A 25-year-old foundation in the process of closing down has announced a final funding round of £18m for arts charities.
Last year, the Foyle Foundation announced its decision to close by 2025 to enable more charities to receive its support more quickly than if it had maintained a permanent endowment.
This month, the funder announced its final 12 grants including £2m each for the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, National Gallery, V&A and the Glasshouse International Centre for Music.
Other grantees include British Library Yorkshire, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, National Theatre, Sadler’s Wells and Ulster Orchestra.
The 12 grants have a value of £15.4m, with the foundation pledging to fund two further projects in 2025, one of which will support school libraries, bringing the total funding in its final year to over £18m.
‘Strategic grants’ in final year
The Foyle Foundation was set up to implement the will of the late Christina Foyle, who died in 1999, leaving most of her estate to charity.
In 2000, the executors decided to set up a grantmaking foundation to disburse the charitable funds strategically.
By the end of 2025, the foundation will have distributed more than £180m to over 7,000 charities and schools across the UK, primarily in the fields of arts and learning.
David Hall, chief executive of the Foyle Foundation, said in a statement: “In addition to an increased budget for our normal grant giving programmes in our final year of operation, the foundation wished to make a range of strategic grants across the country which would be of national and regional importance and of long-term benefit to sector leaders.
“This would ensure an enduring legacy for the Foyle Foundation and make a long-lasting positive impact on the lives of young people and others and show imaginative ways to encourage philanthropy for those who have the ambition to support the arts and learning.”
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