Creative Spark: Funding Your Creative Projects with Manda Graham

This workshop will be led by Manda Graham, Producer, Funding Mentor and Business Coach from Creative Spark Projects and Equal Vision CIC.

As securing funding for arts projects becomes more competitive, this workshop will help participants to understand what’s important and where to start with fundraising arts projects. 

Maybe…

• You’re a complete beginner and are not sure where to start
• You have done a bit of fundraising with some success
• You’re not sure what you are doing wrong, you’ve tried a few funds but keep getting a NO

Fundraising can be a bit of a dull or daunting subject. Manda will lead a fun and insightful workshop, working with a live project that you would like to fund. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a toolkit that you can use to help you to build projects and write better funding applications that meet the needs of funders. You’ll have new skills and knowledge which will give you the best chance of getting a YES when you submit your next application.

For 25 years, Manda has delivered 100s of arts, heritage and cultural projects across the West Midlands and the South of England. During this time, she’s raised over £2 million from Arts Council England and Wales, Heritage Lottery Fund, the Community Fund, sponsorship, donations and various Trusts and Foundations.

Please Read Preparation for Workshop Participants:

To get the most out of this workshop you will need to bring a real-life project (ideally one that you would like to get funded in the future) that you know well – any artform. If you can’t think of one of your own, you can bring someone else’s project to work on.

Before you come, think about and write down a short description (between 50-250 words is plenty), include the following:

• Project title (if you don’t have this yet, a working title is fine)
• A simple project description (what do you want to do? what artform/s? etc. where will it happen? when?)
• How much money do you need to deliver the project?
• Who will you work with? (other artists, partner organisations, venues, audience or participants)

This event is part of the Herefordshire Visual Artists Network. Thanks to funding support from Herefordshire Council via the UKSPF programme, the Herefordshire Visual Artists Network is a network of visual artists working across the county who come together to share news about their practice, ideas for forthcoming projects, network, and update their skills via bespoke CPD training. The network is led by Gemma Moore, a young artist from rural Herefordshire.

Time: 4 – 6pm