Grants for the Arts
Sophie Eminson
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Grants for the Arts is a Lottery-funded initiative run by the Arts Council to engage people in England in arts activities. It's children and young people grants programme is available for individuals and organisations that use arts in their work. The aim is for more children and young people to have the opportunity to experience the richness of the arts, museums and libraries.
What does it fund?
Grants for the Arts offers funding to support a wide variety of arts-related activities, from dance to visual arts, literature to theatre, music to combined arts. This could involve funding festivals and exhibitions, artistic research and development, residencies, workshops and commissions. These activities can be led in libraries, or educational environments, as long as they involve children, young people and learning. These environments include:
- Early years settings
- Primary, secondary or special schools, pupil referral units
- Further education colleges and universities
- Youth clubs or a youth service-led activity
- An arts or community venue
- An open space
- Supported activities must be clearly related to the arts and must be project-based, up to a maximum of three years.
What is not funded?
The grants programme does not offer funding to any non-art related projects. It will only fund engaging projects that help artists and arts organisations to carry out their work. It will not fund any self-promotional activity. General running costs, ongoing overheads, or any costs which are already partially funded will not be funded.
Funding will not be granted to projects in a formal education setting for educational purposes necessary by law, activities that are intended to make a profit within the project period, fundraising activities that do not benefit the arts, or activities that involve an applicant using the funding to make grants to third parties.
How much is available?
Grants of between £1,000 and £100,000 are available to fund up to 90 per cent of an activity.
There are different guidelines for organisations applying for funding of £15,000 or less, to those applying for funding exceeding £15,000.
Who can apply?
The programme is aimed at individuals and organisations that offer or support arts-based activities. The programme defines an "organisation" as a single group of people working towards a common goal. This can include a limited company, a charity or an unincorporated group. These include:
- Arts organisations
- Local authority and other public organisations such as library and museum services
- Regional and national organisations
- Voluntary or community groups
- Groups of organisations (one will need to take responsibility for managing the application of any grant).
Who cannot apply?
- Organisations that receive regular funding through the National portfolio programme
- People who have not submitted any overdue payment conditions on previous grants
- Organisations that share out profits to members or shareholders
- Students, for activities directly linked to their formal course of study, activities that contribute towards their course assessment, tuition fees or living costs
- Individual educational establishments (e.g. one school or college) where the activity does not provide benefits to the wider community or artists.
- Individuals or organisations based outside of the European Union
- Members of Arts Council England's national council.
Application procedure
An organisation must create an applicant profile with the Arts Council. Applicants can add users to this profile, who can write and submit applications on behalf of the organisation, can view all the applicant's previous activity with the programme, can amend information and request a withdrawal of the grant.
After the initial application, a decision will be made. For applications for up to £15,000, a decision will typically take six weeks. For applications exceeding £15,000, decisions can take up to 12 weeks.
More from:
www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/grants-arts
Funding roundup
Youth groups wanting to apply for grants from Baron Davenport's charity must submit bids by 15 March 2018. Organisations supporting children and young people under the age of 25 can apply for up to £1,000 for their projects in the spring funding round. The grants are open to bids from uniformed groups, youth clubs and organisations supporting disadvantaged children.
Up to three charities are set to receive £100,000 of funding from the NSPCC's research fund. The grants programme - in its first year - will be offered to up to three organisations with less than £10m annual revenue. Recipients of the grants will be expected to show evidence of impact of their work with young people and share the findings. The closing date was 2 November with recipients due to be announced shortly.
Organisations can apply for grants of up to £10,000 once a year from the True Colours Trust small grants programme. The trust particularly supports hydrotherapy pools, multi-sensory rooms and specialised play equipment. In 2015/16, the programme awarded 41 grants to organisations, amounting to £209,114. Applications are considered year-round.
A partnership between global cycling brand Rapha and the charity Ambitious about Autism has led to £1m being raised to support children and young people with autism. Alongside Olympic cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins, 200 riders took part in the fundraising bike ride from Manchester to London in September this year.