Not-for-profit organisations with arts or culture as their main object or purpose could receive between £20,000 to £30,000 to invest in infrastructure to ‘level up’ our city.
As part of its levelling up agenda, the UK Government launched the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). The UKSPF replaces the EU Structural Funds, which are no longer available since the UK left the European Union.
The UKSPF programme has allocated the West Midlands £88million for the period 2022 to 2025, with the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), as the ‘lead authority’, having overall responsibility for the West Midlands programme. However, a significant proportion of the allocated funding has been ‘double devolved’ to West Midlands Metropolitan Local Authorities such as Birmingham City Council.
Birmingham has been allocated an overall £25million to invest across the city and the council has identified that it is vital to enhance our arts and cultural heritage to achieve a ‘levelled up’ city.
However, vital to this process is citizens. The council are looking to commissioning organisations to improve cultural connectivity in Birmingham through either strengthening their connections to their local communities or building new connections in areas with little or no cultural activity.
This provides an opportunity for organisations to extend their arts provisions to areas that have previously been hard to reach. Interested organisations can apply on the council’s website: Current arts funding applications | Apply for arts funding | Birmingham City Council .
Successful expression of interest applicants will be awarded an initial £5,000 feasibility funding to develop and refine their cultural connections proposal with an anticipated total project cost of between £20,000 to £30,000. This can be used to fully or partially fund cultural infrastructure projects.
Through this commissioning, £396,000 is available for the financial year 2023 to 2024, whilst there is also the possibility of another £396,000 being available for the financial year 2024 to 2025.
The deadline for expressing interest in this opportunity is 5th June 2023 at 17: