A new £20 million social impact investment fund for socially driven arts, culture and heritage organisations registered and operating in the UK. The fund offers loans between £150,000 and £1 million repayable until May 2031.

The Arts & Culture Impact Fund brings 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, the Freelands Foundation and Nesta. The fund is the world’s biggest impact investment fund for the creative arts.

The Arts & Culture Impact Fund sets out to achieve several objectives for the arts, cultural and heritage sectors:

• Provide organisations with appropriate and bespoke repayable finance
• Develop the financial resilience of borrowers
• Support organisations to better monitor, evaluate and communicate their social impact
• Attract additional investment into the sector to help organisations thrive
• Promote the wider positive impact the arts, culture and heritage have on society and support more organisations to benefit individuals and communities through their work.

Your organisation’s core operations or activity should be based in the arts, culture and heritage. For example, a dementia charity using art to engage its beneficiaries would not be eligible to apply for investment. However, a theatre providing outreach performances in local schools to target disadvantaged children would meet the criteria.