The Scottish Arts Council has today (12 February) launched Inspire, a major new Lottery fund for the development of exciting, innovative projects to inspire and encourage the people of Scotland to participate in the arts and become creative, imaginative members of a confident, cultured nation.
The £8 million fund has been developed as part of the Scottish Arts Council’s commitment to increasing participation and aims to provide more, wider, better engagement with the arts:
- More – increasing the number and range of people enjoying and taking part in the arts, particularly arts activity for and by children and young people.
- Wider – making the arts available to those who have had little opportunity to participate in the past; ensuring a fair geographic spread of activities; and supporting projects across artforms and technologies.
- Better – increasing further the quality of arts activities by supporting creative, ambitious projects.
Inspire is a unique opportunity for a wide range of organisations, including arts organisations, voluntary and community groups, to apply for Lottery funding. Priority will be given to applications which demonstrate that they extend the reach and nature of engagement with the arts, ensure quality artistic engagement and create potential for new, creative cross sectoral partnerships.
There is no minimum or maximum funding level and the application has been designed to be a simple open process to encourage proposals for imaginative and transformative projects. The project must be for the public benefit, meet all or some of the aims of Inspire and demonstrate lasting outcomes to inspire arts, practice and people.