Joe Frankland is CEO at PRS Foundation, the UK's leading independent charitable funder of new music and talent development.
PRS Foundation has for 25 years invested in the future of music – funding new music and supporting careers from the grassroots up. Since 2000, PRS Foundation has given more than £50 million to over 9,000 new music initiatives. Widely respected as an inclusive, collaborative and proactive funding body, PRS Foundation supports an exceptional range of new music activity through direct grants to music creators and through support for pioneering organisations, including venues, festivals, promoters and other talent development organisations.
PRS Foundation founded the Women Make Music fund, co-founded global gender equality initiative Keychange, and most recently launched the POWER UP initiative to tackle anti-Black racism in music. 6 out of the last 7 Mercury Prize winners have received PRS Foundation support (including recent winner English Teacher), and the charity has supported BRITs, Mercury, AIM and Ivors Award winners. Joe joined PRS Foundation in 2014 as Industry Funds Manager to run flagship schemes including the PPL Momentum Fund and the International Showcase Fund before moving into the Senior Grants & Programmes Manager role in 2015, where he led the Foundation's grants team and worked strategically to plan and manage pioneering grant-making and partnership programmes. He was appointed as CEO in 2019.
Frankland previously worked at the forefront of talent development, helping to break artists and build careers at Generator in the North East of England, and is passionate about supporting innovative organisations and a diverse range of music creators across the UK.