Arts - Nurturing Early Stage Professionals

The Idlewild Trust awards grants of up to £5,000 to UK registered charities with programmes that encourage and nurture the talent of young professional musicians, dancers, actors, writers and artists in the performing, fine and applied arts aged 18 and over. Programmes need to be run by professional organisations that are UK registered charities with a strong track-record. Programmes need to involve young professionals with training or experience who will then be ready to launch or develop their early professional career.

The Trust will also consider programmes of high quality for other young professionals working creatively within the performing, fine and applied arts including composers, curators and theatre-makers (directors, designers, producers, writers and choreographers).

Grants will not be awarded for:

• Education or Talent Development programmes for under 18 year olds

-Programmes with the primary purpose of general social and personal development

• Programmes with the primary purpose of introducing young people aged 18 and over or young adults to a particular aspect of the arts

• Programmes that work with young people to help prepare them for entry to graduate-level training or similar (eg: dance schools, music colleges, conservatoires). We only consider programmes at the next stage of their development once they have received initial training and/or experience.

• Programmes for just one person

• Commissioning of new works, touring programmes, performances, productions, festivals, exhibitions & displays unless this is as part of a specific programme to nurture emerging and young professionals within the fine and applied arts.

• Management and Administrative career development programmes

• Projects involving trips or tours abroad.

Organisations applying must be one of the following:

1. UK Registered Charity that is more than 2 years’ old: with two or more annual returns submitted on time to the Charity Commission
2. UK Publicly Exempt Charity: most museums/galleries are Registered Charities, but not all. UK Publicly Exempt Charities include 14 named national museums and galleries listed in Annex 1, p.13 of this document: (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exempt-charities-cc23)
3. Church that is an Excepted Charity: ‘excepted’ because their income is £100,000pa or less and because it’s part of an organisation in listed Section 5 in the document here. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excepted- charities/excepted-charities-2. Other churches are required to register as a UK Registered Charity

Please note that we can’t fund the following organisations: • higher, secondary or primary education institutions including universities, schools, colleges and conservatoires, whether state or private • charities with the sole or main purpose of making grants • organisations that have an income of £5,000pa or under

Location of project activity: Idlewild supports projects in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We don’t fund charities or projects based outside the UK or involving travel outside the UK, nor projects in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.

The timing of your project: We give priority to applications that have not started by the time the Trustees meet. In some circumstances we can consider looking at applications for year- long projects that have only just started, however due to oversubscription these are often lower priority for our support. Projects which have been completed, or where the majority of the project has been delivered are excluded.