Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Our statement of intent

Arts & Culture Finance is committed to being an equitable and inclusive social investor for the arts and cultural sectors.

This means that we seek to ensure fair treatment, access, and opportunities for the diverse people and organisations that we aim to serve, as well as to identify and eliminate barriers to participation, so that everyone has an equal opportunity to engage with our offer.

It also means that we aim to foster a culture of respect in both words and actions, so that all people and organisations from across the arts and cultural sectors can be and feel welcomed, heard, and supported when they work with us.

What we are doing on equity and inclusion

It is important to us to work proactively to embed a culture of equity and inclusion. We have an equity and inclusion action plan that lays out concrete steps for how we will achieve this, and we regularly review and update this plan to ensure that we are continually learning, developing, and progressing in our approach.

We collect data about the make-up of the organisations that we work with to help us understand who we are reaching and ensure that we are providing equal opportunities for diverse people and organisations from across the arts and cultural sectors to engage with our offer. This includes using the data to identify where there may be barriers to equal access and participation, so that we can work to address these barriers.

We also look to invest in organisations that are committed to equity and inclusion. Our approach to investment due diligence and social impact assessment looks for evidence of how an organisation has already embedded these principles into their work, as well as what steps they are taking to improve. Where appropriate, we also use our relationship with our investees to support their progress on equity and inclusion.

What diversity data we collect

We believe that diversity data can provide a useful indication of commitment to equity and inclusion. When tracked over time, it can also help provide evidence of what progress has or has not been made in these areas, both within our own work and within the organisations that we work with.

We ask all organisations that approach us for investment to tell us about the diversity of their key strategic decision-makers. We hope that asking these questions will prompt organisations to reflect on the diversity of their workforce and to consider how their organisational attitudes toward equity and inclusion impact on the representation and participation of different groups within their workforce. Where organisations are not already collecting this data, we hope that asking these questions will encourage them to start doing so.

We believe that people should be in control of how they define their personal identities and how that information is shared with others. Therefore, we ask that organisations only share this information with us where it has been given freely and with informed consent. We only ask for diversity data in aggregated form and will never require you to provide identifying information about any individual.

How this data is used and shared

We use the diversity data that we collect to monitor who we are reaching and to what extent people and organisations from different groups across the arts and cultural sectors are engaging with our offer. This allows us to understand whether we are providing equal opportunities for all people and organisations and to take positive actions to address any barriers to access and participation.

At no point is any diversity data shared with us used to inform any decision by Nesta in relation to any present or future enquiry, application, or investment terms.

Any diversity data that you provide will be kept strictly confidential and will not be shared with anyone outside of Nesta Arts & Culture Finance. Any information that we share or publish externally will be reported only in aggregate with data from other organisations, and data relating to your organisation will not be identifiable.

For more information on how we collect and store data, please read our privacy policy.