The Supporting Act Foundation
The artists first
An annual report fills up with numbers and logos very easily. The people who received the grants are the reason this one exists, so they get the space: whole pages for their photographs, their names in bold at the top of each entry, and their own words set as quotes beside them.
Quiet enough to read
Everything else stays out of the way. Two columns, generous margins, a serif for the foundation’s voice (GT Super) and a grotesque for the facts (Actief Grotesque). Titles always sit on the same line, the copy always starts at the same height, the page numbers never move. Once you have read one page you know how to read all of them, and the attention is free to go to the artists.
Colour where the numbers are
The palette only speaks up in the year in numbers: soft blocks of peach, lilac, sage and blue, so that 1,424 applications and 40 grants read like good news.
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Michael Howell Will Smith Emerging Artist Fund 2025 grantee
Annual Report 2025
Our mission Our mission is to enable and empower emerging artists dedicated to fulfilling their creative potential, prioritizing those from underrepresented or marginalized groups. We also work to support ambitious nonprofit organizations, enabling them to create more equitable art scenes, fostering opportunities for growth and expansion. Our focus We are committed to tackling the key drivers of precarity, vulnerability, and discrimination facing emerging artists and the arts organizations working to empower them. We focus on overcoming sources of insecurity which erode creatives’ ability to invest in their future and realise their potential, work that’s all the more crucial in a period of dwindling international arts funding. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately impacted by barriers in the arts. Misleading narratives around equal access to opportunities are commonplace and give rise to unrealistic expectations, unawareness of critical inequities, and ultimately mask the reality: that the arts world remains an inequitable space. It’s this reality we strive to challenge.
Our strategy We’re dedicated to taking time to understand the challenging realities our grantees face. We believe that when artists thrive we all benefit, and thanks to our research we know that our trust-based approach to grantmaking gives those we empower the time, stability, community, and trust they need to thrive Our impact We are working for a more equitable society that encourages artists to thrive. To give focus to our efforts we’ve identified key areas of desired impact: Stability: Improving living conditions for emerging artists through greater financial security. Time: Increasing time available for artistic, personal, and organizational growth. Community: Accelerating networking and connection-making for artists, and the expansion of reach and capacity for nonprofits. Trust: Boosting self-confidence thanks to the trust and equity that’s built into our unrestricted approach to grant-making. Want to find out more? Read our Impact Report.
Annual Report 2025
The Supporting Act Foundation
About The Supporting Act Foundation
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5.7k
amount of newsletter subscribers
15
countries where our 2025 grantees are based or registered
The Supporting Act Foundation
2025 in numbers
Annual Report 2025
It’s been a big year. Here are a few of our wins in numbers.
1,424
total amount of applications received
90%
growth in new followers on Instagram
589,161
accounts reached on Instagram
40
grants in total awarded to artists and nonprofits
3.1m
total website visitors
24.2%
average CTR to our newsletter
“The application process is very straightforward and refreshing compared to typical funding procedures. We hope other foundations may take it as a model.” “The application process was clear and user-friendly. It helped us to reflect deeply on our organization’s structure and goals.” “[The open call] doesn’t only invite artists to apply for support, but also encourages us to reflect on who we are, what we represent, and why our stories matter. That in itself is empowering — especially for artists from underrepresented communities, who often navigate cultural spaces where visibility is limited and recognition rare.”
How did our grantees feel about the experience? We always ask our grantees for feedback on our work, one crucial measure of success is around the “clarity and transparency of [the] process and timelines”. Here’s how 2025’s grantees felt about that:
Impact Grant: 4.36 / 5 Artist Grant: 4.32 / 5
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* Based on survey responses from the nonprofits we support about the number of people their various programs benefit, directly or indirectly.
The Supporting Act Foundation
Impact in numbers
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Since 2022, we have run five grant programs, each designed to offer recipients optimal financial support and creative freedom combined with minimal reporting or oversight. We believe our grantees benefit from freedom and trust, and we have learned that our support goes further when we work with them as partners. In addition to funding, we offer non-financial support through promotion, networking opportunities, and workshops.
50+
Countries where our grantees are delivering their work, supporting other artists and those from underrepresented groups
70
Emerging artists supported via our grants and bursaries
25
Average of 25 more hours per month for our Creative Bursary / Artist Grant recipients to develop their practices
30,000
Estimated number of people from underrepresented groups around the world who’ve benefited from our grants*
45
Nonprofits supported through our Impact Grants and Community Grants
2.55m
total in grants, of which 1.95m to nonprofits and 600k to artists
We’ve also seen a growing demand for our grants year on year, showing not only that the work we do remains crucial in a precarious arts landscape, but also that we’re growing our networks and expanding our reach.
2024: 345
2025: 1,424
Total: 2,162
2023: 258
2022: 135
Applications received:
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The Supporting Act Foundation
The Will Smith Emerging Artist Fund grantees
Annual Report 2025
Urška Supej A Slovenian guitarist, composer, and lyricist, based in Austria, Supej has performed at renowned festivals and venues, including Athens Jazz, Waves Vienna, and Cankarjev Dom as part of the duo 3:rma, . She has released two albums, A Well-Paved Road and The Garden of Edna, and collaborated as a lyricist and songwriter with artists like Tomaž Gajšt, Hauptman, WCKD Nation, and Klara Veteršek. Supej has held cultural residencies at Palác Akropolis in Prague and at the Slovenian Ministry of Culture in London, and has been recognised by the HEMI Music Awards and Zlata Piščal. vixnde Pronounced viande, meaning ‘meat’ in French, vixnde is the artistic identity of Brussels-born singer and songwriter, Viana Afoumou. Through a playful, layered exploration of sound, silence and voice, she presents her own genre: Raw Pop. vixnde describes her musical journey as one primarily shaped by live music, starting with her membership of a gospel choir in Belgium. It was only with time, having already performed often as a soloist, that vixnde began recording her music.
Receiving this grant affirms that my artistic vision is more than a fantasy; it resonates with others. I deeply believe in the power of art, especially in times when it’s seen as trivial. This support reinforces that power and strengthens my resolve to keep creating and pursuing my goals.” — Nilgün Özer
Annual Report 2025
Cue Collective Impact Grant 2025
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* Based on survey responses from the nonprofits we support about the number of people their various programs benefit, directly or indirectly.
The Supporting Act Foundation
Looking forward
Annual Report 2025
Over the coming decade we will impact the lives and practices of more and more grantees, continuing to empower and support emerging artists and nonprofits that represent marginalized and underrepresented communities. In keeping with our 2025-2027 Policy Plan, we aim to positively impact the lives and careers of at least 100,000 artists in 100+ countries by 2035. Following our Open Call this coming September, our selection committee will select ten organizations to receive Impact Grants of €50,000 as well as ten individuals who will receive Artist Grants of €10,000 each. We will continue our ongoing work of amplifying and promoting the work of those individuals and organizations we support, while building peer-to-peer networks with them. We remain, as ever, hugely optimistic about the positive change we can make in the arts, empowering our grantees and aided by our supporters.
Annual Report 2025
Institute for Postnatural Studies Impact Grant 2025
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Welcome to The Supporting Act Foundation’s 2025 annual report. It’s been an exciting year for us, with new programs launched, fresh cohorts of grantees coming aboard, and our work reaching and positively impacting more emerging artists around the world than ever before. To kick things off, we put five questions to Damian Bradfield, our chair and founder: How have you seen The Supporting Act Foundation grow and develop over the years? It started, like most good things, slightly by accident and with very little structure. There was no grand masterplan—just a frustration that a lot of brilliant people fall through the cracks because they don’t fit neatly into funding boxes. Over time it’s become more deliberate, but I’d like to think it hasn’t become more bureaucratic. That’s the constant tension: how do you grow something without turning into the very thing you were reacting against? What’s changed is the ambition. Early on it was about helping individuals here and there. Now it’s about building something that can actually shift how support works—less gatekeeping, more trust. How has the arts sector changed in that time, particularly in terms of the challenges facing emerging artists? What’s the biggest challenge right now? It’s become simultaneously more accessible and more impossible. On one hand, anyone can put work out into the world. On the other, being seen, supported, and sustained has become incredibly difficult. Exposure has replaced income in far too many cases. The biggest challenge? Stability. Not talent, not ideas—those are abundant. It’s the ability to keep going long enough to actually become something. Most emerging artists aren’t failing because they’re not good enough. They’re stopping because they simply can’t afford to continue. Why was unrestricted funding at the core of TSAF’s approach from the outset? Because most funding comes with strings attached that quietly kill the thing it’s trying to support. Artists end up spending more time justifying their work than actually doing it. Writing applications, reporting, bending ideas to fit criteria—it’s exhausting and often distorting. Unrestricted funding is basically saying: we trust you. Use it how you need. Pay your rent, buy time, take a risk, make something terrible that might become something good. It’s less about control, more about belief. And belief is surprisingly rare in funding models.
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The Supporting Act Foundation
Five questions with Damian Bradfield
Annual Report 2025
During periods of social, political and environmental upheaval, why do you feel investing in the arts is important? Because the arts are how we process all of that. When everything feels unstable, people don’t suddenly become less creative—they become more so. They just have fewer resources and less space to do anything with it. Also, if you only invest in things that feel “practical” during difficult times, you end up with a very efficient but very bleak world. Art doesn’t fix problems in a direct way, but it changes how people see, feel, and think—and that’s where most real change actually begins. Why is working with nonprofits, as well as individual artists, so key to TSAF’s approach? Because individuals don’t exist in isolation. There are incredible nonprofits out there doing the unglamorous, long-term work—supporting communities, building networks, creating access. If you ignore them, you’re only solving half the problem. At the same time, institutions can become slow and risk-averse. That’s where individual artists come in—they move faster, take risks, and push things forward. So it’s about balance. Back the ecosystem, not just the output.
Annual Report 2025
Photo: Thomas Chéné
The Supporting Act Foundation
Five questions with Damian Bradfield
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The Supporting Act Foundation
About The Supporting Act Foundation
Annual Report 2025
Our approach Today, we are pursuing three major strands in our activities, which we believe are key to achieving our goals: Developing and delivering our grant programs We provide, and are continuing to develop, annual grant programs and open calls for emerging artists and grassroots organizations, offering no-strings attached financial support. Building networks and making connections We are creating safe spaces of exchange between grantees, and inviting collaborators to help us create networks and provide resources for emerging artists and organizations. Researching and raising awareness We are committed to evaluating our own work and to raising awareness of the struggles faced by those we support, highlighting and amplifying the practices and outputs of our grantees while shining a light on systemic barriers to artistic development for those from marginalized groups. Embedded in this approach is a commitment to creating opportunities that promote greater diversity within the creative and cultural industries, celebrating and valuing all lived experiences, beliefs, identities, ethnicities, and cultures. As a point of departure, this involves prioritizing emerging artists from marginalized groups; embracing intersectionality as a guiding framework; and placing our trust in applicants who self-identify as coming from underrepresented communities or experiencing precarity, vulnerability, or discrimination, without asking them to prove it.
Governance In 2025, our board comprised the following five members: Damian Bradfield, Chair Entrepreneur and author Trustee, Sarabande Marleen van Thienen, Treasurer Partner, Water Tower Private Office Interim director, VSO Nederland Martine Wubben, Secretary Senior legal counsel data, technology & privacy, Heineken International Beatrix Ruf Director, Hartwig Art Foundation Board member, Between Bridges Foundation Selection committee, The Mondrian Initiative College member, LUMA Foundation Tarek Atoui Artist
Annual Report 2025
Carolina Riaño Artist Grant 2025
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The Supporting Act Foundation
2025 Impact Grantees
Annual Report 2025
90mil An arts nonprofit championing underrepresented artists, formats and sounds. 90mil’s community-led programming connects emerging talent, local collectives and global voices - reimagining industry norms to build a more inclusive, representative and innovative cultural landscape. Association Zofi Founded in 2021 in Martinique, Association Zofi is dedicated to cultural and artistic development, rooted in its local context while actively engaging in an international dialogue. The organization supports the creation of artworks, promotes artists, and contributes to strengthening the cultural sector through residencies, exhibitions, workshops, public events, and the development of a photography production house. Its name, inspired by the Creole word for the orphie fish, symbolizes mobility, solidarity, and collective movement—values that guide Zofi’s approach to collaboration and artistic exchange. CUE Collective A nonprofit organization and platform sharing the music and stories that they feel need to be heard. Cue does this by creating platforms and productions showcasing emerging musical talent from around the globe, and developing projects at the intersection of music and social and/or environmental change, while sharing the stories behind every project or artist. Across all of its projects, CUE Collective focuses on fomenting cultural, social, and artisti change. Every activity the organization undertakes is designed to serve the public good and contribute to a more connected, creative, and inclusive music world.
EXIS A professional dance company based in Athens, Greece, made up of disabled and non-disabled dancers. EXIS aims to promote inclusive dance through professional dance projects and performances, to create a site for inclusive dance education and training, to provide access to creativity and artistic expression and foster equality for disabled people in the field of dance. At the heart of EXIS’ values is the belief that each body is unique, this sets the basis for building mutual understanding, co-creating and dancing together. InForm – Platform for Inclusive Minds An organization dedicated to advancing and developing inclusive performing arts by creating a living platform where disabled and non-disabled artists collaborate and perform together, making the performing arts sector more accessible, equitable, and diverse. It is a space for exchange, transformation, and artistic expression that embraces every body, every voice, and every story. Through dance, theater, education, and collaboration, it creates environments where diverse perspectives and bodies come together to create, perform, and connect, building a strong, inspiring community where inclusion is not the exception but the standard. Institute for Postnatural Studies (IPS) Founded in Madrid, Spain, in 2020, the Institute for Postnatural Studies is an independent center for ecological research and education. IPS approaches the postnatural as a critical lens through which to examine dominant narratives of ecology and culture. Through academic programs, research projects, residencies, and public platforms, IPS operates as a collaborative ecosystem where artists, researchers, and thinkers engage with the ecological and political urgencies of our time.
This grant offers renewed energy to expand our mission and impact. As a grassroots platform, recognition transforms our reality, affirming that our work is seen and trusted to nurture artists’ daily growth. This support strengthens our commitment to collective learning platforms that redistribute opportunities across diverse contexts and geographies worldwide.” — Institute for Postnatural Studies
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The Supporting Act Foundation
2025 Impact Grantees
Annual Report 2025
Musikarama A free, grassroots music school and recording studio in Athens run horizontally by volunteers and members of its community. The organization provides free lessons in a range of instruments as well as studio access and recording time. Musikarama operates around the principle of solidarity and works to give those who are facing financial or social barriers access to music, creating a space where people find freedom and dignity in self expression, and where people from all countries and cultures can feel a sense of belonging. Oyoun Berlin A platform for intersectional artistic and socio-cultural practices rooted in decolonial, queer* feminist thinking and focused on voices and perspectives that challenge dominant narratives. Embodied, experimental and ephemeral knowledge is fundamental to Oyoun’s work. With its ‘for us, by us’ ethos, the organization challenges systemic exclusions and entrenched hierarchies in art and society, shifting boundaries between North and South, centre and periphery. At Oyoun, process takes precedence over outcome: through residencies, alternative education and collective cultural projects, Oyoun cultivates care, solidarity and sustainable creative resistance, its anti-disciplinary approach combining art, activism, theory and lived experience.
Tarkib A platform dedicated to the research, training, production, and presentation of contemporary art, focusing on emerging Iraqi artists. Through its unique creative center, Bait Tarkib, it offers space for free expression, research, and production, alongside mentorship, skills-building, and visibility and has fostered many artistic start-ups in Iraq. The Tarkib Baghdad Contemporary Arts Festival provides a vital platform for exposure, outreach, and networking, while the annual Baghdad Walk combines workshops in artivism with mentorship, culminating in a public group exhibition. Together, these initiatives support professional development and empower young artists to actively shape Iraq’s cultural landscape. TAWNA A multicultural cinema and art organization with a focus on native Amazonian narratives. It is a collective initiative that intends to make visible the processes behind the defense of indigenous territories while strengthening Amazonian cultural legacies. It offers festivals, education and formative support to Amazonian youth interested in learning about and engaging in audiovisual communication.
Receiving this grant is the encouragement and trust we need to take the next step in our growth. More than funding, it gives us the confidence to sustain a collective, resource-rich environment where emerging Caribbean artists can create, collaborate, gain visibility, and grow locally with care, trust, and long-term sustainability.” — Association Zofi
Receiving this grant is vital for our team. As artists in Greece, where support is limited, this provides a unique opportunity to evolve our work, expand our group, and ensure our company's long-term sustainability. It empowers us to thrive and continue creating in a challenging professional environment.” — EXIS