John Lyon's charity Annual Report 2024 - Report - Page 18
CULTURAL CAPITAL FUND
INTRODUCTION
What is the Fund?
Since the pandemic, schools have been under increased
pressure to manage the direct impact of Covid-19 and the
subsequent Cost-of-Living crisis on their staff, pupils and
communities. This necessitated a greater focus on ‘core’
subjects such as English, Maths and Science, to address
the increasing gap between children from economically
deprived households that were more affected by the
pandemic, and their peers.
To seek to address this, the Cultural Capital Fund (CCF)
was created to help bring the Arts back to children who
have had their access curtailed due to the Covid-19
pandemic, ensuring that access to the Arts is possible
for all children across the Beneficial Area through
engaging and exciting activities.
The Charity was concerned that, as a result, a significant
number of children were not accessing Arts activities
at school or being exposed to them through their families
both before and after the pandemic. There is a real concern
that an entire generation of young people will enter
adulthood with very limited cultural capital, limiting
the Arts as something that is only accessible to those
who can afford to pay for them.
16
JOHN LYON’S CHARITY ANNUAL REPORT 2024
The Fund was created with two elements: Main Grants of
up to £40,000, which were available for Arts organisations
to extend their programs to two or more schools; and Small
Grants of up to £5,000, which were awarded to individual
schools to work with a high-quality Arts organisation of their
choice. Grants were awarded as either one-year or two-year
grants in Years 1 – 3 for Arts organisations and Years 1 – 4
for Schools. The Arts organisation element has now closed,
and the school element will continue into next year.
