Apply to a funder you already know and you'll succeed roughly six times in ten. Apply cold and it drops to one in four. But funders don't fund the best applications, they fund the clearest cases. And even winning consistently isn't the whole answer, research into charity closures found something more precise than lack of income diversity.

The arts sector is facing a real funding crisis. Competition for grants is tighter than it's been in decades, and organisations aren't just competing with each other. They're up against charities, creative businesses, and any organisation that can demonstrate outcomes and impact clearly.

The crisis isn't hitting every organisation equally. Some are finding a way through, and what tends to separate them isn't the quality of their work. It's the quality of their strategy.