Funding

Introduction

How we fund the arts

Grants for the arts
We fund arts activities that benefit people in England, or that help artists and arts organisations. If you have an idea for something you want to do with the arts, find out more about Grants for the arts, our main open application funding programme.

Sustain
Sustain is a £40 million, open application fund which provides extra support for organisations under pressure as a result of recession. This is not a fund for failing organisations, but a way that we can sustain artistic excellence in the context of the economic downturn.

Regular funding for organisations
We regularly fund around 880 arts organisations on a three-year basis, investing £350million per annum by 2010/11. Our support helps bring high quality work to a wide range of people - as both audience and participants.

Cultural leadership programme
We launched this programme in May 2006 to promote excellence in management and leadership.

Own Art
This interest-free loan scheme is designed to make it easy and affordable for people to buy contemporary works of art.

Managed funds
Managed funds allow us to identify new opportunities for the arts, take new initiatives, establish new partnerships and address particular ambitions for growth. These funds are not normally open to application.

Urban cultural programme
The Urban cultural programme provided lottery funding for cultural projects in urban areas across the UK, between 2004 and 2006.

Our funding marks (logos)

If you or your organisation receives funding from us, you must acknowledge it with the correct funding mark. The funding mark you use depends on whether your funding was supported by the National Lottery.

Grant conditions

You can find our standard conditions for all our funding and other relevant information at grant conditions

The National Lottery

The National Lottery has transformed the landscape for audiences and artists, injecting around £2 billion into the arts. Lottery funding supports Grants for the arts - organisations.
Read more about lottery investment
Read about projects supported by lottery funding