Like many small charities, we rely on your generosity to help us continue our work with local communities. Your donations help us make Banbury an even more vibrant and creative town, with The Mill at its heart.
Support The Mill
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Why Support The Mill
Your donation will enable us to continue proudly inspiring, educating and entertaining people from across our local communities.
We’re the only dedicated arts and performance venue in the whole of the Cherwell District – meaning that without The Mill, many in our area wouldn’t have access to the huge range of performances, workshops, exhibitions and more that we offer each and every year.
Whilst we receive annual funding from Arts Council England and Cherwell District Council, this covers less than 30% of our operating costs each year. We are enormously grateful for the ever-loyal support of our audiences by purchasing thousands of tickets each year for our classes and events. However, invariably the majority of the income from ticket sales goes to directly supporting the visiting companies, artists and performers who make these events possible.
We are therefore reliant on your donations to ensure we can continue to offer a full range of top-quality shows, creative workshops and outreach activities so that everyone has access to the opportunities they deserve to be creative, entertained and inspired.
Here’s what your support enabled us to do over the past year:
- Over 30,000 people attended one of our live events, workshops or classes in 2023, what’s more generating an additional £1.1M for the local economy* (source) and helping to make Banbury a vibrant place to live, work and play
- As part of Out of The Mill, our programme of off-site activity, we have engaged approximately 800 members of the public and 1200 secondary school pupils aged 11-14 in Bicester through our partnership with Justice in Motion. With four live public performances, eight school assemblies, 40 workshop sessions and two Q&A’s, this project demonstrates how a creative approach can be used to effectively cut through and engage often hard-to-reach audiences on tough issues – in this case County Lines & knife crime.
- We delivered 218 activity sessions for people aged 50+ including our Rusty Musicians group and the Remarkable Dance Company, supporting people to stay connected and keep mentally and physically active.
- Entertained over 4,000 people at Banbury Canal Festival with our free-to-view programme of world class dance and acrobatic performances, sharing the joy of breathtaking experiences with new and diverse audiences.
- Through our Community Connections Fund we supported the cost of accessing our programme for 416 people from the Brighter Futures areas of Banbury, which rank amongst the 20 per cent most deprived in the country.
- Played a key role in enabling a wide range of local groups, clubs and charities to do what they do best by facilitating 298 workshops, meetings, rehearsals and more – hosted in the unique spaces and facilities that our building affords.
What your donation could enable us to achieve:
£10 – materials for a Little Creatives session for young artists aged 0-5
£15 – the cost of gifting a free ticket to a local community group or school to see our Christmas show
£125 – hosting a bespoke creative workshop at The Mill for a local community group
£250 – supporting the cost of our Community Engagement Officer to facilitate a workshop in a local school or community setting
£600 – providing audio description or British Sign Language interpretation for a live performance
£1000 – programming a world-class performance for over 4,000 people to enjoy at Banbury Canal Festival
Gift Aid Your Donation
The Mill is a Registered Charity (No 1165998). A Gift Aid declaration allows us to reclaim tax on eligible donations, so that for every £1 you donate we can claim back 25p from HMRC. This gives your donation the power to make an even greater impact.
Your donations have a real impact. Help us to carry on doing what we do best. Donate today.