The Board’s decision to wind down the organisation comes following the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s shock decision in January this year to completely remove its longstanding Voluntary and Community Sector funding and an unsuccessful National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) application to Arts Council England in 2022.
Both significant developments have led to a major destabilisation of an already fragile funding situation, resulting in the loss of further Royal Borough of Greenwich project funds. Furthermore, a succession of nine Arts Council England National Lottery Project Fund applications have been rejected, the most recent of which likely due to the Government’s levelling up agenda.
Over the last year, Greenwich Dance has worked tirelessly to seek different funding models to support its work with artists and communities and protect its staff. Despite success in attracting funding from Trusts and Foundations including the National Lottery Community Fund, City Bridge Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation, and Esmèe Fairbairn Foundation, and a successful community crowdfunder raising £10,000 towards space hire for its Dance for Wellbeing class programme, without support for its core costs Greenwich Dance is unable to continue operating.
In the five years since the organisation was removed from Arts Council England’s National Portfolio, Greenwich Dance has successfully navigated huge challenges and an incredibly unstable funding climate. During this period Greenwich Dance has brought in over £1.8m worth of funding for high quality dance-based activity in the local community, with almost half (£0.88m) of that being generated through successful relationships with 16 Trusts and Foundations. Since 2019 its in-person performances and workshops have seen over 43,000 attendances and its successful manoeuvre to digital work has received a further 115,000+ views and downloads.