FAQ

No, youth-led creativity is one of the long-term outcomes in our arts and creativity making change priority in our strategy for A Fairer Future. Our current strategy runs until the end of 2027.

No, there are no deadlines. We are accepting applications on a rolling basis.

We recognise there are different ways for being youth-led. For us, youth-led is where young people hold real and meaningful power to shape decisions, resources and direction at every stage of a project or organisation. In the guidance, we share a few examples of what this could look like:

• Considers who holds power over decisions, money, strategy, priorities, and direction. Goes beyond involving young people and is moving towards ownership by young people.
• Is experimental, imaginative, challenging and innovative in their approach to youth leadership in practice.
• Involves adults but only if they are willing to be challenged, let go of certainty and control, accept risk and discomfort, support rather than direct.

Organisations who can demonstrate this and are working towards formalising this – for example, through an agreement or structure, can apply.

We’re sorry, but no. We want to hear from organisations who are deeply rooted in the communities they work with and places they are in, so we are focusing our support on organisations who are based and working in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

We will be working with the Involving Young People Collective on the next iteration of this fund and the eligibility will be designed by them.

You must be based in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, and be able to demonstrate that you are deeply rooted in the community or communities you are supporting. We’re interested in organisations who are committed to, representative of, and accountable to the community it serves; as well as have a strong understanding of their role in their community and wider ecosystem.

Through this funding, we want to put resources into creative sectors – arts and culture organisations. This includes, but is not limited to: music, film, performance arts, literature and publishing, design and animation. Successful organisations are those whose primary activities sit within the creative sectors.

We are only offering multi-year grants and expect most of the grants awarded to be between £120,000 and £150,000.

Yes, but the focus for our funding must be on our aims for Youth-Led Creativity.

The age range this programme is targeting is 14 to 30 years old. We recognise different projects are targeted at different age brackets of young people. As long as the young people involved are predominantly between the ages of 14 to 30 years old and the project is youth-led, it would not impact likelihood of success.

In terms of how we came to the 14 to 30 age group, the Involving Young People Collective have had a lot of conversations about age brackets. The main reason we chose 14+ is because ensuring projects were youth-led was very important to us and we felt that youth-led projects may look very differently for younger children compared to older children. We felt the ways in which young people could lead and participate in projects was quite different for 11 year olds compared to older children and younger people.

We are open to organisations and projects that work with specific demographics and groups of young people, as well as broader groups of young people as long as they meet can show they understand and have a track record of centering the voices of young people from communities underrepresented in arts and culture.

We can consider projects that take place in schools but we would need to understand the reason for working in the school (e.g. it is the only available space, it is a safe space or the best means of recruitment). However, we cannot fund any curriculum-based work and our assessment would focus on the extent to which the young people involved were leading the project/programme.

Yes, one organisation will need to apply as the 'lead' - they will be treated as the grant-holding organisation in our system and hold responsibility for the progress of the work.

We'll need the collaboration partners to confirm their involvement. Not all partners have to be registered charities. You'll also nominate two contacts; one from the 'lead' organisation and one of the partners. You can include anticipated costs of setting up and coordinating networks or partnerships in your application.

Please note: The 'lead' organisation will need to meet our eligibility criteria for Youth-Led Creativity. If you would like to discuss this further, get in touch by emailing youthledcreativity@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.

We fund the arts through three areas of our strategy. In our ‘Arts and creativity making change’ priority in A Fairer Future, we fund work towards two outcomes:

• Youth-led creativity, which is the subject of this programme.
• A representative cultural workforce, which you can apply for through our main application process. As demand is very high, we are targeting our support. Learn more in our guidance.

Finally, in Creative, Confident Communities:

• Community-led creativity is one of our funding priorities. It has a strong emphasis on how creativity is a tool for community cohesion, and community regeneration.

We also have the Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund, which is delivered by the Museums Association, and supports a range of projects that bring museum collections closer to people.

In addition to grants, we make social investments. You can learn more about social investment support here. We are also a co-investor in the Arts and Cultural Impact Fund, which is a social investment fund for arts organisations.

We have a Q&A webinar on 16 July, which you can attend. We’ll also be sharing the recording and answers on our website. If you still have a question, you can email us at youthledcreativity@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.