Legacy grants totalling £18m announced by Foyle Foundation

Funding for legacy projects ‘of long-term benefit, national importance and strategic value’ has been announced by The Foyle Foundation.

The £18m funding will support 14 projects in total, two of which will be announced later in the year.

Recipients of the initial 12 legacy grants include British Library Yorkshire, Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Ulster Orchestra.

The awards range from £500,000 for the Poetry Society and Britten Pears Arts, up to £2m for the Glasshouse International Centre for Music, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, and V&A East.

The grants are part of the foundation’s final year of operation as it prepares for its planned closure at the end of 2025.

David Hall, chief executive of the Foyle Foundation, said: “In addition to an increased budget for our normal grant giving programmes in our final year of operation, the foundation wished to make a range of strategic grants across the country which would be of national and regional importance and of long-term benefit to sector leaders.

“This would ensure an enduring legacy for the Foyle Foundation and make a long-lasting positive impact on the lives of young people and others and show imaginative ways to encourage philanthropy for those who have the ambition to support the arts and learning.”

The Foyle Foundation was established in 2000 as an independent grant giving trust, mainly working in the fields of arts and learning. It stopped accepting new applications at the end of January.

By the time it closes in December it will have distributed more than £180m to more than 7,000 UK charities and schools.