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Our Funds

Catalyser Fund 
Grants of between £30,001 and £300,000 for established organisations that support children and young people to make, learn and earn in music.
Click here for more information on the Catalyser Fund.

Trailblazer Fund 
Grants of  between £2,000 to £30,000 for organisations that support children and young people facing barriers to make, learn and earn in music. 
Click here for more information on the Trailblazer Fund. 

NextGen Fund
The Youth Music NextGen Fund offers young creatives (aged 18 - 25, or 18 - 30 if they identify as Disabled) grants of up to £2,500 to make their ideas happen. We’ve launched the NextGen Fund to help emerging musicians and behind the scenes creatives take a step forward in participating and changing the music industries.
Click here for more information on the NextGen Fund.

 

Energiser Fund
Grants of up to £120k for organisations experienced working with early years children. The Energiser Fund aims to celebrate and energise creative practice with 2-4-year-olds. Centring children’s voices, views and lived experience, the fund will explore co-design and participation in creative projects for early years.
Click here for more information about the Energiser Fund.

 

Funding deadlines

All deadlines are 5pm. 

Trailblazer Fund  

Trailblazer Round 8
Deadline: 22 November 2024
Notification: 21 March 2025
For projects starting between: April and June 2025

Trailblazer Round 9
Deadline: 11 April 2025
Notification: 8 August 2025
For projects starting between: September and November 2025

Catalyser Fund 

The Catalyser Fund consists of two stages. If your Expression of Interest is successful you will be invited to complete a full application.

Catalyser Fund Round 5
Expression of Interest Deadline: 2 May 2025
Notification: 20 June 2025
Full Application Deadline: 01 August 2025
Notification: 24 October 2025
For programmes starting between: December 2025 and February 2026

NextGen Fund

NextGen Fund Round 9
Deadline: 28 June 2024
Notification: September 2024

NextGen Fund Round 11
Deadline: 7 February 2025
Notification: May 2025

 

Where to apply

We recommend you read the applicant guidance document for the fund you want to apply to before starting your application. Once you've planned your application and read our guidance you can then apply via Youth Music's online grants portal.

You will need to register on the grants portal - please note that this is a separate site from the Youth Music Network.

Start Application (external link)

Access Support

We want to ensure our activities are open and accessible to all. We are committed to meeting people’s access needs so that they can engage with our funding and activities.

Application Access Fund

If you identify as Disabled and need further support to make an application to Youth Music, you can apply to our Application Access Fund. This provides funding to cover any additional access costs that might be required for you to make an application to one of Youth Music’s main grant funds. You should apply for this fund before you start making your application.

Click here for more information on the Application Access Fund.

Personal Access Costs

When you make an application to Youth Music, you can build in personal access costs to your project and timeline. These are costs that remove barriers to enable staff to deliver the project and undertake the grant reporting. Designed for those facing the following additional barriers:

  • d/Deaf or disabled.
  • Neurodivergent.
  • Have learning difficulties.
  • Have a mental health condition.
  • Have a long-term health condition.

You can apply for personal access costs in addition to the main grant. You can apply for an extra 10% on top of the amount you are requesting. When completing your application there will be a separate section to enter your personal access costs.

Click here to Download the Access support guidance for further information.

Other access support we can provide

If there are barriers to engaging with our materials (e.g. documents, forms, websites, online grants portal) then please let us know. We can supply them in a different format or find an alternative way for you to engage.

We can often be flexible about application and reporting deadlines if you have access needs and contact us at least two weeks before a deadline.

 

Help to choose

Which fund is for you? 

We have some tools to help you understand the differences between our funds, including our newest funds, and help you decide which fund is for you. Visit which Youth Music Fund should I apply to?

Here are some Trailblazer Fund project examples.

Here are some Catalyser Fund programme examples. 

Here are some Energiser Fund programme examples. 

Our Funding Priorities

Visit our Funding Priorities page to read regularly updated information about our funding priorities.