Culture Service - Flexible Fund 2022/23 - Diversity & Inclusion Fund Application Form

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION FUND 

AMPLIFYING ETHNICALLY DIVERSE VOICES, NARRATIVES AND PERSPECTIVES IN EDINBURGH’S ARTS AND CULTURE SECTOR

INTRODUCTION

Edinburgh has recently been recognised as the most diverse city in Scotland according to Scotland’s Census 2021.The Diversity and Inclusion Fund aims to ensure this diversity is encouraged, facilitated, and celebrated across the city as outlined in The City of Edinburgh Council’s Citywide Cultural Strategy 2023-2030. This resource offers an opportunity for exploration and innovation to ethnically diverse artists and creatives who wish to share their voices and celebrate their heritage, explore intercultural dialogue and provide spaces and experiences for diverse residents to engage with arts and culture by including different languages, forms of creative expression, and engagement models.

The Diversity and Inclusion Fund seeks to support the work and narratives of ethnically diverse artists and creatives which have been developed and delivered through multi-art form collaborations and partnerships. It reflects feedback from previous applicants, fund recipients and network members. With the aim of embedding and mainstreaming the work in mind, this fund supports greater visibility and recognition of projects designed and managed by ethnically diverse artists and creatives for the benefit of participants, audiences and the arts and culture industry at large. It seeks to invest in Edinburgh-based talent and promote the diversity of thought, ideas and expression rooted in cultural identities.

Edinburgh-based ethnically diverse artists and creatives are invited to apply for funding in partnership with other creative practitioners and arts and culture organisations to develop and deliver imaginative and/or experimental creative concepts that reflect their interpretation, experience and sharing of arts, culture and heritage.

The support offered by this fund is using positive action to promote equality as reflected in the Equality Act 2010. In the light of the Creative Scotland’s recognition of ‘a major gap in BAME-led arts in Scotland’, the City of Edinburgh Council identified ethnicity as one of protected characteristics that lead to disadvantage across all service areas, arts and culture being no exception. In response to continued feedback from creative practitioners based in Edinburgh which has highlighted a lack of diversity and representation in mainstream programming and cultural offering, this fund seeks to make inroads into addressing underrepresentation of ethnically diverse artists and creatives in our city.

Reflecting recommendations of the Desire Lines Report, the Flexible Fund aims to ‘invest in artists’ development, and support and sustain the local artistic community’ as well as ‘support greater partnership working across the arts and culture sector enabling it to flourish year-round.’ With that in mind, this fund seeks to support collaborative working between artists and other industry members across artforms and creative practices to encourage greater peer learning, cross-sector working and multi-artform development and production. Quoting Natalie Grant (2010, ‘Music and Collaboration’): ‘There are many elements that can affect an artistʼs work regardless of their location. Artists constantly work within their own particular knowledge base. Therefore, when artists from a variety of disciplines, countries and cultures create artistic works together, they not only collaborate with their art, but also bring together completely different sets of values, perspectives and experiences based on their own lives and environments. Similarly, artists can draw on ideas and skills from collaborative projects in their own solo work, and introduce these into further/future collaborations.’

BACKGROUND

Edinburgh, a world leading cultural capital, is home to an eclectic mix of diverse narratives, art forms, and creative practice. Our residents across the city should feel the benefit, the challenge and the inspiration this meeting of local and international talent brings and their diversity should be reflected in and connected to the programmes on offer.

This funding has been allocated as a result of the city’s Culture Plan to deliver wider access to Council cultural funding opportunities and continues the Council’s core role in ensuring Edinburgh is a city of creative opportunities. Our cultural activity and offer continues to be a crucial contribution to the city’s success as an exceptional place to live and work.

In line with the findings and recommendations of the City of Edinburgh Council Equality, Diversity and Rights Framework 2017-21: Interim Progress Report, 2017- 2019’, the Diversity & Inclusion Fund has been developed to ‘advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic,’ (in that context ethnicity other than Scottish/British White).

As stated in the Action Plan agreed at the Culture and Communities Committee Meeting on 18 June 2019, the City of Edinburgh Council is committed to promoting stronger collaboration, developing new partnerships and creating new funding streams for the culture sector in Edinburgh.

PURPOSE OF SCHEME

Grants will be awarded to projects that promote greater partnership and collaboration  between minority ethnic artists/practitioners, independent creatives and/or Edinburgh-based cultural organisations. Projects should reach, involve, benefit and engage ethnically diverse artists/creative practitioners and cultural organisations based in Edinburgh.

The fund is intended to support projects and activities, including development and delivery of creative work and cultural events, that utilise one or multiple art forms, such as visual and performing arts (music, dance, spoken word and theatre), film, digital arts, literature and poetry, to promote greater collaboration and partnerships between ethnically diverse artists and creatives, other independent practitioners and cultural organisations in Edinburgh.  Priority will be given to quality multi art form projects.

CRITERIA:

We invite applications from ethnically diverse artists and creatives and organisations which meet the following criteria:

• they recognise the need for greater representation and visibility of ethnically diverse work and narratives in the arts, culture and heritage sector; 
• they have a clear vision for their joint project, its outcomes and learning;
• they present a mutually beneficial partnership / collaborative working model;
• they commit to continuing and /or increasing engagement with groups and communities often underrepresented in the arts and culture sector.

PRIORITIES

Individuals and organisations wishing to apply for a grant from the Diversity and Inclusion Fund must be able to demonstrate how their project meets two or more of the following funding priorities:

1. Meaningful ethnically diverse artist/practitioner lead involvement and direction in project development and delivery;
2. Imaginative and/or experimental creative concept;
3. Partnership/collaboration working - a City and Culture Plan funding priority; 
4. Use of multi art forms within projects; 
5. Planned demonstrable learning and / or impact from the project activity; and
6. Consideration for multiple characteristics and identities often underrepresented in the arts and culture sector.

We will be assessing the likely impact of the proposed activity on greater visibility and representation of the ethnically diverse arts and culture and potential reach of outlined cultural activity across the city.

We want to see how you propose to use this funding and what you envisage the learning from the funded activity and / or the direct impact of that funding will be on direct and indirect project beneficiaries, including learning and development, engagement with diverse narratives and communities, representation of diverse voices in the arts and culture sector.

Our focus will be on what major difference this funding will make to the project (i.e. what wouldn’t happen without this support) at the proposed stage of its development and delivery.

FUNDS AVAILABLE

A total budget of £100,000 is available offering grant awards of up to £5,000 to individuals and £10,000 to organisations for projects starting in the financial year 2022/23 and completed by the end of December 2024.

Please note that all project facilitators, artists, creatives, managers involved in the project delivery are expected to be remunerated as per industry rates. Only in special circumstances when project partners declare that they do not require to be paid for their work and their contribution towards the project delivery is in-kind they can be involved on a no-fee basis.  Links to industry rates, as recommended by industry bodies, are listed below:

BECTU

ITC

UK Theatre / Equity Commercial Theatre Rates

UK Theatre/ Equity Rates for Subsidised Managers (in receipt of public funding)

UK Theatre/Musicians Union

UK Theatre / Writers Guild

SSP

Musicians

UK Theatre/ BECTU/Equity Choreographers:

UK Theatre/ BECTU/ Equity Designers/Resident Designers

Set and Costume Designers

Lighting Designers

UK Theatre/ BECTU/ Equity Directors

Visual Artists (Paying Artists)

Exhibition Payment Guide

The Society of Authors