In April last, 2024, they refreshed their Arts Fund, moving to a model of funding based on rounds rather than a rolling process. Now the second round of this funding has finished, they share details on the next phase – up to April 2027.
In the two rounds to date, they received 816 applications from arts organisations, requesting a total of £166m. By comparison, the Arts Fund’s annual budget is £6.5m. This means that, despite the quality of many applications, only 7% of organisations were successful. The volume of demand means the success rate has more than halved over the past four years.
Given this unprecedented demand, they are thinking carefully about how to maintain a healthy balance between renewing grants to organisations they already fund while also seeking opportunities to support new organisations whose work resonates with their mission.
What the Arts Fund will look like this year
They believe an open application process should be as effective and worthwhile as possible for those applying, and they do not think the current model is working as well as it could be. To improve this, they will consider different approaches over the next year, sharing further details as it takes shape.
For the next financial year (from October 2025 until at least April 2027), they will revisit a small number of applications that were declined in the last two rounds, and they will renew grants with some organisations whose funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation is coming to an end over the next year. They will make grants to a total value of £6.5m in 2026–27 – the same level of funding as in the previous year.
They will not be open to new applications or expressions of interest for the time being.
To read more about their decision to focus on renewing existing grants and revisiting applications received in the last year, in this blog from their Head of Programme – Arts, Shoubhik Bandopadhyay.
