Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund

Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund is an ambitious five-year programme that aims to invest £10 million into the local communities of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest, supported by retail destination Westfield Stratford City.

This flagship project will provide new jobs, learning, training and educational programmes through the means of arts, culture, innovation, public realm and creative placemaking.

The programme aims to transform and catalyse the lives and careers of people in East London by putting funding, resources and support straight into local people’s hands.

Year 3

Year 3 is now open for applications from Monday 11 July 2022 until Friday 16 September 2022 at 11.59pm.

For Year 3, the community grant strand is again made up of Small Grant Scheme, Medium Grant Scheme, and Large Grant Scheme and is expected to be as competitive as previous years.

The Small Grant scheme has a pot of £100,000 and will award 20 to 22 grants.

The Medium Grant scheme pot is £200,000 and will award 10 to 13 grants, and the Large Grant scheme has a pot of £300,000 and will award five to six grants.

Please note, the Capital Grant Scheme is now closed. 

For help and advice on making an application, please contact our Capacity Building Programme lead Lisa Stepanovic on capacitybuilding.ffl@outlook.com. Please also see upcoming workshops and sessions for practical support.

We also advise reading through our Guidance Notes, which covers all three grant schemes. You can also take a look at the application questions before registering on Flexigrant:

• Application questions — Small & Medium Grant Schemes
• Applicaton questions — Large Grant Scheme

Our Grants team are unable to reply to individual queries for Small Grant Scheme or Medium Grant Scheme applications. If you are applying to the Large Grant Scheme, you will first need to book an appointment with our Grants team to discuss your initial application. There are 4 dates available with 15 minutes slots from 10am-3pm on the following dates:

• 20 July
• 1 August
• 17 August (booked up, waiting list only)
• 31 August (booked up, waiting list only)
• 1 September

Funding Themes

For all four of the community grants schemes, at the heart of your project there must be a core commitment to one or more of the following:

• Employment opportunities
  • Will your project provide employment opportunities for local people, including access to paid work experience/internships, access to apprenticeships or gaining access to jobs?

• Learning opportunities
  • Will your project provide opportunities and/or mobility of progresion through learning and training opportunities for local people, including accessing life-long learning opportunities from early learning, schools through to late career and post retirement and/or will the project offer bespoke career and higher education path support, training,  and secondments?

• Young people
  • Will your project have a young person led approach with particular provision for local young people to access broader skills development opportunities, careers workshops and related learning and/or one-to-one coaching and mentoring?

• Business and entrepreneur support
  • Will your project provide local people with the opportunity to have business and/or entrepreneur support including freelance, business and entrepreneur set up, development and training?

Outcomes

We appreciate these four overarching areas are a broad spectrum, so to aid understanding of outcomes expected through the grants, we have developed a user-centred process.

Outcomes are the project’s short, medium or long-term goals that will lead to a meaningful impact for communities in the local boroughs. Applicants will be asked to identify a set number of outcomes that their project will achieve. The number of outcomes expected will be based on the grant scheme you are applying for.

We have provided a list of 13 short, medium and long-term outcomes to be selected.

Capacity Building Programme

For Year 2 and Year 3 of our Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund, we are hosting a Capacity Building Programme, in partnership with award-winning social entrenpeneur Lisa Stepanovic.

We want to ensure the Capacity Building Programme reflects the needs of grantees and future potential grantees. We will be reaching out over the duration of the programme to grantees and community groups to ensure that any workshops developed are beneficial and provide what is needed.

“These sessions are essential for anyone who needs to get their plans on paper without the headache of pages and pages of business planning. It’s helped me to identify the current status of my businesses and enabled me to forecast a realistic vision in terms of future impact, customers, and social value.” – Participant

Upcoming workshops

General Fund Guidance Sessions

Information & Guidance – Friday 15 July 11am-12:30pm
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/westfield-east-bank-creative-futures-fund-information-and-guidance-session-tickets-374229720167

Information & Guidance – Wed 20 July 6pm-8pm
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/westfield-east-bank-creative-futures-fund-information-and-guidance-session-tickets-374245437177

One-Page Impact Report – Wed 27 July 6pm-8pm
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/capacity-building-the-1-page-impact-report-masterclass-tickets-374271344667

Applying for Small Grant Scheme Sessions

Pre-application workshop: Looking at the application – Fri 22 July 6pm-8pm https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/westfield-east-bank-creative-futures-fund-small-grants-application-tickets-374248416087

Pre-application workshop: Looking at the application – Mon 25 July 11am-1pm https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/westfield-east-bank-creative-futures-fund-small-grants-application-tickets-374334814507

Applying for Medium and Large Grant Scheme Sessions

Pre-application workshop: Looking at the application – Mon 1 August 11am-1pm
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/westfield-east-bank-creative-futures-fund-mediumlarge-grants-application-tickets-374355145317

Pre-application workshop: Looking at the application – Wed 3 August 6pm-8pm https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/westfield-east-bank-creative-futures-fund-mediumlarge-grants-application-tickets-374364904507

For any queries regarding the capacity building programme and workshops please email:

Capacitybuilding.ffl@outlook.com

Access Support

For access support please contact

Grants@future.london

We have an Easy to Read versions of our Guidance Notes on our grant scheme pages.

Projects We’ve Supported in Year 2

Year 2 of the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund saw the following grants awarded:

• Small Grant Scheme awarded £200k to 46 projects
• Medium, Large and Capital Grant Scheme awarded £1,151,194 to 51 projects
  • Medium Grant Scheme — 29 projects awarded a total of £385,243
  • Large Grant scheme — 11 projects awarded a total of £482,746
  • Capital Grant scheme — 11 projects awarded a total of £268,121

In Year 2, the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund awarded a total of £1,351,194 to 82 community projects from the Fund’s community strand, consisting of the Small, Medium, Large and Capital Grant Schemes.

Year 2 was designed with evaluation and feedback from Year 1 grantees to ensure that the process is accessible, transparent and allows applicants to make informed decisions, follow a simple applications process and gain additional support when needed.

Projects We’ve Supported in Year 1

Year 1 of the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund saw the following grants awarded:

• Small Grant Scheme awarded over £102,004 to 21 projects
• Medium Grant Scheme awarded £160,000 to 11 projects
• Large Grant Scheme awarded £148,718 to 3 projects
• Support to The Talent House, a new creative hub for dance and music
• Support to New Talent – Future Leaders training and employment programme

In Year 1, the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund awarded £660,000 to 36 community projects from the Small, Medium and Large Grant Scheme, benefiting over 7,000 people.

Read our full list of Year 1 Community Strand grantees.

Marketing and Press for Grantees

If you are a Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund grantee, we have a Marketing and Press Guidance section, which has further information and download links for logos.

Funded Projects Case Studies

Watch our latest film featuring our Year 2 grantees Eastside, Loop Labs and True Cadence.

The film was produced and directed by Chris Baker with Editor Will Cole and Colourist Harvey Gibson.