At Arts Fundraising & Philanthropy, we work to empower arts and cultural professionals by supporting them to develop their practice and find creative, new approaches to fundraising.
In the 2025 round of Networks Funding, we are specifically supporting diverse-led arts, culture and heritage organisations. As this programme is funded by Arts Council England, we used the ACE definition of diverse-led organisations:
‘By ‘diverse led’ we mean organisations where 51% or more of the board and senior management team identify as:
- Black, Asian and Ethnically diverse
- Disabled
- Female
- LGBTQ+
- From a lower socio-economic background’
We are pleased to introduce the four organisations, for whom the funding will contribute to the development of new training events, conferences, seminars or meetings, with the aim of strengthening fundraising skills and building robust partnerships across the sector.
The 2025 Diverse-Led Networks Funding organisations are:
Essex Cultural Diversity Project
Essex Cultural Diversity Project is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation that promotes cultural diversity in arts and heritage. Its mission is to create opportunities, encourage participation, and foster the development and celebration of diversity through arts and heritage activities.
The project delivers a dynamic programme of festivals, events, and commissions for artists to explore community, diversity, and place. It also supports artists, arts organisations, and communities through training, networking, and offering platforms for their work.
Strategically collaborating with creative practitioners, the culture and heritage sectors, diverse communities, and the voluntary sector, the project focuses on skill development, building networks, and expanding opportunities for diverse artists.
The funding will allow the organisations to run three informal salon events to upskill 60 diverse artists in Essex.
Find out more about Essex Cultural Diversity Project below.
Flare Arts CIC
Flare Arts fosters sustainable cultural change by upskilling deaf creatives in the arts through professional and creative development workshops, exhibition opportunities, sector-specific deaf awareness training, and mentoring to help challenge barriers.
The craft department supports and upskills D/deaf craft artists, enabling them to develop their practice and approach the industry with accessible support. Similarly, the visual arts department aids D/deaf visual artists in advancing their practice with accessible guidance. The curating department focuses on developing accessible curatorial frameworks and providing consultancy to hearing arts organisations.
This is all achieved through a unique structure, lived experience, and professional expertise.
Find out more about Flare Arts CIC below.
Marlborough Productions
Marlborough Productions creates and elevates intersectional queer culture, recognised both nationally and internationally as a producer of queer-led, intersectional performance, parties, heritage, and radical community gatherings.
It advances equality and social justice by producing innovative new work from extraordinary artists, reclaiming spaces to create and share culture, and developing its communities. It is a member of Live Art UK, the national network of Live Art promoters.
Marlborough Productions began its journey at the Marlborough Pub & Theatre in Brighton. In 2020, it made the decision to move on to larger stages and bigger projects. The Marly was home for 12 years, and it continues to cherish the building’s long-standing connection to the LGBTQIA+ community in Brighton.
The funding will support a one-day fundraising and wellbeing session for queer, trans and intersex, black indigenous and people of colour in the UK cultural sector.
Find out more about Marlborough Productions below.
Rising Arts Agency
Rising Arts Agency is a community interest company (CIC) and not-for-profit creative agency based in Bristol, led by young, underrepresented creative thinkers aged 18-30.
It uses its distinctive ways of working and facilitating, years of production experience, and its intersectional community to do things differently and create meaningful sector change, with the aim of filling the world with beautiful work by and for everyone.
It is building a movement and fighting for a better future, centering the creativity of young people.
The funding will enable three workshops and a lab, supporting the fundraising skills of diverse creatives and allowing Rising Arts Agency to explore its own fundraising model.
Find out more about Rising Arts Agency below.
About the author...
Bryony Salmon
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