Karen Williams, CEO Escape Arts, responds to culture secretary’s visit to Stratford at the RSC

Karen Williams, CEO Escape Arts

ESCAPE Arts, now in its 28th year, needs to raise £350,000 per year. We have a strong track record of securing local, regional, and national funding, including support from Stratford Town Trust, Stratford District Council, the Arts Council and the National Lottery. These funds help champion volunteering and community projects that bring people together.

However, these are unprecedented times with unprecedented growing need. Although our donations and fundraising has remained steadfast, our commissioned work and local authority support has diminished. As an arts organisation, we are constantly being asked to deliver with no payment or understanding of how projects are planned and managed. For us, Stratford Town Trust and Garfield Weston Foundation are two funders who lead in the cultural funding landscape by acknowledging and supporting funding for essential core costs.

Stratford’s Shakespearean heritage, while rich in arts culture, makes it challenging for grassroots organisations like ours to access strategic funding for infrastructure and advocacy, hence our involvement is often unremunerated. However, we play a crucial role in supporting larger cultural and strategic institutions, especially in terms of local inclusion and ensuring local voices are heard.

We welcome collaboration and resource-sharing to build strategic partnerships that strengthen local cultural development. However, this needs to be equitable: while funding often goes to creating new community engagement projects, investment also needs to support grassroots organisations, whose expertise lies in meaningful community connection.

Again, this was echoed in Lisa Nandy’s vision for a connected and supported cultural eco-system, prioritising cultural regeneration from the ground up. Her speech reinforced the idea that charities and community programmes are not just beneficiaries of arts funding but essential drivers of cultural and social change. She highlighted that cultural funding should ensure equitable financial support for community-driven organisations. This aligns with Escape Arts’ ambition to amplify local voices, drive cultural equity, and embed resources within the community.