A national reputation for funding the arts

It began operating as a foundation in 2001, with a board mandate to make a mark, think differently and not to be hidebound by conventions of how trusts and foundations worked at the time. There was also an aim to become a foundation leader in the areas we funded. 

Initially, our remit was to support arts, learning and health but after a few years we dropped health, as so much funding was already raised the that areas and we were not making a difference. Instead, we concentrated on arts and learning where we developed a national reputation. The was focus – though not exclusively – was on young people across, given the fall in arts education and cutbacks in youth work.

We decided on a flexible open grants programme, rather than restricted funding for which the application criteria would have excluded many. The range of grants offered was considerable – from £10,000 to £300,000 – rising later to £500,000, the higher amounts for capital projects.

Flexibility, transparency and adaptability

Allocating £2m a year, our legacy was unrestricted with no specific donor funding requirements, and we were an independent rather than a family trust. So in 2008, following the financial crisis, we took the formal decision to spend out over a 20–25-year period. But with the onset of austerity and reductions in public funding, more funding was needed more quickly to do more good, sooner and to benefit more people. In response, our funding steadily rose to £5m, then £7m and finally £10m a year.

In 2009, we began a small grants scheme to support grassroots community organisations with both core and project funding, as austerity bit hard and local authority/public funding cutbacks significantly reduced their income. Unlike our main grants scheme this was not limited to arts and learning but was across any area.

A key to our success was flexibility, transparency and adaptability. The foundation prided itself on this and its willingness to fund the unfashionable but necessary and to fund both revenue and capital funding.

Literacy legacy

We conducted a strategic review annually and adapted our funding accordingly to make greater impact. Our application process was simple and we would always talk to potential applicants or give feedback to those when requested. And we went on to establish some long-term special programmes.

Alarmed by the drop in literacy and reading, we were shocked to learn it was not mandatory for a primary school to have a library. So, in 2009, we launched a national programme to replenish school libraries and to encourage a lifelong love of reading. By 2024 we had funded over 2,300 school libraries and invested in a legacy project with the National Literacy Trust to continue the work.

To encourage creative writing, from 2003, we invested in the Foyle Young Poets (for 11- to-18-year-olds) run by the Poetry Society. This became a top national literary competition, attracting entrants from over 30 countries worldwide. There is hardly a published UK young poet who has not been a Foyle winner. Again, a legacy gift to the Poetry Society enables this to continue.

Supporting capital projects

Few trusts or foundations support capital projects, which meant we were part of a special cohort of sought-after funders. We made grants to organisations where a capital project would be transformative and of long-term strategic benefit such as the RSC, Leeds Playhouse, The Hallé orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bowes Museum, the Foundling Museum, Salisbury Museum to name just a few.

Over our quarter of a century history, hundreds of theatres, art centres, museums and community halls have been funded with a Foyle capital grant to enable them to upgrade, generate higher income and enable more people to benefit or take part.

By 2014, with austerity still biting and continued reductions in public funding, we began to offer core, rather than project funding, to organisations with little or no public funding. In addition, we encouraged investment in income-generating activities and ways of reducing costs, including energy efficiency. During the pandemic, we increased available funding and transferred project grants to core funding to ensure survival of many organisations.

A bang not a whimper

Lately, our focus on capital projects has shifted towards renewing existing infrastructure and addressing the backlog of maintenance and equipment renewal rather than new builds, with an increased emphasis on energy and cost reduction.

As we approached our planned closedown, we wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper. In addition to increasing mainstream funding – over £10m a year – we decided to make 14 legacy projects of long-term strategic benefit across all nations of the UK and regionally across England – carefully selected after years of research. 

While spending down, this was undertaken in a climate of slowly expanding fundraising and with philanthropy increasingly being promoted. Next month, at the end of 2025 when the foundation closes after 25 years, we will have given £185m to charitable causes. Quite an achievement – and a tribute to our successful investment strategy over the years – to have more than tripled our £59m legacy.