Top tips for the Let's Create Jubilee Fund

Introducing the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund

We’re excited to announce we’re partnering with Arts Council England (ACE), the national development agency for creativity and culture. We will be working alongside the network of community foundations distributing their Let’s Create Jubilee Fund.

This is a £5 million programme that will support community and voluntary organisations in England to develop creative and cultural activities as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. This will be the first time a monarch has ever celebrated this milestone – marking 70 years on the throne!

The fund is made up of public money from the government and funding from the National Lottery. Applicants will be able to apply for grants of up to £10,000, and are encouraged to partner with established artists, creatives and cultural organisations to develop their activities. Applications will be accepted from 4 January 2022 to 28 February 2022.

Click here to find out more about the Let's Create Jubilee Fund.

Top tips and advice for applying

The Let's Create Jubilee Fund is a little different to our regular grants, so we spoke with Harriette Tillott, Grant Programmes Manager. Below she answers some frequently asked questions on what can be funded, how the programme works, and how to increase your chances of being awarded funding.

Deciding on your project

Who can apply?

Any charity, community or voluntary organisation that meets our eligibility criteria (see here) is welcome to apply to the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund. We want to emphasise that you do not need to have delivered any specific arts and culture activities. That is where working with an artist or arts group will give your project the expertise to deliver successful arts and culture activities in your community.

What do we mean by ‘cultural activities’?

Culture covers a wide range of areas, from food and religion to other forms of heritage. We want to celebrate London’s diverse communities and the cultures embedded within them. So, anything that falls under this aim! Basically, this fund is all about creativity and art in the community. We’re celebrating London’s diversity, so we also want to reach a range of communities.

What do we mean by ‘art’ and 'creative'?

Arts Council England focuses on a few artforms from which you can draw inspiration, this includes music, theatre, dance, visual arts, literature, combined arts, museums and libraries.

Is it critical to partner with an artist or group?

This fund is not just about art and culture. An important part of the fund is collaboration between voluntary and community groups, and local artists/art groups.

We anticipate a high volume of applications and we will be shortlisting based on ACE’s priorities, one of which is collaboration with an artist and, where possible, an artist ACE have previously funded. We understand in some circumstances this won’t be possible, so we will still accept applications from groups not partnering with an artist.

Does that artist have to be local?

While working with a local artist is not a requirement, since this is a community-focused fund, it would make for a stronger application if your chosen artist were from your local area.

Applying for funding

What is the timeline?

The fund will officially launch on Tuesday 4 January 2022. From this date, community groups have 7 weeks (until 28 February 2022) to apply for this funding.

All applicants will receive a decision by email by 1 April. If you receive a grant offer letter informing you have been successful before this date, we ask that you please do not publicise this externally until 1 April.

Projects being funded will need to take place around the dates of the Queen’s’ Platinum Jubilee, which will be the weekend of the 4-5 June, and the public-facing activities can continue for the full month of June 2022.

What can we fund?

It is very important that your project be linked to the Jubilee celebrations in some way. The project should also be a new project. If you have an ongoing or existing creative project that you think would be a good fit, you could contact an artist and repurpose it around the Jubilee or treat this special Jubilee celebration as an add-on to it.

Which boroughs are we funding?

We will be funding all London boroughs apart from Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and City of London, which will be managed by East London CF. You can access their application portal here. However, if your project will take place in multiple boroughs, including one of those listed above (e.g. Hackney and Camden), you should apply to LCF.

What funding is available?

You can apply for a minimum of £3,000 and a maximum of £10,000 of funding.

We encourage applicants to apply for the highest bracket to ensure the full cost of the project is covered. This will ensure that all activities related to the project are accounted for, including:

• Initial development, planning and rehearsals (period from 1 April to 31 May)
• Celebratory activities take place throughout June (especially the weekend of 4-5 June)
• Properly paying the artist for their time
• Any overhead costs directly related to the project (such as insurance, project management costs)
• Once your project is complete you will have July/August to carry out reporting and monitoring – these costs should be covered by the grant (and factored in from the beginning)

You should also bear in mind that we are a Living Wage Funder. This means we actively encourage and support applicants to pay staff the London Living Wage which, as of November 2021, is £11.05 per hour. When costing your project, you should make sure that your team are being paid above this. If you want to find out more about the London Living Wage, please contact our Grants Programme Managers on applications@londoncf.org.uk.

Below is a link to the applicable guidance, which highlights all the eligible grant spends.

Examples of types of projects:

We don’t want to be prescriptive about what types of projects are taking place. It is more important to consider types of activities that would work well in your community. This can be anything exciting, new and creative, such as:

• A community play inspired by and about the Jubilee
• Neighbourhood inviting artists/musicians into a communal space to perform
• Virtual reality video ‘about the Jubilee’ and a celebration of your community
• Street party featuring food, music and art from all the different cultures of the local residents
• Photography exhibit celebrating local images over the last 70 years, presented by a professional curator and gallery technician

Can we apply for core costs?

This is a project grant only, so eligible costs must be directly related to the project. You can, however, apply for overhead costs to sustainably deliver the work, i.e., relating to those expenses that are required to run your regular operations, typically referring to management, administration, support and premises costs.

Following up

What is expected in terms of monitoring, reporting and evaluation?

As mentioned, above, you will be asked to complete a short online monitoring report in August 2022 outlining the outcomes of your project (the changes, benefits, learning or other effects that result from the project), along with any key learnings and challenges, lasting partnership and budget spend. The link to your monitoring report will be in your payment confirmation emails. We may also contact you regarding some PR and communications activity around the event (to request images, a quote, availability to do media interviews).

A selection of groups will also be asked to take part in a 2-hour focus group. More details will be provided in due course.

What happens if you can’t spend your grant?

Grants Programme Managers are available to discuss any issues you have with spending the full allocation of your grant. Below are some potential solutions if you struggle to spend:

• You can complete a change of expenditure request, which means you can allocate this funding to something else, as long as it is related to the project
• For small underspends of less than 10%, we would prefer it to be repurposed to cover project costs such as overheads
• As a last resort, you would be required to return any unspent funds to LCF

Marketing and communications

If you are awarded funding, you may be asked to share your story

You will need to respond to ACE and UKCF if asked to take part in any marketing activity. This could include: providing photos and image permission forms, a quote and availability to do media interviews.

You will also be provided with a communications pack so that you can share news of your funding with your community and more widely. This will include having your project profiled on the official Jubilee website (you will need to sign up here): https://platinumjubilee.gov.uk/

Get in touch for our London spotlight

This fund will be celebrating the diversity of projects across London. As a London Funder, we naturally want to showcase as many projects as possible! Everyone receiving and giving Let’s Create Jubilee funding will be posting on social media using the following hashtags:

#CreativeJubilee #LottoGoodCauses

Arts Council England Twitter account: @ace_national

UKCF Twitter account: @UKCF_tweets

If you’d like to join in, simply use one of these hashtags when posting about your project on social media. We will be publicising some groups’ projects and will be in touch if we’d like to feature you.

A summary of top tips for applying

The strongest applications will:

• Find a suitable partnership with an ACE-funded artist or arts groups if possible
• Engage with at least 1 of the art forms that ACE supports [link to the guidance]
• Be high-quality and inclusive in your approach
• Reach people in areas that are considered the most deprived (measured using what is known as the indices of deprivation – you can check if your area qualifies here)
• Creating a lasting collaboration between community group and artists/arts groups in your area

If you want to find out more about the fund and how to apply, please contact our Grants & Impact Team at applications@londoncf.org.uk.