Funding Opportunity

Creative Steps for Individuals

The aim of this fund is to support individual artists and organisations who have experienced barriers to accessing our funding. Creative Steps aims to address this by supporting artists and organisations throughout their journey, helping them with their professional, business and organisational development.

We believe it is crucial to support these individuals and organisations because it is a priority for us to increase the diversity of work being created, funded and celebrated in Wales.

Creative Steps for Individuals is focused on supporting your professional development. It is not about supporting the creation of new work or the delivery of an artistic or creative project. We want artists to identify exactly what they need to progress and professionalise their artistry, and to remain open to exploring different ways of doing this with us. 

We recognise that everybody’s needs are different and that professional development varies from individual to individual. However, these are some of the things that your proposal could include:

  • Working with someone with similar experiences to you to help you work out what steps you need to take next if you are unsure (peer-to-peer learning)
  • Training courses related to your creative journey (but not formal education such as degree courses or vocational training)
  • Setting up groups with other artists to learn together and from each other (building networks, building communities etc.)
  • Working with someone with professional experience to support you as you take the next steps in your business development journey (mentorship, coaching etc.)
  • Making your practice more professional (business development advice, social media and marketing advice etc.)
  • Developing any practical resources or tools to help professionalise your practice or creativity (website development, marketing materials, equipment or materials etc.)
  • Setting up a new organisation

You can also include the following:

  • Cost of your own time
  • Costs for any freelancers supporting your development work
  • Costs for any mentors or consultants
  • Any access costs
  • Costs for childcare or other caregiving responsibilities
Requirements

Creative Steps for Individuals is open to individual artists and creatives who identify as being ethnically and culturally diverse, Deaf, disabled or neurodivergent. This scheme focuses on these particular groups because research, both internally and externally, tells us that we are not engaging enough with individuals from these backgrounds. It also tells us that individuals from these backgrounds and lived experiences have not been able to access our funding easily and have faced barriers and/or discrimination.

Please visit the webpages linked below for our full definitions.

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