Creative Steps for Organisations

** Please note, Creative Steps is now temporarily closed for new enquiries or new applications whilst we undertake a review of the programme. We are aiming to reopen the fund again in the summer. For applicants who are already in contact with officers, this does not affect you and the deadline for applications is 31st March 2024.

We thank you for your patience at this time. Please take a look at our other funding options here. **

The aim of this programme is to support individuals and organisations who have experienced barriers to accessing our funding. Creative Steps aims to address this by supporting artists, creatives, and organisations throughout their developmental journey.

You’ll find full details on the programme in the Guidelines below.

Who Can Apply?

There are Creative Steps programmes for Individuals and Organisations.

You can apply for the Individual strand if you are an artist or creative who identifies as being ethnically and culturally diverse, as Deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent, or as someone who has experienced racism or discrimination.

You can apply for the Organisations strand if your organisation is led by ethnically and culturally diverse people, Deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent people, or people who have experienced racism or discrimination.

If you would like to apply for a Creative Steps application you will need to contact us at creativesteps@arts.wales giving your name, email address, a brief description of your ideas and vision and the location where it may take place.

An officer will then be in touch to discuss and help you develop your project and will email you a link to the application form.

Definitions

We define ‘ethnically and culturally diverse’ as:

* Anyone from the African, Asian, Caribbean, Hispanic, Latino, Eastern European or Middle Eastern diaspora in Wales

* Anyone who identifies as being from an ethnic group that is not exclusively White

* Anyone from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities

We define ‘disability’ using the Social Model of Disability:

* The social model of disability is a framework that was developed by disabled people to identify and take action against their oppression and the framework states that people are disabled by barriers in society and not necessarily by their impairment. Barriers could be physical such as a lack of disabled toilets or they can be attitudinal such as assuming disabled people can’t do certain things.

* The social model of disability was developed to directly counter the traditional, medical model of disability which perceived disabilities and impairments to be a medical problem to be prevented, cured or contained, making the disabled person feel like the problem instead of society

We define ‘neurodivergent’ as:

* Viewing neurodevelopmental differences as a natural and normal variation of the human genome which urges society to reject any entrenched negativity associated with those that learn things in a certain manner or those that experience life in a different manner from a neurological perspective

* We all have unique nervous systems with a unique combination of abilities and needs

* We recognise that there is no ‘right’ way of thinking, learning and behaving and these differences should be celebrated rather than be perceived as deficits

When to Apply?

The deadline for submitting applications to the Creative Steps programme is 5pm on the last day of each month. The first closing date will be 31 December 2022 and following this, it will be on a monthly basis.

If your application is up to £10,000, please bear in mind that you need to allow a minimum of 6 working weeks between the deadline date and the start date for your project.

If your application is over £10,000, please bear in mind that you need to allow a minimum of 8 working weeks between the deadline date and the start date for your project.

You can find out how to Submit a Video/Audio application here.