerships
- Organisations that promote party political or religious beliefs
- Organisations that seek to substitute services already funded by Exchequer expenditure
- Organisations whose governing document does not allow it to carry out the proposed project or to take on investment
- Organisations that are unable to evidence a source of repayment for the investment
- Organisations that are unable to evidence social impact with the Fund’s approved beneficiaries
- Organisations that are insolvent
- Organisations that have already received £150,000 investment from another Growth Fund, unless a portion of that investment has already been repaid
- Organisations that are seeking a total investment of more than £150,000 for a single project, even if the excess above £150,000 is funded by a third-party funder
- Organisations that would be in breach of State Aid requirements as a result of the investment
If you are not sure whether any of these exclusions apply to your organisation, please get in touch and speak with a member of our team, who will be able to advise you.