Cultural Bridge Fund
Overview
About the fund
Cultural Bridge supports arts and cultural organisations across the UK and Germany to develop partnerships that explore social arts practice.
They fund organisations who embody cultural democracy through:
- placing communities at the heart of their creative work
- exploring new ways of connecting arts and society, particularly through fostering co-creation between communities, artists, and other partners
- supporting people from across their communities to develop their creativity and discover their individual voices
- empowering their communities to work together to shape local place, shared identity, and collective agency
By enabling new and existing connections, Cultural Bridge supports a growing network of organisations committed to sharing expertise and skills, exchanging ideas and collaborating on artistic practices and projects that explore themes and issues faced by communities across both countries.
Themes
Cultural Bridge aims to develop innovative participatory approaches across a range of artforms and in response to their programme place themes:
- Re-invigorating post-industrial places/communities
- Increasing cultural engagement in places with fewer opportunities
- Exploring places and communities transformed by grass-roots activism
- Redefining the use of public space
Who can apply
To be eligible, applicants must:
- Be an organisation based in the UK or Germany (see guidance for further definition of ‘organisation’)
- Be able to demonstrate expertise in social arts practice working with communities
Cultural Bridge is open to all artforms, the 2026 - 2027 funding round will prioritise support for:
- Smaller arts & cultural organisations who don’t already receive significant or sustained funding
- Organisations based or working with communities outside of major cities e.g. in rural areas or less populated urban centres
- Organisations who empower local communities through their creative work
- Organisations whose work aligns with our programme aims and place themes
- Organisations who foster equity, diversity and inclusion through their leadership and practice
The Cultural Bridge programme is committed to promoting an equitable, diverse and inclusive network. The activity they support, and the workforce of arts and culture organisations they fund, should reflect the diversity of the UK and Germany.
How much is available?
The total budget available for Round 5 of the programme is £370,000 (approximately €430,000) . This budget will be split between their two funding tiers and they anticipate making up to 20 awards in this round.
Tier 1: Practice exchange & development of new partnerships, up to £10,000 per partnership
Supporting the development of brand new partnerships between arts and cultural organisations in the UK and Germany.
Tier 2: Co-development and project delivery for established partnerships, up to £30,000 per partnership
Supporting further development of partnerships, where organisations already have experience of working together.