We are working in partnership with Dignity Funerals to help hospices in the UK develop new and creative ways to spark important conversations about death and dying.
Hospice UK’s Dying Matters campaign is working to create an open culture in which we’re comfortable talking about death, dying and grief.
This grant programme directly supports creative arts and culture projects, events and activities that focus on opening up the conversation about death and dying. Especially those which reach communities who we know are traditionally less likely to be reached by hospice care and the Dying Matters campaign.
A total of £40,000 is available for this programme.
Grants of up to £10,000 are available to cover the costs of projects using arts and culture to open up the conversation about death and dying.
These grants can only fund projects that are due to start during or after December 2025. However, projects that have had a clearly identified pilot phase before this date will be considered.
The main aim of this programme is to reach new groups in new ways, to have an impact on wider public attitudes to death. We will only consider applications that showevidence of partnership working with local groups/community organisations who can help your hospice to reach a group that you have traditionally struggled to support.
Your project must aim to reach one of the below defined groups, who are less likely to be reached by hospice care and the Dying Matters campaign:
racialised communities
people experiencing homelessness
imprisoned people
LGBTQ+ people
people living in remote and rural areas
people living in poverty, deprivation and with lower socioeconomic status
people living with learning disabilities.
Read our guidance for more detail about what projects should include and what costs can be funded.
Eligibility, criteria and expectations
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The grants programme aims to 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.
To apply for this grant, hospices must be:
a member of Hospice UK
based in the UK.
You can be an adult hospice, children's hospice or provide care for all ages.
We are keen to see how our grants make a real difference in your community. We are also interested in sharing learning from the work that is funded through this programme.
To support this, we expect grant recipients to complete activities, including:
submitting brief progress reports after your grant has been awarded
hosting visits by staff from Hospice UK
sharing ideas and knowledge through a variety of media
providing peer support to other grant recipients
documenting your project with photos, case studies, quotes and video for Dying Matters to use on its public channels
providing a final impact report (template will be available to read in advance).
