Ministry of Stories awarded National Portfolio Organisation status
We were thrilled to hear the news that Arts Council England has awarded the Ministry of Stories with National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status for the next three years.
Arts Council England have been funding the Ministry of Stories since we founded in 2010 and this represents the fourth time we have been selected to be an NPO. We are so proud that as a relatively young organisation (soon turning twelve), we are able to attract, maintain and deliver the promises required for this calibre of funding.
As a National Portfolio Organisation, we are committed to supporting Arts Council England’s Let’s Create strategy. We will continue developing children and young people’s creative potential, skills and confidence and widen access to creative opportunities. We will also use this as a catalyst to seek our next public, trust and foundation and corporate partnerships for 2023-2026. Together, we will provide creative writing programmes to more than 3,000 young people each year, as well as grow our work in schools and engage a talented team of volunteers, emerging artists and professional writers. From January 2023, we will be piloting an under 8s offer, which will bring us up to five writing labs a week at our home in Hoxton.
We’d like to extend our congratulations to our local friends at PEER, Graeae, Access All Areas and Autograph, who work across a range of audiences and beneficiaries, and who all deliver important creative programmes in Hackney. We look forward to continuing to work alongside them in the years ahead. We are also delighted for our sister organisation, Grimm & Co in Rotherham, who with increased investment are set to open their new writing centre next year.
We recognise that applying to Arts Council England was a highly competitive process, and as such, some of our peers received difficult news on Friday. Despite this, we will continue to work in collaboration to build a stronger sector together.
Rob
