Deadline: 19-Sep-2025
Applications are now open for the Art Fund Programme to enable students to explore an interest in the arts alongside future career options, while providing organisations with extra capacity which is skilled and accountable.
Aims
- The aim of this funding is to help museums, galleries and visual arts organisations provide paid opportunities for full-time university students to gain meaningful, developmental work experience that enables them to explore their interest in the arts, and related future career options. In turn, museums, galleries and visual arts organisations gain skilled and accountable resource to help realise projects important to them.
- Student Opportunities can benefit visual arts organisations in the following ways:
- Build knowledge of how to effectively engage youth/student audiences by working directly with students
- Develop a wider and more diverse range of voices within your organisation
- Help develop the diversity of the whole cultural sector, creating a fit for purpose and engaged workforce
- Payment assures students take their responsibilities seriously and are a reliable and accountable resource
- Student Opportunities benefit students by providing:
- Training that empowers them to feel confident in their area of responsibility and develop skills
- Practical experience of working within an arts organisation, helping them to build their CV
- An increased awareness of the range of careers available in the cultural sector
- Networking opportunities with arts professionals and other students across the UK
- The opportunity to help diversify the voices that contribute to how arts organisations operate, enhancing cultural experiences for all young people
Funding Information
- They will consider applications for grants up to £10,000.
- They ask applicants to allow at least 8 weeks between application deadlines and the time by which they need a decision.
Eligible Costs
- They will fund the costs associated with paying students for the time they spend supporting your organisation in delivering projects. This is based on the current National and London Living Wage rates.
- Please base your hourly wage rates on the most up to date figure for the relevant living wage for your area or the National Living Wage, stating in your budget where you got the figure.
- They encourage applications that focus on facilitating public engagement with art – whether that be online or in real life.
Ineligible Costs
- The grants cannot be used to cover:
- Core staff costs
- Costs relating to ongoing overheads
- Retrospective activity – your project must not have started before you are due to receive a decision from them
Eligibility Criteria
- They will consider applications from UK public museums, galleries, historic houses, libraries, archives, agencies and other visual arts organisations that:
- Have a public presence (e.g. a building open to the public) or a public outcome (e.g. a festival or public art programme)
- Can demonstrate that they operate to standards of best practice within the sector (e.g. through Arts Council England Accreditation)
- Please note that all participating students will be contracted to work for you, the partner organisation, via your HR team.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Organisations that exist to make profit, including Private Limited Companies, Public Limited Companies, Companies Limited by Shares, Unlimited Companies, or Sole Traders
- General Partnerships, Limited Partnerships, or Limited Liability Partnerships
- Organisations with a focus on music, drama, dance, and art forms outside the visual arts
- Commercial organisations
- Artists’ groups
- Hospitals/healthcare settings
- Places of worship
- Organisations with a focus on music, drama, dance and art forms outside the visual arts
- Individuals including students
Evaluation Criteria
- You will report on the project in the following ways:
- You will provide them with regular updates on the progress of the Project throughout the term of the Project when requested. Such updates must address the aims and desired outcomes of the Project and give full financial details in relation to the ongoing costs of the Project and the application of the Grant and such other matters as they might agree between them from time to time.
- Within 12 weeks following the end of the Project you will provide them with an evaluation report which will comprise an analysis of; the final outcomes of the Project as against the initial aims and desired outcomes; the challenges encountered; the benefits realised and a full financial analysis of the total Project costs and the application of the Grant.
Application Requirements
- In the application form they will ask you to provide:
- Project summary
- A summary of your project
- The impact it will have on your organisation – its audiences, collection, programme, workforce and how it meets the overall aims of the Student Opportunities
- The impact it will have on the students – training or professional development you will offer
- An indicative but realistic timeframe for the project.
- Job description
- A short job description that includes: a short headline communicating the vision that a student’s participation in this opportunity is helping your organisation to realise; an outline of the role and responsibilities students will be expected to undertake; an outline of how you will train students for the role.
- Project summary
For more information, visit Art Fund.