Culture Service - Flexible Fund 2021/22 - Diversity & Inclusion Fund Application Form

Overview

City of Edinburgh Council Flexible Fund: Diversity and Inclusion - Deadline for applications: Friday 14 January 2021 (23:59 GMT).

The City of Edinburgh Council officers overseeing the application process can be contacted via email or phone to assist with submissions. Further information about the fund, including officers’ contact details, can be found below.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION FUND  

Promoting ethnically diverse representation in Edinburgh’s arts and culture sector. 

INTRODUCTION 

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.

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 applicants, fund recipients and network members following the 2020 Diversity and Inclusion programme, as well as Collaboration, Research and Development Funding programmes offered to Edinburgh-based practitioners and organisations. With the mainstreaming of ethnically diverse work in mind, this fund supports greater visibility and recognition of work designed and managed by ethnically diverse artists and creatives for the benefit of participants, audiences and the arts and sector industry at large. It seeks to invest in Edinburgh-based talent and promote the diversity of thought, ideas and expression. It also encourages innovation and experimentation when devising new creative interventions and testing collaborative working models.

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.  

This is one of three cultural project funding opportunities the City of Edinburgh Council has allocated resources towards, and for projects developed in financial year 2021/22: Diversity & Inclusion Fund; Edinburgh Creative Practitioner/Artist Support Fund and Creative Community Partnerships Programme: Collaboration & Exchange Fund. 

PURPOSE OF SCHEME

Grants will be awarded to projects that promote greater partnership  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 professional development, production development, development of work and cultural events, that utilise 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 and cultural organisations in Edinburgh.  Priority will be given to quality multi art form projects. 

FUNDS AVAILABLE

A total budget of £100,000 is available offering grant awards of up to £10,000 for projects developed in financial year 2021/22 and completed by the end of December 2022. 

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

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

Musicians

The Society of Authors  

Applicants should apply for the exact amount needed for their project and will not automatically be awarded the full amount of their application submission.  The awards panel reserves the right to award an amount different to that submitted.

DEADLINE: Friday 14 January 2022 (23:59 GMT). Late applications will not be accepted. 

Please note that the funding award for successful applications will be issued in one payment (100%) on receipt of a signed funding agreement.  You will be required to submit for approval, a project report on completion of project.  You will be advised w/b 31 January 2022 if your application has been successful by email.  Funding payments to successful applicants will to be made within 6-8 weeks from the date of notification of a successful funding application.

WHO CAN APPLY? 

***Please note that the lead applicant's eligibility criteria have been updated, inviting non-registered but constituted organisations, in addition to charities and not-for-profit companies, to apply for funding in partnership with ethnically diverse artists.***

• Projects must have an ethnically diverse lead artist / creative and take place within the City of Edinburgh boundary with Edinburgh-based partners.                                                                                        

• Partnership working is a City and Culture Plan funding priority therefore applicants will be expected to place an emphasis on this in any submission. This can be both in cash and/or in kind. 

• A constituted organisation must be the lead project partner for the release of any grant award. The organisation will be asked to provide a copy of their constitution to the Council and where appropriate the organisation’s Memorandums & Articles. Your financial accounting practices will need to meet as a minimum the essential elements and requirements of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). 

• A Council revenue-funded Strategic Partner organisation or Grouping cannot lead on an application and if they are in receipt of Strategic Partnership grant funding of more than £50,000, they cannot directly receive project grant funding.  They can, however, be involved as a partner in any application.  For example, a venue may act as host or a company provide in-kind support.  A list of CEC Strategic Partner organisations and Groupings can be found in the Related Documents section in the online application. 

• Only one application per partnership can be considered.

• Please note that the same project cannot be considered for all three Flexible Funds (ie Diversity & Inclusion Fund; Edinburgh Creative Practitioner/Artist Support Fund and Creative Community Partnerships Programme Fund).

• Those in receipt of the Diversity and Inclusion as well as Collaboration, Research and Development Fund are eligible to apply as long as they present, or are part of, a new partnership/project for consideration. 

The Culture Plan vision is that “city partners work together to keep culture and creativity at the heart of Edinburgh’s success”.  Further information on the vision can be accessed through the Council’s Business Plan.  

CRITERIA: 

Applications will be assessed against the following criteria:  

• an imaginative and/or experimental creative concept; 

• confirmed partnerships and quality of project management; 

• practical involvement of ethnically diverse artists and creative practitioners and/or genuine engagement of the city’s ethnically diverse communities. 

PRIORITIES: 

1. Demonstrable ethnically diverse artist / practitioner lead involvement; 

2. Creative concept;  

3. Partnership/collaboration working - a City and Culture Plan funding priority; and 

4. Use of multi art forms within projects. 

We will be assessing the likely impact of the project and to what degree it will extend the reach of cultural activity in the city, especially in hard to reach communities, greater visibility and representation of the ethnically diverse arts and culture in particular.   

We want to see how you propose to use this funding and what you envisage the direct impact of that funding will be.  

Our focus will be on what major difference this funding will make to the project (i.e. what wouldn’t happen without this support).  

EXCLUSIONS: 

Applications cannot be considered: 

• for projects already started or planned to start before the decision is made, unless it is the next stage of a previously completed phase of work; 

• if received after the deadline date; and 

• unless there is a suitable management/governance structure in place. 

Funding cannot support:

• Revenue costs or permanent posts 

• Press events or launches 

• Equipment items or capital projects 

• Projects which primarily take place outside Edinburgh. 

Please note that the support offered to ethnically diverse artists and creatives by this fund is using positive action to promote equality as reflected in the Equality Act 2010.  

HOW TO APPLY

Please read these guidelines carefully.  Applications must be submitted using the application form, returned by the stated deadlines and signed by the applicant. Please contact Beata Skobodzinska 0131 529 4577 beata.skobodzinska@edinburgh.gov.uk or Sandra Elgin 0131 529 6720 sandra.elgin@edinburgh.gov.uk if you require advice on your application.

Before starting this application online, please download a blank PDF application form for your preview.  Please also download the Application Guidelines, the Council's Standard Conditions of Grant,  Application Form Budget spreadsheet and the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form.  Links to the Council's Culture Plan, Business Plan and Privacy Notice are also available in the Related documents section. 

APPLICATION PROCESS AND AWARDS PANEL 

Submitted application forms will be acknowledged via email. Applications will be considered by members of the awards panel, comprising officers from ethnically diverse specialist independent advisors. 

The panel will meet within 2 weeks of the fund deadline and you will be informed by email of the outcome within 2 weeks of the meeting. 

If you require this application in Braille, large print, audiotape or disc format, please contact the Cultural Development Team on 0131 529 6720. 

What happens next

Submitted application forms will be acknowledged via email. Applications will be considered by members of the awards panel, comprising ethnically diverse specialist independent advisors.

The panel will meet within 2 weeks of the fund deadline and you will be informed by email of the outcome within further 2 weeks of the meeting.

Once you have submitted my application form, please complete the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form.

Privacy Notice

To deliver Council services we need to collect, store, use, share and dispose of personal information. This is known as data processing.

When we collect personal data, we must tell you why we need it, and what we will do with it. This information is called a privacy notice.

The Privacy Notice link (located in Related section below) takes you directly to the City of Edinburgh Council’s privacy notice.  Here we explain how we process your personal information as a Council.