Ten top tips for ACE funding

Fundraising skills are in demand at charities and arts organizations.

Introduction

In June 2015, Milton Keynes Council and Arts Council England got together to host a free event which aimed to provide “advice on developing successful funding applications“.

Top Ten Tips for Arts Council Funding (2015)

1. Council Resources – Local Council arts development officers may have experience of arts properties, arts strategy, development and monitoring grants, making them an important source of local help. 
2. Creating Your Project – Aim to explain your project on one side of A4, in a jargon-free way. Identifying opportunities to collaborate with other groups and projects in England gets you extra brownie points.
3. Do Your Research – Get information on what’s happening in your field of interest locally and nationally.
4. Needs Assessment - Look for an identified need for your arts project in your local area. This information may come from a local funding organisation’s report, the council’s arts & heritage strategy or from looking through ACE papers and research (e.g. the latest Arts Council Plan in the Advice & Guidance section of their website).
5. Funding – Build in other sources of funding, such as ticket sales and donations. An ACE grant alone will not cover all your costs and you’ll be expected to show 10% match funding (which may be ‘in kind’ offers of space, for example). Other grant funders may require individual artists to work with an organisation, so look for partners to put in partnership bids.
6. Partners – Aim to do work that is mutually beneficial, e.g. running workshops for the host organisation and sharing expertise.
7. Timescale – Project managing your time is very important. Allow 3 to 6 months to bring in the funding. Your event timescale should include all elements of your project, such as workshops and time to report back to your funder, rather than just the final outcome.
8. Artistic Quality – ACE are looking for quality in your arts projects, which is determined by:  a) relevant artistic work, experience and achievement; b) who is involved and the quality of mentors and arts supports. Your executive summary should be about 100 words and is best written like the conclusion to an essay. 
9. Public Engagement – It’s important to explain the Who and the How of audience engagement. You also need to think about how you will measure the success of your events and define your target audience. These are all metrics that will also come in handy for marketing and reporting on your event. 
10. Your Research and Development events can provide data for future funded events, so keep records of attendance and results throughout. Again, this can be fed into your marketing strategy.

Notes

Check for updates to funding criteria on ‘Grants For the Arts’ on the Arts Council England website.

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/ 

A longer version of this article with more resource links can be found at Arts Development Funding 2015

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