EAF (Edinburgh Art Festival) is the UK’s largest annual festival of visual art. Founded in 2004, we work with local and international partners to present an ambitious and meaningful programme of exhibitions, events and projects across the city. Our model is that EAF exists through partnerships – with over 40 visual art and organisations across the city that make up EAF, each of which is independent and has their own governance and funding models.

EAF cultivates connections between communities, artists and collaborators to develop contemporary visual art projects. Every August, we present the UK’s largest visual art festival that is rooted in Edinburgh and Scotland, with global dialogue. Our year-round Civic Engagement Programme allows us to work in different ways; offering sustained engagement. EAF amplifies intersectional voices and perspectives. Our work is rooted within social justice, championing the voices and work of intersectional, emerging, and early career artists to develop art projects that address colonial histories, queerness, feminism and the climate crisis.

Our vision is to:
→ Develop a multidisciplinary Festival that is innovative, intersectional and led by our Values, nurturing vision from artists and partners.
→ Increase and provide a platform for equity in our projects, the way we work, and the people we engage, with commitment and empathy.
→ Convene and connect partners locally and globally.
→ Produce work informed by research, advocacy, and our partnerships.
→ Be agile, responsive and adaptive to our environment, with care and support.
→ Ensure organisational resilience through strategic planning, self-reflection, good governance, staff welfare and risk mitigation.

EAF aims to be a responsible and ethical organisation and is committed to fundraising in a way that positively benefits the arts sector, our wider community and the environment. This references our new mission and vision, which underpin every activity and includes ethical considerations in respect of receiving donations, codes of conduct for staff and artists, the organisation’s policy on fair work, and expectations of how our employees should work together.

It also sets out the standard of conduct that is expected from all EAF representatives – our employees, trustees, artists, partners and all those who work with the Festival.

It is our aim, at all times, to provide a safe, supportive and positive working environment for all, one based on collaboration and respect, and this framework has been developed with this core principle in mind. This reflects the Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice (updated 2024), which sets the standards for charitable fundraising in the UK and to which EAF is committed.

Ethical Principles

General Principles
EAF’s fundraising will at all times be:
→ Legal: All fundraising activity will comply with applicable law, including charity law, tax law, and consumer protection law.
→ Open and honest: EAF will be transparent with donors, sponsors, funders and stakeholders (including artists) about how funds are used and will not make misleading claims.
→ Respectful: EAF will treat all current and potential partners and donors with dignity and will never use undue pressure, manipulation, or misleading information to solicit funds.
In the public interest: All funding received will be used to advance EAF’s charitable purposes.
→ Independent: EAF will not allow funders or sponsors to exercise editorial, curatorial, or programmatic control over EAF’s activities.

All significant new sponsorship or donation relationships (above £10,000) will be brought to the Board for approval before any agreement is signed. The Board retains the right to refuse any funding that it considers incompatible with EAF’s values or charitable objects.
Where a potential funder falls into a borderline or ambiguous category, the Director will seek Board guidance before proceeding. A register of all significant funders and the due diligence undertaken will be maintained by the Director.

Investment in Fundraising Activity

For Commissioned Artists:
Artists we work with are informed of our Ethics and Partnership Policy and have the right to be fully informed of particular funders in relation to their own work as part of the festival. If the artist pursues support for a work that is part of the festival, we also have the right to refuse support from partners/funders that contravene our Ethics and Partnership Policy.

Current Exclusions:
We want inequalities and injustice to be recognised and foregrounded in our work, programming and operations, as well as in our Policies and operations. We will not accept funding, gifts, or sponsorship from any state, government body, sovereign wealth fund, or state-affiliated entity operating under active UN sanctions, or from any individual, organisation, or company appearing on the UK Government’s consolidated sanctions list. This applies regardless of the value of the donation or the intermediary through which it is offered.

Neither will seek nor accept funding or sponsorship, or accept State invitations from countries or regimes that conflict with the mission and vision of EAF, in the reasonable opinion of the Board, including violating the human rights of marginalised groups and / or engaging in serious, systemic human rights abuses.