Free workshop on applying for Arts Council England’s Project Grants funding

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Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants is open for funding applications. This is an open access funding stream for arts, museums and library projects. The fund is for individual artists, community and cultural organisations. They are keen for more individual artists to apply and be funded and have made changes to the grant to support this happening.

About project grants

Project Grants supports a broad range of not-for-profit projects that create and sustain quality work and help people to engage with arts and culture. The fund supports development by allowing artists, cultural practitioners and organisations to work in new ways and to get their work out to new audiences. Engaging audiences, live or online, is the key distinguishing feature of this fund – it is not primarily designed to support your time to write or mentoring unless these are integral to the engagement activity. You can also apply to research and develop a project idea without going on to fully-fledged ‘production’ of the project. An individual artist can apply for up to £15,000.

About the workshop

If you are not familiar with applying for grant funding, filling out an application form can be a daunting and baffling process. Ruth Harrison and Eva Lewin from Spread the Word will be running a free workshop on Zoom for London based writers at 6.30-8pm, Wednesday 5 May.

We will talk you through the changes to the fund and the different questions in the Project Grants form to help you think about what you will need to have in place for Project Grants funding. Once you have attended the workshop you can send a one-page outline of your project proposal to Spread the Word for 30 minutes of phone feedback.

Who is this workshop for?

This workshop is designed to support:

  • Individual writers or a writer representative from, for example, a writers’ collective who want to pursue a joint project;

  • Writers of any literary form including playwriting and graphic novels;

  • Writers who are considering applying for a Project Grant for the first time or who may have applied in the past but been unsuccessful;

  • Disabled writers and writers of colour are particularly encouraged to apply.

What you will need for the workshop:

  • A clear idea of what your proposed project is, what you want to achieve, the audiences you want to engage and how you are going to go about it;

  • Be able to show how your project involves engaging audiences or participants or will engage them at a later date;

  • Please read through the ACE guidance before you apply to take part in the workshop, so that you are reasonably sure that what you have in mind is suitable for Project Grant funding.

This workshop will:

  • Give you an insight into the purpose of the fund;

  • Help you think through your project;

  • Take you through key stages of the application process;

  • Look at what will make a strong application;

  • Provide opportunities for you to ask questions about your own proposal.

We are only able to offer spaces to applicants whose project ideas are suitable for this particular funding stream. We anticipate that demand will be high so please only book yourself a place if you are committed to attending. This workshop is not open to artists working in other artistic forms outside of literature, including screenwriting and documentary film making.

Booking your place

The workshop is FREE but places are limited. To book a place, please email [email protected] with:

  • A brief paragraph about you as a writer;

  • A short paragraph on your project idea, an outline of the activities and audiences you are aiming to engage and the approximate level of funding you are seeking. Do include brief details of any previous Project Grant applications you may have made and if they have been successful or not;

  • A note on if you have made an ACE project grants application before and the outcome of your application;

  • Please tell us your London address and postcode.

Please let us know if you have any access needs. The Zoom workshop will be captioned.

Please put Project Grant Workshop and your name in the email subject line.

Closing date: midnight, Sunday 25 April

We will contact you by 29 April to let you know if you have a place on the workshop:

Date:               Wednesday 5 May

Time:               6.30pm-8.00pm
Cost:                FREE
Location:         via Zoom