This page has information and guidance about our funding priorities and the long-term outcomes we're looking to support in Creative, Confident Communities.
Key features across our work in Creative, Confident Communities
For all our priorities in Creative, Confident Communities, we want to support work that:
- Is inclusive and accessible: by this, we mean work that engages and represents the diverse communities in a place.
- Is co-owned, co-created, and co-designed with local people: by this, we mean that local people are at the heart of change. For us, the process is just as important as the outcomes.
- Is collaborative: by this, we mean unusual alliances, cross-sector and multi-agency approaches.
- Has potential for sustained change: by this, we mean benefits communities beyond the lifetime of our funding.
- Has potential for scale: by this, we mean there is scope to share learning and/or replication elsewhere.
- Can demonstrate multiple benefits for local people: for instance, this could include reduced isolation, increased volunteering levels, as well as increased skills and engagement.
Please note: due to limited capacity in our Creative, Confident Communities team, it is likely to take us a little bit longer to get back to you. We have updated the guidance to reflect this, and our response times to Expressions of Interest for Creative, Confident Communities is six weeks.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We commit to funding more organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity. In Creative, Confident Communities, we will also work with partners to identify, fund, and nurture smaller organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity that are working towards our impact goals.
Climate change
Across all our aims, we are keen to support work which addresses the causes and impacts of climate change.
Communities working together for change
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We seek out ambitious work that puts communities themselves at the heart of the changes they want to make and can provide transformative models for others to learn from. We will support communities to exercise greater power over their economic, social, and environmental future.
Long-term outcome:
Communities use their power to make change happen.
Organisations and work we want to support:
- Has local people at the heart of the change, is inclusive and accessible to all communities in a place.
- Takes a partnership approach resulting in the corporate, cultural, public, voluntary, and community sectors working together with local people to deliver collective change.
- Motivates and enables communities to use their collective ideas, skills and assets to bring about their vision of what they want their local area to be.
- Creates strong networks that continue to benefit communities beyond the lifetime of our funding.
- Tests new or uses proven models, provided there is scope for sharing lessons and replication elsewhere.
Explore recent grants in Communities working together for change.
Community driven enterprise and regeneration
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Long-term outcome:
Local economies work better for the people who live there.
Organisations and work we want to support:
- Takes a localised, community-led approach to engage people with the common goal of changing and reinvesting in their local economy for the better.
- Tests and grows new, sustainable models of community-led enterprise, which may include community ownership, with the aim of creating better outcomes for local people.
- Offers learning for others, or has the potential to be replicated elsewhere.
- Is inclusive and represents the diverse communities in a place.
- Champions environmental justice, regenerative enterprises, green recovery and access to nature in any economic development.
Explore recent grants in Community driven enterprise and regeneration.
Community-led art and creativity
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Long-term outcome:
Everyone can access the benefits of culture and creativity.
Organisations and work we want to support:
- Transforms places through a collaborative approach to culture that is co-created with local people alongside cultural organisations and other local players.
- Is led by local people, is inclusive and represents the diverse communities in a place.
- Enables and strengthens cultural organisations with a strong track record of community engagement to influence local decision-making and policies.
- Is ambitious with the potential for scale through a cross-sector or multi-agency approach. We will support work at different scales including: national initiatives and programmes working in multiple places; and region-wide activity as well as county, city or borough-wide programmes.
- Is linked to wider networks and has the ability to share learning, as well as contribute to wider learning about co-creation and co-design.
We will consider work that includes activity in schools where the work has broader ambitions and has an impact on the wider community. This includes work that engages schools as a way to reach children and young people, their families, and build community relationships. Please note we tend not to support work that is exclusively in schools and is part of the curriculum.