Dying Matters Community Grants

Hospice UK’s Dying Matters campaign is working to create an open culture in which we’re comfortable talking about death, dying and grief.  Dying Matters’ vision is of an open culture that talks about death and where people feel able to listen and support those who are planning for end of life, who are dying, and who have been bereaved.

This grant programme will directly support innovative and creative arts and culture projects, events and activities that focus on opening up the conversation about death and dying with communities who we know are traditionally less likely to be reached by hospice care and the Dying Matters campaign.

Additional details about this grant programme can be found on our Dying Matters webpages.

This year, the grants programme will directly support a portfolio of arts and culture projects which work to open up conversations about dying, death and grief in new and creative ways at a grassroots level. In doing this we hope to support hospices to build new partnerships, particularly with arts and cultural organisations.

In order to reach new and diverse audiences, grant applications will need to:

Demonstrate that they reach defined groups who are less likely to be reached by hospice care and the Dying Matters campaign, specifically:

• Ethnic minorities
• People experiencing homelessness
• Imprisoned people
• LGBT+ people
• People living in remote and rural areas
• People living in poverty, deprivation and with lower socioeconomic status
• People living with learning disabilities

Demonstrate how the proposed project will approach the subject of death in an innovative and culturally relevant way through arts and culture.

This year the grant programme is only open to applications from hospices.  However, the principal aim of this programme is to reach new groups in new ways with the expectation that this will impact on wider public attitudes to death. As such, we will only consider applications that show evidence of partnership working with local groups/community organisations who can help the hospice to reach one of the groups above who the hospice has traditionally struggled to support.

Grants are available to cover the costs of projects using arts and culture that focus on opening up the conversation about death and dying.  
Project grants between £5,000 - £8,000

Examples of what the grant funding can be used to cover:

• Artist fees  
• Exhibition / Installation costs 
• Materials
• Facilitator costs
• Translation & Marketing
• Refreshments
• Craft materials
• Sound and Light
• Venue Hire

The budget for the programme in this round is £40,000. 
 

Examples of previous projects funded through this programme include:

• The development of a video game that supports young people to think about death and grief
• A series of art workshops that enable people experiencing homelessness to explore feelings about life, death and grief
• A theatre production exploring queer Jewish grief practices

Other examples could include 

• theatre production 
• exhibition 
• community mural. 
• public art display
• comedy nights
• workshops and courses
   

The deadline for applications is 17:00 on 24 November 2023.

Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been successful by end January 2024.

In this round the lead applicant must be a hospice based in the UK and a member of Hospice UK, this includes: 

• adult hospices
• children’s hospices. 

Please note: this programme is open to hospices, but we expect applications to be submitted in partnership with other local groups/community organisations.  Evidence of this partnership will need to be included in your application, with details of how the community partner will help you to reach your target audience.