Culture and Wellbeing Service - 2025/26 Flexible Funding - Diversity & Inclusion Fund Application Form

THE CITY OF EDINBURGH COUNCIL

CULTURE AND WELLBEING SERVICE

2025/26 FLEXIBLE FUNDING

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION FUND: APPLICATION GUIDELINES 

INTRODUCTION

Considering the importance and legacy of Edinburgh’s 900th anniversary as a royal borough, we support innovative ideas that celebrate the City of Diversity by exploring themes, narratives and voices of our communities through the artistic lens looking at city’s past, present and future. This fund is 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.

The recent Scotland’s Census 2022 offers more insights into the diverse population living in Edinburgh. 20% of resident population are affected by long term health condition or disability. Most of the elderly population are female as the number of women aged 85 or over outnumber their male counterparts by two to one. 15% and 17% of adult men and women respectively identifying as LGBQI+ and 1% of the population as trans or with a trans history. The 2022 census also notes 2% of BSL users based in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh has been recognised as the most ethnically diverse city in Scotland with 26% of residents of multi-ethnic backgrounds, including 11% of non-UK European (10% EU, 1% non-EU), 2% of African, 7 % of Middle Eastern and Asian, 3% of North/South American or Caribbean descent and 1% from Antarctica and Oceania. The capital is also home to many displaced communities, who recently settled in our city. With these in mind, we encourage ideas and projects that welcome ethnically diverse communities and promote celebrating cultures and heritages across artforms and creative platforms.

The support offered by this fund is using positive action to promote equality as reflected in the Equality Act 2010 and to mitigate potential impacts of discrimination or disadvantage. There are nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. In addition, The City of Edinburgh Council also recognises care experience as a tenth protected characteristic. This fund is to help creatives with protected characteristics who are under-represented or at a disadvantage to access resources to assist with their creative practice and raise awareness of impacts, narratives and experiences shared by individuals and groups and communities protected characteristics.

In response to continued feedback from creative practitioners based in Edinburgh which has highlighted the need for broadening the eligibility scope, this fund seeks to make inroads into addressing underrepresentation of artists and creatives with different or multiple protected characteristics in our city. With the aim of embedding and mainstreaming the work in mind, this fund supports greater visibility and recognition of projects designed and managed by artists and creatives with protected characteristics 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.

In line with 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.

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.

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 artists/practitioners, independent creatives and/or Edinburgh-based cultural organisations. Projects should reach, involve, benefit and engage artists/creative practitioners with protected characteristics 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 artists and creatives with protected characteristics, other independent practitioners and cultural organisations in Edinburgh.  Priority will be given to quality multi art form projects.

FUND CRITERIA

We invite applications from diverse artists and creatives with protected characteristics (and organisations) to submit proposals which meet TWO or more of the following criteria:

• they recognise the need for greater representation and visibility of work and narratives in the arts, culture and heritage sector developed by artists and creatives with protected characteristics.
• they have a clear vision for the project, its outcomes and learning;
• they present a mutually beneficial partnership / collaborative working model where applicable.
• they commit to continuing and /or increasing engagement with groups and communities often underrepresented in the arts and culture sector;
• they explain how this project is relevant to Edinburgh’s cultural tapestry;
• they consider how the project creates further opportunities for development and / or engagement.

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 artist/practitioner lead involvement and direction in project development and delivery;

AND

2. Imaginative and/or experimental creative concept;
3. Partnership/collaboration working - a City and Culture Plan funding priority;
4. Use and promotion of languages as a means of expressing one’s cultural background;
5. Use of multi art forms within projects;
6. Planned demonstrable learning and / or impact from the project activity;
7. Development of creative platforms for displaced artists and communities living in Edinburgh celebrating diverse cultures and heritages;
8. 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 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 £70,000 is available offering grant awards of:

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