Connecting People & Places Fund

Please note: this fund is now closed. The fund was open for applications from December 2019 until 31March 2020. Our Connecting People and Places – Collaborative Commissions 2022 was open for expressions of interest until 22 April 2022.

Foundation for Future London’s Connecting People & Places Fund was set up to support local East London partners to deliver arts, education and employment programming and creative placemaking, part of the Foundations Programme co-funded by City of London.

In 2020, we awarded 22 grants and 10 small development grants in response to C-19.

Read our Connecting People and Places Evaluation Report.

Read about funded projects.

Grants of up to £5,000 were awarded to enable individuals and organisations across the four boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest to deliver arts and cultural activities. This could be a scaling-out of existing cultural activity idea or the development of a new project or partnership.

The grants’ aim is to connect East London communities with East Bank, impact social change and create the conditions to enable a greater level of collaboration between both local organisations and our East Bank and Culture Mile partner organisations.

2020 Grantees

Fund Themes

Projects will address at least one of the four overarching themes:

• Collaboration Does the project expand engagement between local cultural/ and our East Bank partners? Is it audience-led or seeking to develop models of co-design?
• Innovation Does the project pilot new ways of working, make use of digital technology and/or new cross disciplinary innovation?
• Participation Does the project provide impactful opportunities to learn (e.g. mentorships, creative learning) and develop engagement across local audiences?
• Sustainability Does the project deliver sustainable place-based activity that supports community resilience and a diverse mix of existing activity? Will the project create social, economic and environmental value to the local area?

Projects will also address at least two of our key priorities:

• Diverse, Inclusive and Accessible Diverse, inclusive and accessible cultural activities that provide shared creative experiences and raise aspirations for residents e.g. young people, intergenerational projects and/or hard to reach groups
• Creative Place Based and Place Making Creative place programming demonstrating local relevance, civic engagement, inclusive public realm urban design, and opportunities via arts and culture for people from different generations and/or backgrounds to come together
• Focus on Education, Employment, Training Provision of creative learning opportunities, employment and leadership development, training and lifelong skills development. We are particularly interested in proposals that harness the power of creative and cultural activity to prepare young Londoners for employment via development of Fusion Skills
• Public engagement & outreach Public engagement & outreach that supports development of local audiences and participants who are not regular users or members to your organisation
• Partnerships Work in partnership with local artists/arts organisations, community groups and/or local schools with a focus on sustainable networked growth e.g. partnership development, capacity building/audience development, risky artistic programming, applied research and development (R&D), and “scaling-out” existing activity
• Wellbeing, Environment, and Improved Life Chances Encourage engagement in arts, culture and innovation activity that supports resident’s health and well-being (e.g. social inclusion), environment and climate emergency, economic impact/opportunity or social mobility.

This grant scheme is now closed.