How to apply

1. Expression of Interest

This stage is for you to tell us you are interested in applying for our funding and support, and for you to let us know about your work. Expressions of Interest will be assessed by a young consultant working with an Esmée funding manager. When you are ready to tell us about your work, you can submit an expression of interest through our website.

In the expression of interest form, we will first ask you:

• About your organisation: charity or company number; total income for the last financial year; number of trustees and non-executive directors; date established; website and social media accounts.
• Your funding request: the name of the work you’d like Esmée to support, how much money you are applying for, and how many months of support you’re applying for.

We will then ask you four questions to learn more about your work and help us understand how you meet the criteria for the programme. Your answers are meant to be short. You can type your responses into the form, or upload a voice recording or video.

You’ll have a total of 1200 words to answer all four questions. If you are uploading a video or audio recording, this is usually around 5 to 10 minutes of speaking.

1. Tell us, briefly, about what you want Esmée to fund and why (150 words)
2. How is your work led by and shaped by young people from communities currently under-represented in arts and culture? (350 words)
3. In what ways do you prioritise the joy and care of young people? (350 words)
4. Can you give us an example of how you have collaborated or worked with others to develop youth-led practice and your learning around this? (350 words)

Please note: We will also look at your website to learn about your organisation and impact so far. This will help us to learn more about the governance of your organisation as well your work with young people and your youth-led practice. If we think your work is a good match to what we are looking for, we will call you to discuss your work in more detail. At the EOI stage, we just want to get an idea of the work rather than detailed information.

If there are specific links (to reports, videos, etc) that can help to demonstrate the above, please include them in the box provided.

What happens next

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

After you submit your EOI, you will be redirected to a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion monitoring form. You will need to complete this for your organisation. We will use this information to make sure that the reach of our funding and our funding practices are fair and just. We will also use it to help us identify and address structural inequity. Learn more about how we're classifying our data.

Assessment

Your EOI will be reviewed at a fortnightly meeting with Esmée staff and IYPC consultants. At this stage of the assessment, we’ll consider:

• Fit to strategy: how strong the work fits the criteria for the Youth-Led Creativity programme and its potential alongside other work we’re funding and requests we’ve received.
• Governance, leadership and track record: the organisation meets our minimum eligibility criteria for the Youth-Led Creativity programme. We will also look at the organisation's website, social media and impact/annual report to learn more about the organisation and its impact so far.

Together with the IYPC, we’ll make a decision about whether to take it forward based on what we think is the most effective use of our resources. We will get back to you within four weeks. If we decide not to take your application further, we will give you some feedback, which we hope is helpful.

2. Conversation

If we take your EOI forward, we will invite you for a Conversation. We’ll use this to learn more about your work and approach, and it’ll be an opportunity to learn more about the programme and our support. We’ll also discuss the broader context, your connections to relevant networks or communities, and how our support could make a significant difference. It will also be a chance for us to share more about our work – including other work we are funding – so we can further explore the potential impact and opportunities.

This could be a phone or video call with a member of Esmée staff and an IYPC consultant. You can have more than one person on the call but to make the most of the time, we suggest you have no more than three people. We expect the call to take approximately 60 minutes.

If you would prefer, you can ask to do this part by sending us written information. This could be a document you already have like a strategic plan or business plan; or an email with your responses to the points.

Some of the areas the Conversation will cover:

• What will be delivered and the expected outcomes from your work
• Potential impact and reach of the proposed work - including the difference your work is bringing to your community through arts and creativity
• Your approach to youth-led practice – in particular:
  • How arts and creativity is used to develop youth-led practice
  • Your approach to the care and wellbeing of young people.
  • How you celebrate and bring joy into the process of creativity
  • How you compensate young people contributing to and leading the work.
  • Any risks you have identified: for instance, is the work new and untested? And how does the potential impact balance any risks?
• How our support and connections could add value to your work
• How you work and your impact so far – including how you evaluate your work to understand its impact
• The governance and leadership of your organisation, including:
  • How decisions are made such as the salaries of employee
  • Whether there are any potential conflicts of interest and what you have in place to mitigate these.
  • How the skills, expertise and experience of the leadership make the organisation well placed to do the work; as well as the internal capacity to deliver the work
• Your approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, what this looks like at their organisation and the work
• Your approach to safeguarding
• How you’re currently funded and if you have any major financial concerns

Before the Conversation, we will outline what we want to cover so you know what to expect.

What happens next

Assessment

The Esmée staff and IYPC consultant will write up a note of the Conversation (or information you have sent) for discussion at our fortnightly Esmée and IYPC meeting. We’ll consider the work and organisation’s approach in more detail, along with the organisation’s experience and impact to date.

Together with the IYPC, we’ll make a decision about whether to take it forward based on what we think is the most effective use of our resources. We will get back to you within three weeks. If we decide not to take your application further, we will give you feedback, outlining our reasons.

3. More information

If we take your application further, we will consider what other information we need to do a detailed assessment. This will include:

• Additional questions about the work we may have: this could be to seek clarification or more detail, alongside any points that may have come up at our team meeting.
• Financial information about your organisation: financial details of the previous financial year, the current financial year, and the next financial year. The current year and next year should be based on your organisational income and expenditure budget.
• Outcomes: Up to three outcomes you expect from the work, and what your indicators of progress might be. These should contribute to Esmée’s aims for the programme. See our guidance on outcomes for more information.

• Supporting documents:
  • A copy of your latest approved annual report and accounts
  • An income and expenditure budget for the organisation for the current financial year
  • A copy of your safeguarding policy (see our approach to safeguarding)
  • A set of draft or management accounts covering the last financial year if you do not yet have an audited version (if applicable)
  • If you are applying for a project, a budget identifying what you would like us to fund and any other funding approached/secured
  • A copy of your Constitution, Memorandum and Articles of Association or other rules (if you are not a registered charity)

What happens next

Assessment and recommendation

The Esmée staff and IYPC consultant will carry out a detailed review of all the information for discussion at our fortnightly meeting, along with other requests for funding, so that we can better explore potential opportunities with other work we’re funding and collective learning. The Esmée staff and IYPC consultant will then write up a recommendation for decision.

Decision

Our Trustees work with our Executive team to make decisions on how to use our resources and make funding decisions. We will get back to you within two to three months.

Decisions are made depending on the size of the funding request:

• Grants up to £120k - Executive Team, which meets every two weeks.
• Grants up to £300k - Executive/Trustee committee, which meets every six weeks.