Main Grants Scheme

The Foyle Foundation is an independent grantmaking trust that distributes grants to UK charities. The Foundation does not support applications from individuals.

The Foundation’s Main Grants Scheme supports charities whose core work covers Arts and Learning.

Arts:

The Foundation seeks applications that make a strong artistic case for support in either the performing or visual arts. Their Arts programme has a twofold purpose to help sustain the arts and to support projects that particularly help to deliver artistic vision. The Foundation looks for value for money and sustainability in projects that they support. Typical areas of support include:

• helping to make the arts more accessible by developing new audiences, supporting tours, festivals and arts educational projects; • encouraging new work and supporting young and emerging artists; • building projects that improve or re-equip existing arts venues (rather than construction of new facilities, although this will not be excluded); and • projects that reduce overheads or which help generate additional revenue.

Generally, the Foundation makes grants for specific projects/activities. Applications for core funding (but generally only from smaller organisations or from those not receiving recurrent revenue funding from the Arts Council or local authorities) will be considered.

Please note that community arts activity will not generally be supported.

Learning The Foundation will support projects which facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and which have a long-term strategic impact. Key areas for support are:

• libraries, museums and archives; • special educational needs and learning difficulties; and • projects that reduce overheads or which help generate additional revenue will also be considered.

For state funded schools our main initiative will be The Foyle School Libraries Scheme. Dedicated schools catering for those with Special Educational Needs (SEN) may also be supported. Private schools will not generally be supported.

For Universities the Foundation will support arts, museum, archive or special collection projects, usually for capital, which meet a clear public benefit. All University projects should enable general and not just specialist use, the majority of time, and not be limited to out of term use, or be relatively inaccessible by being sited in remote parts of University buildings or campuses where public access will be restricted. In all cases the Foundation will expect Universities to be contributing to the project in financial and not just in-kind terms. Some grants may be offered on a matched funding basis.

Citizenship, esteem-building, training, skills acquisition to aid employment, independent living, early learning projects or playgroups will not generally be considered under the Main Grants Scheme.

Additional information Grants of between £10,000 – £50,000 will usually be awarded. Please note for projects seeking more than £50,000 the Foundation will now only consider these twice per year in the Spring and Autumn. Therefore it could be six months or more before a decision on your project is made. The Foundation can only accept applications from organisations with charitable status. This includes registered charities, charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs), excepted charities and exempt charities. Applications from small charities with a turnover of less than £5,000 that have a HMRC charity number will also be considered.

Further Criteria to Consider When Making an Application for Funding

• We are unlikely to support start-up costs for new charities.
• We are unlikely to consider social and community welfare charities under the Main Grants Scheme.
• We are unlikely to consider applications from grant making charities.

Please note, except for core costs, most grants offered will be for restricted funding and cannot be spent on any other purpose without the permission of The Foyle Foundation. Organisations and projects that provide direct benefits and services to the general public (rather than special interest groups) will be favoured.

We will support projects/initiatives where applicants work in partnership on joint projects with other similar organisations. In such cases a lead organisation, to which any grant will be made, must be identified.

Retrospective funding will not be considered, nor will funding for projects that have already started. Below we illustrate some of the overarching key aspects and themes of support for each sector. Please note that our support is not restricted to these activities.