Arts Council DYCP Funding
Ever wish you had a little more time and space to develop your creative practice? If you live in England, then applying for Arts Council England’s “Developing Your Creative Practice” (DYCP) might be a good fit.
I applied in September 2021, found out I was getting funded in November 2021 and started the activity plan I’d written as part of the submission in January 2022.
I’m currently in the third month of the one year activity plan and I can’t say enough how glad I am that I applied. I’ve already learned so much and am making some wonderful connections along the way.
Getting the funding is giving me the time I need to set up a more sustainable long term practice. It’s allowing me to pivot my work away from client based illustration to something more open and community based. It’s also allowing me to explore and experiment with works that I normally wouldn’t be able to consider because I’d be doing more conservative client work.
The cool thing about the grant is that you write about how you’re going to develop your creative practice - so it’s something that’s close to your heart. For me, I thought about it as a way to create something akin to a personal Master’s programme of study that I would be able to follow and implement over the year. I included workshops, lots of mentoring, research and painting time.
If this sounds like something you’d like to do with your practice, then I highly recommend that you apply. I know it’s a long and scary application, BUT there are lots of people and organisations that can help you. If you treat it like a goal setting workshop for yourself - you can actually have fun writing the applicaiton. I thought if I get the money great, but even if I didn’t I would still have a solid plan in place to help me get started down the path I knew I needed to take in order to continue long-term as a creative.
Tips for applying:
Be thorough. My application covers an entire year - so in my activity plan I plotted out what I would be doing each month. I included the names of all the people I wanted to work with. This was my roadmap to the next portion of my career so whether I got the funding or not I knew I could use it to get some started.
Start early. It’s not an easy process. I dedicated a full month to reading everything on the DYCP website, writing up my plan, attending funding workshops and mentoring and submitting the application. There are things you’ll have to do when you submit the application that can’t be done overnight. For example getting an account on the Grantium website which is where you apply takes about a week or so. Also, you’ll need a letter from someone who knows your art practice - and they’ll need time to write it.
Get help from ACE. I contacted them directly through their chat service as I wrote my application to ask any questions. For example, I’d heard through the grapevine that they don’t fund for studio rent - and that’s sometimes true, but in my case I wanted to paint bigger and doing that at home just wasn’t going to cut it - so since the studio space was integral to me developing my creative practice I was told I could include it pro rata for the days I would be using it.
Get even more help. It’s a big application and there’s a limited word count. You can’t ramble on. You’ll need to be precise. This is where mentoring comes in handy! Finding a mentor who can help you consolidate all those rambling thoughts into a coherent statement is worth the time and money. I used Cai Burton. He was great at listening and taking all my thoughts and narrowing them down to the most important ones to put forward.
Pay yourself. Pay others. The majority of the money that I asked for goes towards paying myself for time to paint in the studio. The rest is going towards mentoring and courses that will bring my work forward. I love that the grant I’ve gotten not only supports me, but I’m also using it to support other artists who run courses and do mentoring.
Ask for the full amount that you need. Don’t think asking for the full amount that they’re offering is too much if that’s how much you need. They are looking to fund grants up to that amount so don’t be afraid if that’s the amount you need to further develop your practice. I asked for the full amount because I needed a year in order to take my art practice from where it was to where I need it to be and as a single parent juggling part-time art teaching jobs and childcare I knew it would take me a certain amount of time spread out over the year to develop. I couldn’t rush it.
Resources:
Cai Burton: runs workshops and offers mentoring. I did everything he offered and it was all worth it
https://www.joyful-design.co.uk/support-for-creatives
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/joyful-design-32309557741
a-n: if you’re a member they often run workshops around Arts Council funding - plus a-n is a good place to get public liability insurance as well as find out about jobs and events taking place.
https://www.a-n.co.uk/artists-drop-in/
Library of successful applications:
https://thewhitepube.co.uk/funding-library/
The Uncultured DYCP application template:
https://www.the-uncultured.com/blog/october-2020-dycp-updated-template
Plus here’s the Arts Council website: