THE ARVON FOUNDATION

Registered charity 306694 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q4802531 · Wikipedia · also known as THE ARVON FOUNDATION LIMITED

We run a year-round programme of creative writing courses at three rural writing houses and also online, offering expert tuition from established writers in all forms of published writing to people from all backgrounds and experience. We run mentoring and other creative writing projects and a grant scheme to enable open access to our courses, and provide dedicated facilities for writers' retreats.

Objects

TO PROMOTE AND ASSIST IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION OF STUDENTS OF EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS AND OTHERS IN THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF POETRY AND LITERATURE, DRAMA, MUSIC, DANCING, MIME, PAINTING, SCULPTURE AND THE GRAPHIC ARTS, AND TO EXTEND AND INCREASE THE APPRECIATION, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF SUCH PERSONS OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS IN ALL THEIR FORMS.

Area of benefit: NOT DEFINED

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Calderdale, Yorkshire and The Humber, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The charity reported a net income of £486,948 for the year, driven by increased income from charitable activities which offset a significant drop in donations and grants. Free reserves stood at £243,139, which is below the trustees' stated policy target of £520,000 to £690,000, although the trustees note this target was temporarily suspended during the Lumb Bank redevelopment project. The accounts are prepared on a going concern basis with no material uncertainties identified by the auditors.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Sayer Vincent LLP. Discloses 6 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Annual return filing dates (Charity Commission record)

Of its last 5 annual returns with a recorded received date, 1 was received after the due date: year ending 31/12/2023 (received 24/02/2025, 116 days after the 31/10/2024 due date).

Due and received dates as recorded in the Commission’s annual-return data; the data does not say whether an extension was agreed. Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Richard Haseldine — Chief Financial Officer (source)
• Andrew Kidd — Chief Executive (source)
• Natasha Carlish — Deputy Chief Executive (source)
• Helen Meller — Director (source)
• Jo King — Director (source)
• Mary Morris — Artistic Director (source)
• Rosie Scott — Director of Engagement (source)
• Dean Stigwood — Development Director (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Property (HM Land Registry)

4 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (4 freehold). All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~1.3 months of spending — in the bottom quarter for charities its size (median 4.7 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (47% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 5.7% of total income — above the median for charities its size (5.3%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (23/04/2024) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (16/05/2023) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Patricia Clare Cumperchair
• Anna Williams · trustee of 1 other charity
• Dr Maria Evans
• Jack Redfern
• Joshua Adam Eremo Cockcroft
• Kim Evans · trustee of 1 other charity
• MATTHEW COX · trustee of 1 other charity
• Martha Sprackland
• Nabeela Rasul
• Niharika Jain
• Rachel Cleverly
• Rebecca Joanne Thompson
• Robert Drummer
• Sarah Georgina Harwood
• Susan Helen Bowers · trustee of 1 other charity

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Calderdale · Devon · Shropshire · Throughout London

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with THE WRITERS' SUMMER SCHOOL.

• THE WRITERS' SUMMER SCHOOL income £160k
• ARKBOUND FOUNDATION income £197k
• NATIONAL CENTRE FOR WRITING income £1.5m
• FIELDNOTES income £25k
• THE AUTHOR'S FOUNDATION income £233k
• ANDALUCIA LEARNING CENTRE income £60k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.