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Arts Council England �Project Grants and �Developing your Creative Practice

Scattered by Motionhouse

Photo © Chris Nash / Motionhouse

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��Who we are

Arts Council England is the main public funder for arts and culture in England, using money from the government and National Lottery.

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Access support ��

Guidance in alternative formats

The cost of an access support worker

in meetings with us
to help you complete the form

�Translation of applications made in BSL into written English

�Customer Services

enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk

We want to make sure that individuals and disabled-led organisations have access support if they face barriers in applying to Project Grants and DYCP. So if you're applying for funding but need access support, there are a number of ways we can help you before you submit your application.�

This can include:

Providing our guidance in another format such as BSL, Braille, Easy Read and Large Print
Paying for a support worker
BSL applications
Help managing your project
Help making your project accessible

If you have a support worker, or a friend or family member who is helping you, they can claim a day rate of up to £300, including VAT and travel expenses. We don’t state a limit for project grants, but for DYCP there’s a standard maximum of £600 because of the much smaller application. Please talk to us if you want to request more than that – we know we need to be flexible.

To find out more about either option, email us at Enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk and add ‘ACCESS INFORMATION’ to the subject bar.

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Accessible formats�

www.artscouncil.org.uk/access

Easy Read guidance

Audio guidance

BSL guidance available on demand

We have a dedicated access support page on our website, which is “Arts Council dot org dot UK, forward slash access”

�Here’ you can find Easy Read versions of our Access support guidance and the How to Apply guidance for Project Grants��There’s also our Access support information sheets, which go into detail about the ways in which we can help and how support workers should be able to help you.��We’ve recently also released audio versions of our 8 most popular guidance documents:

Easy Read – Project Grants
Easy Read – DYCP
Easy Read – Access support

Project Grants - How to Apply (£15k and under)
Project Grants - How to Apply (Over £15k)
DYCP – Guidance for applicants

Access Support and Project Grants
Access Support and DYCP�

BSL guidance is, at the minute, available on demand. If your preferred format isn’t listed here, get in touch and we’ll do our best to help you.��Get in touch with our customer services team for more information (details on next slide).�

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1. About ACE

Adrienne Hart taking part in Dance SCAPES project, Swindon

Photo: Kevin Clifford

About

Project Grants

Daryl Beeton Productions. Photo Claire Horton

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Project Grants – the basics

Project Grants is for anyone who wants to make experiences that reach the public, now or in future.

It’s a rolling fund – you can apply any time for £1,000 - £100,000.

Decisions - Under £15,000 up to 10 weeks. Over £15,000 up to 16 weeks to receive your decision.

Applications are all online, through our ‘Grantium’ portal.

Project Grants is our open access fund for new ideas, new talent and new approaches in the arts.

Anyone can apply

Individuals – We are one of the few arts funders that will support individuals, certainly for these amounts and we are very proud of that. Without this funding programme – many artists would not be able to afford to continue their practice, and talent and skills would be lost.
Organisations – arts organisations, collaborating groups, theatres, museums, libraries, arts centres etc.
People who use the arts in their work – You don’t need to be an artist to apply. Anyone can apply (except regularly funded organisations otherwise know as NPOs)

Activities MUST benefit people in England, either in the short term or the long term.

You can apply for £1,000 - £100,000, if you want to apply for more than this then you will need our permission

The money comes from the National Lottery

All applications must be made online. We will talk about the application form and the questions we ask later in this presentation

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What can you apply for?�

Dance

Music

Theatre

Visual Arts

Museums

Literature

Combined Arts

Most projects we fund will fall into one or more of these categories. �

Dance
Literature
Music
Museums – (Accredited Museums only can apply for work such as exhibitions, conservation, learning and outreach related to a museum’s core work)
Theatre
Visual Arts
Combined Arts can mean many things, it might be a combination of the other artforms, or it can also describe festivals, carnivals and other types of celebration or projects that explore new technologies in the arts, museums and libraries.

We support Libraries but usually only to carry out this kind of work, including reader development work. Core library activity, like stocking books, should be covered by local councils or government.

Your project will probably fall somewhere in this circle. It might not, but don’t worry, if you’re not sure, get in touch with us and we will let you know if it’s the sort of thing we can fund.

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What can you apply for?�

Doing research for a new project

Making new work

Events

Workshops

Touring work

There are a range of activities that you can apply for, including...

Doing research for a new project – talking to people and finding out about places, themes or other research that will inform a piece of work you want to do in the future. In this case we would want to see that this might reach people in the long term. You can do this by showing us your track record or by confirmed partners who will show or publish the work

Making new work – This might be writing a play or a book, choreographing a show or putting on a production

Events – Plays, gigs, concerts, performances

Workshops – learning opportunities, you might run a workshop to pass on your skill sin dance, writing etc to people who want to learn. You might also attend a workshop as part of a wider project so you can be better at what you do.

Touring work – taking a play, workshop or gig round an area or even the country

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What can’t you apply for?�

Work that won’t reach people in England

Things that have already happened

School or university courses

Business running costs

Cinema or fashion

There are also some types of activity that you can't apply for...

Work that won’t reach people in England – either in the short term or the long term. So you can apply for research or to write a book ,so long as you can show that people will see, hear, read or experience it in some way in the future.

Things that have already happened – or that will happen before we can make a decision – 6 weeks or 12 weeks (over £15k)

School or university courses – You can apply if you’re a student, a researcher, a school or a university. But we can’t fund anything that should be covered as part of an accredited course or curriculum. You will have to show that your project is extra or separate from your course of study.

Business running costs – This is Project Grants – it is for standalone, one-off projects that have a clear start date and end date.

Cinema or fashion – There are other organisations to cover these kinds of things, like the British Film institute or the Fashion Council. We can support artists or Museums that use video as a way of reaching people, but cinema as an artform is not part of our remit.

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Equality Objectives

Improving access to the sector for disabled, neuro-divergent and D/deaf workers, audiences and participants

Ensure funded organisations and projects improve and can demonstrate meaningful engagement with, and opportunities for, Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic workers, audiences and participants.

Challenging racism and embedding anti-racism values across all of the Arts Council’s policy and funding decisions

Addressing specific disadvantages facing Children and Young People and Older People as a result of COVID 19

Improving access to creative and cultural activities to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds

Our equality objectives help us to work towards building a more inclusive and relevant sector as well as accelerate the work that we still need to do to make us more inclusive and relevant.

Our equality objectives

We have identified the following equality objectives that enable us to support different communities who have been / will be most impacted by the pandemic, prevailing social injustice and wider economic repercussions: -.

Our Equality Objectives are:

Improving access to the sector for disabled, neuro-divergent and D/deaf workers, audiences and participants
Ensuring funded organisations and projects improve and can demonstrate meaningful engagement with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic workers, audiences and participants
Challenging racism and embedding anti-racism values across all of the Arts Council's policy and funding decisions
Addressing specific disadvantages facing Children and Young People and Older People as a result of Covid-19
Improving access to creative and cultural activities to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

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Arts Council England

Bicycle Ballet, Brighton, 2006

Photo: Matthew Andrews

4. Making an application

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Apply online – Grantium

Registering a user account takes a few days

Some people find Grantium challenging – you are not alone!

Our enquiries team will help with the portal

Request Access Support funding if you are facing barriers with the system.

Shoreline, Simon Birch Dance, SALT 2016

photography by Steve Tanner

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Quality – what we ask

Your relevant work and experience
Your project and what you want it to achieve
How this project will help to develop your work.
Who is involved (Artists, creatives, museum specialists)

£50k + the wider impact of the project,

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Public Engagement – what we ask

Who will engage with the activity?

- eg target audiences or people taking part

How they will they engage with the activity, either now or in the future?

How you will reach these people? - inc details of marketing activities

£100k+ audience development and marketing plan

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Finance – what we ask

Income (including Support in Kind)

Expenditure

Your experience in managing budgets

How figures in the budget have been calculated (including ticket income and fees for artists, creatives etc)

£15k+ detailed budget / £50k+ cashflow attachments

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Management – what we ask

Can you successfully manage the project?

Where the project is taking place (inc tour schedules)

Your, and any partners’, experience of managing similar types of activity

Any planning and preparation completed so far

Project plan timeline - include detail!

How you will evaluate your project

£50k+ risk assessment

Management

In this section we will ask When and Where your project will take place
Who will lead on each part?
How it will be managed. (You must complete the Project plan!) Make sure this includes all the activity that you have described in other parts of the application.
At the moment, we know that managing an activity means taking some new and different things into account. If an activity involves working with the public, you will need to have a plan in place to do this as safely as possible and manage risks effectively. You’ll need to use your answers in this section to tell us how you can feasibly deliver the project you’re proposing, and what you’ve done to make sure it is safely delivered. You’ll need to think about what you’ll do differently if things change – if we have another lockdown, for example

The amount and type of information we ask you for is dependent on how much money you apply for. So again, the more money you request, the more information we will ask you for.

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Personal access costs and making your work accessible

Personal access costs can be included to cover any access requirements for people delivering the project.

Personal access costs are separate from your request.

Costs to make the work accessible can be included for anyone engaging with the work

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Developing your Creative Practice�

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Let’s move on to some of the important basic details that underpin DYCP.

Grants - £2k - £10k

Rounds - 4 per year - we have had 2 already and the 3^rd opens on 5^th August

Individuals – This is not just for artists, it’s for anyone with a creative practice, this includes curators, producers, choreographers etc.��It’s for your personal development - It’s not about project development or creating your next piece of work – that kind of application would probably be eligible, but it wouldn’t be a good fit for the programme.��The best applications are those that focus on developing your creative skills, knowledge and networks etc. �

Remember, DYCP is all about you

The two main questions applicants need to answer are:

Why this opportunity?�Why now?

It’s about getting from point A to point B. The people that are most likely to be successful will be those that can demonstrate a change in the quality of their work. So it won’t necessarily be the “best” artists who get funded, it will be those that demonstrate that the grant would make a real change to their practice. Think about how what you do will be different, or better, at the end of the development, compared with what you do now.

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Let’s take a look at what you can you apply for.

Artists/curators/producers etc. can apply for a period of self-directed activity – we’re not setting up restrictive parameters in terms of what this looks like. It’s up to applicants to tell us what they need to do to progress their practice. We’ve created what we hope is a more straightforward application form that just focuses on quality. All we really want to know from applicants is why and how a timely intervention would make a significant difference to their practice. Activity might include –

A period of research
Time to create some new work
Travel
Training
Developing new ideas
Networking or mentoring

What we’re really interested in funding through this programme is not necessarily those who are already making high quality work (although quality is important), or those who write the best applications – it’s those who’ve really demonstrated that this funding, at this point in their career, will make all the difference.

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There are some things that you can’t apply for. One thing we do see regularly is applications for Projects that might have been more suited to Project Grants, such as Research & Development for a project that will become a live show, or time to write your next book or play. We can support this through Project Grants. ��We also have to see how the project will help you develop creatively. So if your new project is the same as the work you have done already, then this isn’t the right fund for you. Ask yourself: what am I doing differently this time? How will it change things?�

We can’t cover university or college fees. You can include other kinds of course fees though. If you’re going on any courses or residencies, you should explain why they are right for you and what you’ll get out of them.

We’ve also had a lot of applications for films – we can fund film as a medium for a visual artist or poet etc. to deliver their work or reach their audience, but more general narrative filmmaking does not fall under the remit of the Arts Council.��Loss of earnings due to covid-19 or any other factors also isn’t eligible.

All costs covered by a grant should take place after a decision has been made on the application.

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Decisions take 10-16 weeks depending on the size of the request

Let’s take a look some of the key differences between DYCP and Project Grants, to see which might suit you best:

You can only have an application under consideration to one of these two programmes at any one time, so think carefully about which one is right for you.

If you are successful, you can run two separate activities side by side. So, for example, if you receive a Project Grant for putting on a play, show or exhibition, you can also apply to DYCP for a period of development which runs alongside it, or for a separate development opportunity.��Remember, if your project is solely about creating new work and reaching new audiences, then it is probably better suited to Project Grants

DYCP is only open to individuals. Project Grants is open to individuals and organisations

DYCP is geared towards creative practitioners who are at an early to mid-point stage in their practice and need support to make a major change or carry out a period of focused development work

The immediate person who benefits from DYCP is you. For Project Grants, the immediate people who benefit are those who engage with the project

DYCP awards grants between £2,000 and £10,000. Project Grants offers grants between £1,000 and £100,000

DYCP is for activities up to one year in length. Project Grants is for projects up to three years in length

DYCP has four deadlines per year. You can apply to Project Grants at any time, and there are no deadlines

For DYCP, decisions on applications take up to nine weeks from the deadline. For Project Grants, decisions on applications for £15,000 or less take 10 weeks. Decisions for over £15,000 take 16 weeks

During this period, you can apply to any round of DYCP, even if you have applied before or have previously been awarded a grant. For Project Grants, you can apply at �any time, unless you are waiting for a decision on a previous application

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To reiterate, pre-application access support is also available for DYCP. To request it you need to email enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk with ‘ACCESS SUPPORT’ as the subject. The email should include:

- The type of support you are requestion (e.g a support worker to assist with completing the application form on Grantium)

- The name and contact details of your chosen support worker – if applicable

- A quote for the support (e.g 2 days at £300 per day)

There is a standard maximum for dycp of £600 but we know we need to be flexible. If you want to request a higher amount please include this request in your email. If you can’t find a suitable support worker then we can ask some National Portfolio Organisations (regularly funded organisations) if they are able to connect you with someone.

It’s important to agree this request with us before getting starting because are not able to pay for anything that ahs already taken place.

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The application form is much shorter than Project Grants – it includes 3 written questions, 2 attachments, 3 check-box options, a budget and an activity plan.

These are the three questions:

1. Please tell us about yourself and your creative practice

2. Tell us about the developmental opportunity you want to undertake, what you hope to get out of it, and how you will go about it

3. Why is this important for your practice at this point, and how will this help create future opportunities?

��The aim here is about your development, so your answers to the three questions should show a journey from A to B.��Question one is where are you now? Point A��Question Three is where you want to be, and how will that be better than what you do now? Point B��The second question is all about that journey. The strongest applications are those that have been able to evidence a big difference in point A and point B, and which have convincing and structured plans to get there.��You might not know exactly what point B will look like, and that’s fine, but you should have a clear idea of what elements of your work you want to work on.��Remember, this is about being ambitious in your development.

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You can add two attachments to your application: an example of your work and a supporting document written by someone else. The attachments should add value to the application and demonstrate both the quality of your work and that you are at the right stage to really benefit from a period of development

There are 3 check box questions regarding area of focus/public benefit/and outcomes relevant to ACE’s Let’s Create strategy. These are not used in decision making, they are there to help us report on how our funding is used.

So, remember, immediate public benefit is not required in DYCP, these check box answers help us to report on how we use funding to achieve our goals, but they will not be seen by decision makers.

There is no income required for this programme, we just want to know what you’ll use your grant for.

The activity plan should give us an idea of exactly what you’ll do and when.

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Personal access costs are the costs relating to your own access needs, and/or any access needs of the artists you’re working with. For example, payment for a BSL interpreter to help you manage your activity.

Your budget can include Personal Access Costs for delivering or managing your budget, and this is included in the questionnaire as a separate amount. This means that your total ask can be above the £10,000 limit due to access costs – this is totally fine.

There’s no upper limit to how much you can include, but it has to be relevant to your DYCP activity.

Only include personal access costs for what will happen after you have submitted your application in your expenditure table. Don’t include costs related to preparing, planning and submitting your application.

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More guidance & support

More guidance online

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/projectgrants

Info in different formats

Video, BSL, Audio Podcast, Large Print, Easy Read: http://artscouncil.org.uk/access

Customer Services

Eligibility, help with Grantium, Access Support:�enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk

Relationship Managers

1:1 surgeries available in London Visual Arts tea,:
vamlondon@artscouncil.org.uk

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5. Questions & discussion

Thank You!