Access to culture

Arts and culture can help transform individuals and societies. By stimulating cultural participation, we aim to tackle inequalities and promote a fairer society that provides opportunities for all. 

Our approach

The Foundation promotes greater access to culture and the transformational power of art in people’s development and societies. We do this through a mixture of grant-making, partnerships, and the Foundation’s cultural initiatives and activities. 

We support organisations to embrace civic arts practice, mitigate inequalities and create lasting impact in communities. Embracing a “civic role” for arts organisations means placing community engagement and co-creation practices at the heart of their work.  We seek to embed the civic role of arts as a core working principal in key cultural organisations in Portugal, the UK and other European countries.

Key areas of action

Empowering artists, arts and social organisations, and communities

We promote civic engagement, co-creation and community revitalisation in the arts and cultural sector. We help organisations and their communities realise the full potential of the arts and contribute to greater stability of artists’ career paths. 

Promote sector capacity building

We support peer learning opportunities between Portugal, the UK and other European countries. We help the arts and cultural sector exchange knowledge and experiences across borders and art forms. 

Advocate for a European agenda on the civic role of the arts

We work with other funders, non-profits and institutions across Europe to help build a movement of arts organisations embracing their civic role.

Partner with cultural institutions

We collaborate with leading cultural institutions at a national level in Portugal and the UK on civic arts practices, developing shared projects and helping mitigate inequalities in cultural access. 

Develop arts projects

We include in our cultural activities exhibitions, concerts and performances addressing different dimensions of the Civic Role of the Arts agenda. 

Lead by example

We work with the Foundation’s arts and cultural units to embed participatory practices in our own work and ensure a more central role of this agenda. 

We work nationally and internationally, with teams based in Lisbon, London, and Paris. We deliver our activities in partnership with organisations working towards similar goals.