Find out if you are ready to start working on your NPO application, before you stretch yourself
Arts Council England opens the National Portfolio 2028-33 portal on 20 October and closes it at midday on 15 December. Most first-time applicants will spend those eight weeks writing. The ones who get in will have spent September and October deciding.
Raise the Arts gives small and mid-sized organisations a written verdict on their readiness in two working days, and the strategy to act on it.
68% success rate on Arts Council England applications. Over £1 million raised for arts clients in 2025. Written by a consultant, not a template.
NEW FORM, looks simple but there is lots of preparation to do in advance to writing it
Project Grants asks about a project. The NPO form asks about an organisation: its purpose, its governance, its track record, its finances, its five-year plan. No attachments, no templates, no delivery plan. Everything the panel of three assessors sees is typed into eleven answer boxes, about 32,500 characters in all, and scored against four published criteria.
Most small organisations have never written that document, because nobody has ever asked them for it. And governance, one of the four criteria, is the answer that ends most first-time applications before the artistic case is read.
NPO Verdict by expert consultant
A yes, a not yet, or a no, in writing, in 48 hours.
You complete a 20-minute form. It asks for names, dates and numbers, not descriptions. Within two working days you receive a two-page verdict: apply in this round, build for the next round, or do not apply, with a score out of 25 across the five things the form has to evidence, a break-even calculation showing what NPO status would actually gain you after compliance costs and the Project Grants income you would give up, and three actions in order, each with a date and an owner.
It is the only NPO service on the market that can tell you no. That is the point of it.
£295, deducted from any further Raise the Arts NPO service within 30 days.
Verdicts are issued within two working days of payment.
The form and the verdict are confidential to your organisation.
Three ways to work directly with Dahna, or check the documents below available to download immediately
NPO Verdict
A written verdict: apply in this round, build for the next round, or do not apply.
- 25-point score across the five things the form has to evidence
- Break-even calculation of what NPO status would actually gain you
- Three actions in order, each with a date and an owner
- A model answer for your weakest area, written from your own facts
Deducted from any further NPO service booked within 30 days.
NPO Strategy Sprint
Three facilitated sessions with staff and board, and a source document written from your organisation's own facts.
- The organising argument and the strategic decisions: the ask, depth or spread, what stops
- Full evidence audit and the capture plan for the autumn
- Source document mapped to the eleven published answer boxes
- Board briefing paper and a read of your Arts Council artform Overview
Sprints must start by 20 October to finish before the portal closes.
NPO Application Partner
Everything in the Sprint, taken through to a submitted application.
- Two rounds of drafting to the published character limits, Q1 to Q11
- The financial narrative and the form figures, reconciled to your accounts
- A mock assessment written as a three-person panel would write it
- Access support documentation where needed
Places close when three are filled.
The NPO Decision Pack
Should we apply, and if not, what instead?
The break-even test, the 25-point diagnostic with the governance gate, three organisations scored so you can see the distance, a decision tree, and a board paper with a minuted decision template. The Excel scorer does the arithmetic.
The Evidence Standard
What counts as evidence, and where do we find it?
Seven ranked evidence types for excellence, seven for reach, six for governance. Model wording for the six types most organisations lack. The public data sources, a worked example from a raw attendance figure to an evidenced claim, and the board monitoring return in the form's own categories.
The Five-Year Financial Restatement
Do our numbers say the same thing everywhere?
An Excel workbook that restates any year end to April to March, projects five years with the Arts Council ask on its own line, scores income security, checks reserves against policy, and outputs the exact nine figures the form asks for. With a 12-page guide to what an assessor reads into each number.
The Source Document
Can every answer be argued before the portal opens?
Twelve sections mapped to the eleven published answer boxes and their character limits, with green, red and blue guidance and two model paragraphs each. A writing frame per section, a demarcation table for overlapping funders, and a cutting guide from each section to Q1 to Q11.
The NPO Document Set, £595
All four documents in one download, £185 less than buying them separately. Used in order, they take an organisation from "should we?" to a form that is cut from an argued plan rather than written from scratch.
Expert judgement you can buy for the price of 1/3 of single consultancy session. An investment worth a try.
Each document answers one question your organisation cannot answer without a consultant. Each includes scoring thresholds, model wording, worked examples and data sources, and each is licensed for use across your board and staff.
Built for organisations under £750,000 turnover applying for the first time or after a failed previous NPO application
Constituted (CIC, CIO, charity, company) with three or more years of delivery
A realistic case for at least £50,000 a year from Arts Council England
Delivering in or near a Culture Priority Place, or with leadership that meets the representation priority, and unsure how to evidence either
Current Project Grants recipients who have outgrown project funding
Boards that want a decision, in writing, before the autumn is spent
Not for: existing National Portfolio Organisations negotiating uplifts, organisations without an independent board, or anyone who wants a writer and nothing else.
Who you are working with
Dahna Borojević founded Raise the Arts to give small organisations and independent artists the fundraising expertise that larger institutions employ in-house. She holds an MA in Creative Producing and has a 68% success rate on Arts Council England applications across theatre, festivals, dance, literature and visual arts.
Key dates
Applicant Guidance: published September 2026
Application portal: opens 20 October, closes midday 15 December 2026
Decisions: July 2027
Funding begins: 1 April 2028
Verdicts issued within two working days. Strategy Sprints must start by 20 October. Access support requests to Arts Council England by 30 November. Application Partner places close when three are filled.