PLEASE READ THE UPDATED STATEMENT ON THE APPLICATION PAGE
Fast turnaround CPDL bursaries from Curious Minds, for cultural education freelancers and small or community-based arts organisations whose main work is with schools or children & young people.
During this unprecedented period of crisis, we have suspended usual ‘Bridge’ activity and will be re-directing that energy and resource into supporting the North West’s cultural education ecology to emerge at the other side of the Coronavirus crisis in as strong a position as possible. ‘Bridging the Gap’ is our first response, we hope it will be the first of many.
We’re offering bursaries to freelancers and small or community-based arts organisations, payable upon approval of a short application. This money should allow those in the cultural education community the space for their own development, and hopefully ‘bridge the gap’ between now and the receipt of any emergency grants or funding.
We are not a funder, we can’t issue grant funding and we don’t want to get in the way of your eligibility for any other funds. Bridging the Gap is a low-pressure bursary scheme designed to be turned around at pace. All we are asking, is that eligible individuals and organisations commit to dedicate 3 or 6 working days, between now and 31st July 2021 to addressing their own training and development needs. What we expect in return, is that they report back to us to say how it went and how the CPDL has influenced their practice.
We’ve done our best to make the application process easy to complete and non-competitive; knowing that now, in the middle of an international crisis, is not the best time to think or plan creatively. We aren’t expecting the applications to be perfect – just an honest account of how the current situation has affected your work and how additional training and development could benefit you now and in the future. We trust people will respond honestly and only apply if they have a genuine need for a quick cash injection and time to dedicate to their own training and development.
Our aim is to allocate these bursaries swiftly in order to respond quickly to the immediate situation, but appreciate that speed may put some people at a disadvantage. We want to balance speed with fairness. For this reason, we will hold back 25% of the bursaries, to be available in the final week of applications (week beginning Monday 27th April), for those experiencing extenuating circumstances that prevent them applying sooner (such as those with caring responsibilities, people who have been ill or people with a disability).
We will be accepting applications from 9am on Monday 6th April until Thursday 30th April 2020.
PLEASE NOTE: We are happy to receive applications in alternative formats if that would be easier for you. If you require help to apply, please get in touch for more support.
The application form will request the following information:
- Contact details
- Bank details
- Briefly tell us about the work that you do and the impact the Coronavirus crisis has had on this (you can do this using a voice recording or short video if you prefer)
- Briefly tell us about the kind of training and development activity you might like to undertake and why (you can do this using a voice recording or short video if you prefer)
PLEASE READ THE UPDATED STATEMENT ON THE APPLICATION PAGE