Ep.114 – Developing Your Creative Practice

In the latest episode of Lunar Poetry Podcasts I met up with Gemma Seltzer at the London office of Arts Council England (ACE) to discuss their new funding scheme ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ (DYCP). In this blog post I’m going to try and break down some of the points made in the conversation and how this new scheme differs from the more established ‘Project Grants’ (or Grants for the Arts as they used to be known).

As regular listeners will know, since July 2016 I have had three successful ‘Project Grant’ applications, as well as two refused, so I’ll also try and give some personal insights into the process.

Episode 114 can be found through all the usual channels, including here on SoundCloud.

A full transcript of the conversation can be found here.

ACE guidelines for the funding scheme can be found here.

DYCP, which began earlier this year, is a four-year scheme in which individual artists (and regular collectives, though only a single individual can be named on any application) can apply for between £2,000-10,000. The scheme has at its disposal £3.6m per year, which will be distributed across four ‘rounds’ during each of the four years. Applicants must have three years’ ‘practice experience’, though this experience is open to the interpretation of the applicant and no further guidelines are given by ACE.

As always, applicants must have a ‘Grantium Applicant Account’. If you are already registered then you can use your existing account, but if not, bear in mind it can take up to 14 days for a new account to become active, until which time you won’t be able to begin any applications.

Another important factor to remember is that applicants are only allowed two applications in any 12-month period, whether successful or not, so it’s important that your application is as complete and ready as it can be. Throughout your application it will be important for you to express why you need this funding now, and why, if you go head-to-head with another applicant, you need it more than them. Round one of applications has already passed.

Round two of applications opens at 10am on July 12^th and closes at 12pm (noon) on August 16^th 2018.

Round three of applications opens at 10am on October 11th and closes at 12pm (noon) on November 14^th 2018.

So, how is DYCP different from the previous ‘Project Grants’ that so many already know? Well, the first point is, as the name suggests, that the focus is much more on the personal development of the individual and their creative practice. Gone from the application are the questions and demands on the applicants to project (and at times guess) audience and participant engagement within the proposed project. This focus often led many applicants to crowbar in educational workshops and public-facing events in order for their project to qualify for ever-decreasing amounts of public money.

With this burden removed I can already see how much easier it is going to be for writers to get funding to finance research projects, or even time away from other forms of employment to write, concentrating on projects without any certain or even probable audience interaction. This is probably the perfect opportunity to apply for funding to explore the collaborative project with that illustrator you’ve been meaning to get around to that may only yield 50 hand-bound pamphlets, without having to run workshops on hand-stitching book spines.

This new scheme also removes the burden of any potential project being UK-based. ACE have stated that they welcome applications that will use funding from DYCP to explore working relationships/projects outside of the UK. All pretty vital with Brexit looming on the horizon like a visit to the clap clinic (it’s going to happen (it’s got to happen)).

DYCP, unlike ‘Project Grants’, offers 100% funding, removing the applicant’s obligation to find 10% of the overall project cost. (‘Project Grants’ require applicants to source at least 10% match-funding.) I think this is mainly an attempt to aid lower-income applicants in their application. While it’s certainly true that this will help a number of people, it is also true that if applicants come from low-income backgrounds they will also be hindered by a lack of industry connections, knowledge of funding schemes and the language and tools necessary to apply successfully. We will have to wait and see how effective this new condition is in levelling the playing field for applicants from marginalised backgrounds, but it’s a good start.

A very welcome change of direction for ACE and their insistence with Grantium as an application portal is that they’ve made the questions for the application available to download. This means you can take the questions away with you and draft your answers even if you don’t have easy or regular access to a computer. Be aware that the Grantium portal requires answers to questions which adhere to a character count (including all letters, spaces and punctuation), rather than a word count.

If you’re using Word you can easily change the word count to a character count, or if you’re using a tablet or smartphone it’s possible to, as I did with my first application, download simple apps which will count the characters as you type.

You can find and download the list of questions here.

After my first ‘Project Grant’ was finished and evaluated, I published a full breakdown of the costs, including travel, participant fees and equipment costs. If you feel like you’d benefit from taking a look at this breakdown then you can find and download it here.

Finally, if you have any questions, get in touch with ACE – their helplines are very useful. If you don’t feel you can contact ACE then do get in touch with me via the contact form on this website or on Twitter @Silent_Tongue where I’ll also try to instigate some sort of conversation with other artists and producers that have experience of applying for funding.

All the best, David. xxx