Nominet Trust: Digital Arts & Creative Ageing

Overview

This programme aims to fund strong and innovative applications from entrepreneurial-minded organisations that have already demonstrated the distinctive value that digital technology and the internet can bring to connecting older people with the creative arts - and the beneficial social outcomes offered by this broadening of digital engagement. The scheme will provide funding and support to help scale and sustain products or services that have already been trialled and have evidence of uptake, with the aim of developing their social, user and financial value.

Who can apply?

Your compelling proposition is more important than what type of organisation you are. However, organisations must be a registered legal entity to receive funding. Applications are welcome from a wide variety of UK-based organisations, but we are unable to fund individuals. You could be a social organisation such as a charity or Community Interest Company (CIC), or a for profit organisation (perhaps a residential care home, retirement village, a theatre, art centre, museum or community centre) - so long as you have a clear and demonstrable social purpose, and can provide evidence of social value delivery on an on-going basis.

Your organisation:

• Should have a clear and demonstrable social purpose.
• Will be UK-based, and you must be working with beneficiary groups in the UK.
• Will already be a registered legal entity, or prepared to become one.
• Must be able to demonstrate that your initiative can generate social, user and financial value, with the potential to be self-sustaining.
• Should be ready to scale, having evidence that you have already piloted your product or service, gained traction from users and beneficiaries and have evaluated your existing work - and used that learning to improve your product or service.
• You will ideally have channels to market (and potentially partnerships) already in place.

What funding is available?

If your application is successful, you can expect to receive:

• Grant funding for each project of up to £90,000 - depending on the requirements and the number of projects we choose to fund.
• Funder support for project delivery over an 18-month period.
• A support package including mentoring, marketing & communications advice and networking opportunities.

Unlike many other investors, Nominet Trust and The Baring Foundation:

• Do not ask for an equity stake in your organisation, nor request loan repayments.
• Allow successful ventures to retain any IP developed with our funding.

What constitutes the creative arts?

Principally music, singing (including opera), film, dance, drama, creative writing, design (including graphic design), photography, painting, drawing, printing, craft, sculpture, or installation art.

Your team is likely to have:

• Access to in-house tech expertise.
• Experience of the creative arts and/or delivering services to older people.
• An understanding of the marketplace your digital product or service is entering and be able to explain why your proposition is differentiated from existing provision.

Your tech:

• You must be able to demonstrate that digital technologies are critical to the delivery of your product or service.
• You will already have an existing digital product or service, which this fund can help to develop to its next growth stage.
• The digital technologies you are using can include electronic tools, systems, devices and resources e.g. the internet, digital radio and TV, the internet of things, online games and applications - as well as devices such as laptops, tablets and mobile phones.
• You may be using digital technology as a tool to enhance the practice of more traditional media, often used as part of the process for creating an artwork, for example Skype-facilitated collaboration to write a play, or for dissemination of otherwise inaccessible cultural experiences, for example simultaneous online curation or technological aids that enable or enhance older people’s access to physical exhibitions.
• You may be using digital technology as a medium if it is essential to the production of an artwork, for example the use of an iPad to record or manipulate images or sound and to display these.

By the end of this funding you will have:

• Demonstrated a model of scale and sustainability for using digital technology to engage older people in the creative arts.
• Developed a strong evaluation methodology.
• Provided evidence to inform decisions about the wider use of digital technology to engage older people in the creative arts.