The Arts Foundation believe that creative practice is integral to the well-being of society and a human right. Our work champions the contemporary arts, giving individual awards to artists at a pivotal moment in their career trajectory. We believe that giving recognition and unconditional financial support to artists enables them to move to new levels and has long-term benefits for their practice.
We value the encouragement of communication and interaction between artists themselves and support artists who are thinking outside the discipline and are innovative in their practice. The Arts Foundation prioritises art forms where we hope we can make a real difference and are responsive and open to new areas of arts practice.
Our aims for the coming years include increasing the number and level of awards we are able to give to those who will make a significant contribution to the arts. We have also established a Patron’s programme to encourage individual supporters of the awards through our fundraising and development initiatives.
Through all our activities we strive to maintain the organisation’s purpose of giving breathing space to artists and to make each and every award life-changing for the recipient.
Equality, Diversity, Access and Inclusion Policy
The Arts Foundation recognise that in our society, power is not held equally and that groups and individuals have been and continue to be discriminated against on many grounds including race, gender, disability, class, care responsibilities, geography and socio-economic group. As a charity, we are committed to improving inclusion in the arts through the support we offer to talented artists and creatives across the UK.
The Arts Foundation is fortunate to collaborate with a range of established professionals, artists and creative practitioners, academics, and subject experts in our award-category disciplines who feed into the nomination and jury process. The nominations network and independent jury members change annually and support us to identify the most promising artists and creatives living and working in the UK.
Given that our fellowship scheme, the Arts Foundation Futures Awards, is not open access, it is important that we action an effective access, inclusion, equality and diversity policy. This ensures that we consider all areas of the artistic community within the framework of the fellowship scheme, and set out actions that make its processes accessible and inclusive. We also aim to ensure that the Arts Foundation is truly a national charity serving the interests of artists and creatives across the UK.
Policy and Action
We are continuing to work towards the following actions for 2022-25:
- Annually review all the participants in our fellowship programme (advisors, nominators, jurors applicants, trustees) through the foundation’s access and inclusion survey to capture data for yearly evaluation to support diverse inclusion, disability, and a range of socio-economic groupings and non-London centric geographic representation, with the following minimum targets; 20% Black, Asian, Global Ethnic Majority; 40% reside outside of London & Greater London; 8% consider themselves to have a disability.
- Ensure that all internal and public events organised by the Foundation or affiliated organisations are in accessible venues. For online events, the Foundation will where possible, ensure work is captioned for deaf audiences.
- Ensure that as well as having specific expertise in different art forms, that we will in 2022-25 work towards a fully representative board of trustees, with regards to age, race, gender and disability. This work will be aided by an annual assessment of the trustees’ audit and the foundation’s access and inclusion survey.
- Ensuring other organisations and individuals know we strongly support diversity and equal opportunity by including such information in our correspondence and interactions with all participants.
- Ensure that the fellowship scheme application process is transparent, easy to navigate and a supportive process for all. The access and inclusion survey also encourages responses about how we can support and improve future processes.
- Ensure that funding is available to ensure that all trustees, ambassadors, advisors, shortlisted artists and their nominators can attend the Arts Foundation Futures Awards ceremony, so that we do not discriminate on the basis of age, disability, geographical location, care responsibilities, and or financial situation.
Process and Change
Much of our data related to equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion will be derived from surveys given to our fellowship programme participants on an annual basis. We recognise that it’s a learning process and we are committed to annually evaluating the data and questionnaire format and changing policy based on our findings.
Environmental Sustainability
As a responsible funder, we are committed to developing more sustainable and environmentally-friendly practices across all our work. Our approach has been influenced by the Charity Commission report Environmental Responsibility for Charities and best practice within the Arts and Culture sector.
Our charity is committed to the following:
- Reducing, reusing and recycling materials and consumables whenever possible and using suppliers who actively pursue their own environmental policies.
- Ensuring our office is located at premises where there is a sound sustainable policy.
- Making use of digital platforms where possible for meetings to reduce travel costs and carbon emissions.
- Informing our design-based nominators to consider our support of sustainable practices. Since 2014 we have championed innovative design practices working towards greater symbiosis.
- Moving to investment funds that are both sustainable and environmentally aware.
Privacy Policy
The Arts Foundation complies with UK GDPR regulations.