The Green Man Trust, the charitable arm of Wales’ largest music festival, celebrates its tenth birthday this year having supported more than 12,000 people and raising nearly £2 million.
Since 2014, the Green Man Trust has:
- Raised more than £1,800,000 for good causes.
- Supported more than 12,000 people.
- Supported more than 5,000 artists.
- Provided more than 2,000 training placements.
- Helped 200-plus new science engagement projects off the ground.
- Provided more than 170 grants to community projects.
In 2024 alone, the Trust selected 14 projects for its Community Grant scheme, more than twice the number of projects it supported last year, with donations topping £20,000.
And since it was launched, thousands of people in Powys community groups have benefited from the Green Man Trust, as well as wider charitable projects across Wales.
These include:
- £200,000 raised for Powys schools including Llangattock, Crickhowell, Llanbedr, Llangynidr Primary School, and Crickhowell High School.
- Over 2000 young people trained including refugees and asylum seekers, young people from Merthyr Tydfil, graduates from Cardiff University and University of South Wales, adult learners from the Salvation Army, adult learners developing film skills, outdoor arts, performance artists, production technology, music performance, hospitality, crowd management, grounds maintenance and science engagement.
- £16,000 donated to vulnerable Powys households affected by Storm Denis.
- £13,000 to local food banks.
- £3,000 to Ukraine aid relief.
- £95,000 donated to Community Projects in Powys.
Welsh actor and musician Iwan Rheon, Ambassador of the Green Man Trust, said:
“As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Green Man Trust, I, as a proud Welshman, remain passionately committed to this organisation as its ambassador.
“A staggering 12,000 people have been supported since we started, and what a journey it’s been. We can’t talk about the Green Man Trust without talking about its founder, Fiona Stewart. The Trust is her vision. She cares about people, a fairer society and bringing people together to create positive experiences. Green Man attendees will be familiar with this ethos as it is at the heart of the festival as it is with the Trust. Her enthusiasm for ‘making good stuff happen,’ inspired me and many others to get involved and the momentum has grown and grown…We are very grateful to the many people who supported us along the way.’’
Zoe Coleman undertook a Green Man Trust placement on the audio-visual team in 2022 where she operated the stage cameras, edited the footage and generally helped in the video content on site. She said of the experience:
“From having this experience I was then itching for more, and have since managed to wriggle my way into operating locally at Cardiff Castle gigs (Avril Lavigne, Ben Howard etc), Tech Assisting vision on the Champions League Final at Wembley, and even acting as a junior camera operator at this year’s Olympics in Paris.”
The Green Man Trust offers developmental opportunities and funding across music, performing and visual arts, providing early-career artists crucial support in showcasing their work. Osian Meilir, a Welsh performance artist was a recipient of the grant.
He said this of the experience:
“Green Man Trust has been integral in my development as an artist. The opportunities and support I have received have allowed me to develop my artistry, create new work and share this with a wider audience that reaches beyond Wales.
“As a Welsh artist, opportunities like these to platform your artistic vision and voice really are quite rare and with the support I received from Green Man in 2022 to develop Qwerin into a full-scale production, I have since toured the work extensively in England and Wales. Since 2023 we have also toured the work internationally, taking the work to Australia…We have also performed in France and the Rugby World Cup in Paris and Lyon.”
As part of its birthday celebrations, the Trust has commissioned some of the recipients of the charity to return to Green Man with performing arts shows and visual arts installations. They include Welsh visual artist Megan Broadmeadow, a previous Trust-commissioned artist who will be creating a large-scale visual arts installation in the pinewoods, a standout piece that relates to holograms and artificial intelligence and will be the festival’s highest-budget visual arts piece to date. Welsh collective Kitsch‘n’Sync have also been commissioned to bring their circus show, Quantum Queendome to the festival, celebrating notorious women who have shaped the world.
The first decade saw the Green Man Trust double its targets. For the next decade, the Trust says it will focus even more on future generations and the climate emergency.
