Closing date 06/06/2025

Grants are available to organisations in Northern Ireland for projects that will contribute to the growth of arts in the community and which reflect the diversity of Northern Ireland's society and culture.

The funding is intended to aid organisations in delivering arts projects that foster the growth of arts in the community, catering to new and existing audiences while reflecting Northern Ireland's societal and cultural diversity. Its aim is to support activities benefiting the people of Northern Ireland or assisting arts organisations in fulfilling their missions.

In addition, the Arts Council wishes to support programmes which:

Encourage the involvement of children and young people, older people, or people with disabilities with organisations and artists of the very highest professional standards across the disciplines.

Encourage proposals which will deliver high quality programming in rural areas.

Encourage the involvement of, and applications with a focus on, the following:

Minority Ethnic artists

D/deaf, neurodiverse and disabled artists

Emerging artists

Working-class artists

LGBTQIA artists.

Promote innovative, original work by Northern Ireland artists across all art forms.

Grants of between £10,001 and £75,000 are available. The applicant should be realistic in terms of their expectations and budgets, bearing in mind that the Arts Council may choose to fund specific project elements rather than the entire project costs.

The following criteria apply:

Grant allocations can be used to cover the gross costs of any salary directly related to the project and its duration, ie including recruitment costs, ENIC, pension and expenses.

Organisations may claim full cost recovery of overheads that can be attributed to the funded project.

Organisations receiving any other Arts Council revenue or Lottery grant should be able to demonstrate that the costs are additional to any programme that has been already funded.

Any accessibility costs for the proposal should be included in the budget and may be requested as an element of the overall request from the Arts Council.

Applicants are required to provide a minimum of 10% of total project costs from non-Lottery, non-Arts Council sources. This may be comprised of cash and/or in-kind funding.

If the applicant is a statutory body, then the minimum partnership funding that should be sought is 50% of total project costs.

Applications are invited from a wide range of legally constituted organisations. Applicants whose projects benefit individuals categorised under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 are particularly welcome.

Eligible applicants include:

Registered charities and other organisations that do not distribute profits.

Local authorities - however, these are considered low priority.

Commercial organisations - but only if the project is primarily for public benefit rather than commercial interests.

Public sector agencies outside of their statutory remit.

Groups of organisations that work together in order to deliver specific projects.

The following additional eligibility criteria apply:

The applicant does not necessarily have to be an arts organisation; however, the project focus must be upon arts activities.

If the organisation has a limited membership, or is a school, college or university, then the applicant must show that the project will benefit the wider public.

In most cases it is expected that the activity will take place within Northern Ireland. However, organisations based outside of Northern Ireland may apply when they can show substantial benefit to the people of Northern Ireland.

The 2025/26 funding programme relates only to those proposals that will take place between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026.

Music and Drama applications:

Applicants may apply for commissioning and production costs within the same application. However, they will be expected to submit the script or score for Arts Council approval before any production contracts are entered into or before the production is advertised in any way.

The applicant should allow a two-month time period between submitting the script to the Arts Council and entering into a production contract. If the Arts Council is not satisfied with the script quality, then permission to enter into production will be withheld. If the applicant proceeds to enter into production contracts before the Arts Council has given permission, the production element of the grant will be withheld.

How To Apply

The deadline for applications is 6 June 2025 (noon).

Guidance notes and the online application form can be found on the Arts Council of Northern Ireland website.

https://artscouncil-ni.org/funding-for-organisations/national-lottery-project-funding