Croydon Loves You 2026

Now in its third year, Croydon Loves You provides small grants to individuals or organisations delivering creative arts and cultural activities that support residents at risk of health inequalities to improve their health or wellbeing. You can see examples of previously funded work here: 2025 Round 1; 2025 Round 2; 2025 Round 3.

In 2026, £185,000 has been secured from Croydon Council’s Public Health and Community Infrastructure Levy, which will be distributed in two grant rounds in April and September. Projects must be completed before 31 March 2027.

What kind of activity do we fund?

This fund specifically supports projects that engage Croydon residents at risk of health inequalities in creative activities to benefit their health and wellbeing. Activities might include:

  • Visual art: painting, drawing, print-making, sculpture, collage, textiles, ceramics, glass art, jewellery, fashion design, crafts, graffiti, photography, film, animation
  • Performing arts: music, singing, dance, theatre, comedy, spoken word, puppetry
  • Literary arts: creative writing, poetry, literature, drama
  • Creative skills: garden design, creative cooking/baking, woodworking, upcycling
  • Creative activities in nature: any of the above taking place in nature

Projects should support participants to actively engage in creativity, rather than act as audience members or recipients.

What kind of activity do we not fund?

This fund is not able to support activity that is not mainly focused on artistic activities. Projects delivering the following activities are not eligible:

  • Yoga
  • Mindfulness, unless included as an addition to a creative activity
  • Reiki
  • Sound baths/healing, as participants are not themselves being creative
  • Pet therapy
  • Martial arts
  • Football or other sports
  • Nature walks, unless creative activities are a main feature of these walks
  • Advice and/or information, unless offered alongside a creative programme
  • Mentoring, unless offered alongside a creative programme

This fund does not support one-off events. If you are interested in putting on a cultural event promoting health messages, see our Creative Health Information Events programme instead.

What do grants do?

Grants support projects that use arts and creative activities to improve participants’ health and wellbeing, for example, reducing social isolation, improving symptoms of depression or anxiety, or increasing physical activity. Grants also help encourage partnerships between culture, community and health sector partners.

Activity funded by these grants should aim to reach participants that come from groups at risk of health inequalities (people who face unfair, systemic barriers to healthcare). This includes people experiencing unemployment or housing insecurity, people from global majority backgrounds, LGBT+ people, and other groups.

For a full list of appropriate outcomes and communities, please read the Application Guidelines in the ‘Application Documents/Links’ section below.

How much can I apply for? / How do I apply?

While this year’s programme is similar to previous years, there are differences in the 2026 programme.

For full details on who can apply, how much you can apply for, and all other information on what we are looking to fund, please read the guidance and links in the ‘Application Documents/Links’ section below before submitting an application. The Application Guidelines in particular are required reading to prepare a successful application.

If you need support or have any questions, please refer to the ‘Support’ section below.

Application Documents / Links:

Apply Now

Once you have read the Application Guidelines, spoken to the Creative Health team (mandatory if applying for a Programme grant), and prepared your application, timeline and budget templates using the materials above, follow the link below to submit your online application.

Apply Now

Support

We periodically offer free training and Q&A sessions for people interested in applying to Croydon Loves You. Visit the Creative Health Training page to sign up for an upcoming session.

The CLY 2026 Application Guidelines includes links to resources that will help you prepare a strong application.

The Creative Health team are also happy to offer an advisory call to applicants at any stage of the process, from developing an idea, to finding partners to work with, or advice on budgeting. Please email the team on creativehealth@croydon.gov.uk to schedule a 30-minute conversation.

Navigate back to:

Creative Health Funding
Creative Health Home Page

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