From 2025, The Culture Investment Programme will replace the Council’s current grant schemes for arts and culture. At present Council funding supports a diverse range of activities, ranging from the day to day operations of large cultural organisations and venues across the city to small scale projects delivered by individual artists.
The new programme will provide more flexibility to provide different entry points based on organisations level of experience, capacity and capability. This is designed to give agency to culture organisations to access the right investment to enable them to deliver high quality activities for the people of Aberdeen. In total there are four programmes, all launching on the 10th September with the exception of Acorn which will go live in 2025.
The programmes are as follows:
Acorn £500 - £2,500 – seed funding for pilots and small projects.
Catalyst £5,000 -£15,000 – project and festival funding.
Cultivate £15,000- £100,000 – year round programmes of cultural activity.
Cornerstone £100,000 plus - Large scale Aberdeen based organisations delivering culture programmes.
How to apply
Culture Investment is a two stage process;
Step 1. Expression of interest
Any organisation that wants to apply to Culture Investment must in the first instance complete an Expression of Interest (EOI) using the provided template. This is required as registration for submitting applications to the Cornerstone Partnership, Cultivate and Catalyst programmes.
This is because we recognise the amount of work that goes into application writing and planning a project. The EOI stage helps us to filter any projects or activities which are unlikely to meet eligibility and saves you time working on a full application unnecessarily.
The EOI word count is deliberately short (maximum 800 words) to minimise the time and effort for you to complete this stage.
Officers will review your EOI submission and advise if your organisation can proceed to the full application stage.
Step 2. Application form
Following feedback from the EOI stage, organisations will need to complete an application for the appropriate type of investment along with Financial pro-forma and supporting documents.
Applicants are required to meet Officers prior to submitting their applications to discuss their proposal, organisations with limited experience of fund writing are advised to attend an application workshop.
The deadline for applications is the 6th November 2024. Applicants will be notified on the outcome of their application following the March Council Budget meeting. For those successful, funding will start from April 2025.
Any applications received without going through the initial EOI stage will be rejected.
Please download the application guidelines and application form below.
Please read the guidelines and general advice before completing your application form. If you require further support or translation of a document into Gaelic or another language or if you require BSL support. Please contact creativefunding@aberdeencity.gov.uk A translation would take 5 working days.
The applicant may appeal an unsuccessful application or rejected expression of Interest up to 4 weeks after notification by submitting a written request to appeal to creativefunding@aberdeencity.gov.uk. The application will then be reviewed by senior officers at Aberdeen City Council, seperate from the initial assessment.
Please note applicants can appeal the assessment decision but not criteria, the criteria has been approved by Council committee.
Application Support Sessions
These sessions are designed to provide applicants with a better understanding of the Culture Investment Programme. Sessions will take place in Marischal College and last for 1 hour with time for questions at the end.
What’s covered in these sessions:
• Overview of the program & grant streams
• Eligibility
• Priorities, outcomes & beneficiaries
• Submitting financial information and budgets
• Application requirements and more
17th September 10:30 - 12:00
19th September 10:30 - 12:00
24th September 10:30 – 12:00
25th September 10:30 - 12:00
To book on a session please click here.
We will also provide one to one advise sessions in person or online through Microsoft Teams. To arrange a session please email creativefunding@aberdeencity.gov.uk
Call out for Culture Investment Panel Members
All Cultural Investment Programme applications will be reviewed by a panel consisting of Council Officers and cultural sector professionals. We are currently looking for independent Panel members to review applications to assist the review process below. For further information , please contact creativefunding@aberdeencity.gov.uk