Hay Festival Global wins £619k grant for South-to-South series and inaugural Germany forum

Hay Festival Global has been awarded $820,000 (£619,571) in grant funding from the Open Society Foundations to support two years of upcoming projects, including the South-to-South series at all international events and an annual Hay Festival Forum in Germany.

A leading cultural charity, Hay Festival was founded in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, in 1987, providing audiences with dynamic platforms to come together to share ideas, different perspectives and provoke conversations that can create a better world.  

This new funding from the Open Society Foundations, worth $820,000, will support the inaugural editions of a new Hay Festival Forum in Germany, scheduled to take place in spring 2026.   

This will be the charity’s first-ever edition in Germany, “bringing writers and readers together to celebrate a world of different perspectives, ideas and creativity,” Hay Festival Global said. The grant also supports the continued expansion of the festival’s South-to-South series, which sees artists and thinkers cross borders in conversations around the issues facing the Global South and shared solutions and is hosted at Hay Festival events around the world.

The news comes amid a volatile funding landscape, with Hay one of many festivals to recently part ways with sponsor Baillie Gifford. “Demonstrating renewed confidence in the festivals sector, the grant follows the charity’s public call for support last month amid funding uncertainty for the arts,” the organisers said.   

Hay Festival Global chief executive Julie Finch said: “We are hugely grateful to the Open Society Foundations for its generous grant funding support for two innovative Hay Festival Global projects. Our new event in Germany and our continuing South-to-South series will demonstrate the power of storytelling to change lives, bringing artists and audiences together to explore some of the biggest challenges of our times.

“As an international charity, we reach millions of people every year through our one-of-a-kind festivals, forums, programmes and digital platforms and we couldn’t do this without support from funders like Open Society Foundations.”  

The Open Society Foundations gives grants to groups and individuals across the world who work in different ways to promote democratic principles, human rights and justice.