Arts and Culture Impact Fund LLP

Making socially impactful arts, cultural and heritage organisations more enterprising and financially resilient.

Challenge

The UK’s arts, cultural and heritage institutions provide creative opportunities, jobs and valuable income for our communities; they also have the power to transform people’s lives, engage marginalised individuals and drive social change. However, they face a challenge in securing the limited amount of grants available from public and private sources.

Approach

Nesta brought together a mix of public, private and philanthropic investors - Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Big Society Capital, Bank of America, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Freelands Foundation and Nesta – to create the Arts & Culture Impact Fund.

Fund

The fund combines concessionary and market rate capital to make affordable (3%-8.5% interest rates), flexible loans (ranging from £150,000 to £1 million) to arts, culture and heritage organisations that have a positive social impact on people and the communities they live in. It is now the world’s biggest impact investment fund for the creative arts.

• Fund size

  £23 million

• Big Society Capital commitment

  £3 million