About the WAF Grants

**Closed for 2024 on Friday 27 October 2023, 12pm.**

The WAF 2024 Grants  fund activities and events that will take place as part of  Wandsworth Arts Fringe from  7 June - 23 June 2024.

The WAF Grants are open to individual artists and organisations wishing to use their creativity to make a positive impact in Wandsworth working with our inspiring residents, communities, and places.

The WAF grants are funded directly by Wandsworth Council through the Wandsworth Grant Fund, which sets aside £20,000 each year to support WAF activity.

Grants fund up to 70% of the total project cost.

The maximum award is £2,000.

Wandsworth Arts Fringe supports the cultural life of the borough and plays an important role as a testing ground and marketplace for new ideas and audiences.

To find out more about Wandsworth Arts Fringe and how to take part, visit our  Get Involved page.

Who can apply?

Applications are open to organisations, partnerships and individuals that demonstrate how they meet the criteria of the grant, provided the proposed activity takes place or culminates during WAF and is fully budgeted.

N.B. WAF Grants funding must represent no more that 70% of the overall budget.

The fund is unable to support:

profit making ventures
fund-raising activities
capital costs
core costs
course fees.

For the full list of items the Council is unable to fund, please refer to the WAF Grants Terms & Conditions.

Applicants do not have to be based in Wandsworth. However, the proposal must take place in the borough and benefit Wandsworth residents. We recommend that you include a carefully considered marketing and audience development plan in your application.

Applicants who were awarded a WAF grant in the past 3 years but failed to produce an evaluation report may not apply.

How do we select grantees?

WAF grant applications are scored according to the assessment criteria and strategic priorities outlined below.

Applications should demonstrate arts content and meet one or more of the following strategic priorities:

Communities and Partnerships: To support residents and communities to build stronger neighbourhoods and enhance community cohesion.
Economic Growth: To ensure that town centres and shopping parades are vibrant and culturally rich places to explore and enjoy.
Health and Wellbeing: Using arts, culture and creativity to inspire and support people to live healthy, fulfilled and independent lives.
Access for all: to actively work to improve accessibility for all our residents (in particular, reaching new and hard-to-reach participants) both to enjoy culture and to join the borough’s creative workforce.
Learning/Education: To support our young residents to access creative outlets, nurturing talents and establishing pathways into the cultural and creative industry sector.
Sustainability: To utilise culture as part of Wandsworth’s drive to be the greenest inner London Borough and carbon neutral by 2030.

Assessment criteria:

Artistic quality: we are looking to develop bold work, engaged artistic practice or innovative working model
Strategic fit: does your project address at least one of our strategic priorities?
Deliverability: project timeframe, partners and collaborators
Impact: who will benefit from your project and how so? How will you measure it? Is it value for money?