FREE MONEY MAXIE GEDGE GIVES YOU A GUIDE TO THE FUNDING OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO YOU
When I was making music growing up in Norwich I wish I’d have known about PRS Foundation, the organisation I now work for as Communications Coordinator. It would have stopped me from signing dodgy deals and I wish I’d known there were good people in the ‘business’ of music that were there to help! My job now is to make sure people like me do know the PRS Foundation exist.
EARLY CAREER These are for artists who need more hands-on support to help them start to carve out their path in music. The funds, such as the Lynsey de Paul Prize and the Steve Reid Innovation Award offer mentoring and relatively small amounts of money (around £1500) as they often cover single releases and small campaigns. A typical artist at this stage would have perhaps played a few shows and put some music online, but wouldn’t have a team in place or loads of press / reviews. Nubya Garcia released her first EP with help from the Steve Reid Innovation Award.
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We are the UK’s leading funder of new music and talent development, and we have lots of initiatives that help music-makers from all backgrounds realise their full potential. Our main donor is PRS for Music so our focus is on songwriters – we also partner with a lot of other music organisations including PPL, Spotify, PledgeMusic, and other funding bodies like Arts Council England and Creative Scotland. If you are making new music we likely have an initiative that could help you get to the next stage in your career. We want to fund excellent new music and provide the support that the creators need to get to a sustainable position. The needs change drastically depending on genre, region, background etc. so it’s our job to make sure we are tuned in to the musical landscape! We do a lot of proactive work to ‘plug holes’ in the music industry and to help artists overcome barriers and/or challenges. All of our opportunities have applications forms that you fill in online… it may sound daunting but we keep them as simple as possible and we don’t judge them on grammar or ‘buzz words’! We are looking for the impact that the proposed activity will have on your career. We split our funding into five main categories:
NEXT STEPS These are for artists at crucial tipping points in their careers. You have to have a team in place to apply and the money on offer is more substantial (around £15k). Because of this the projects that we fund through our next steps initiatives tend to be bigger campaigns like recording an album, a significant promotional campaign etc. Novelist got Momentum to master his album at Abbey Road. INTERNATIONAL For artists starting to reach new territories worldwide, we have quite a few funds that support a range of international activity… The International Showcase Fund supports artists who have been invited to play at international showcases, and our Musicians in Residence programme with British Council allows artists to go on substantial (and often career changing) creative residencies. Emmy the Great went to China on this programme and has written a 27
new body of work inspired by her trip, including new edits of previous songs in Mandarin. ALL LEVELS Combined, these initiatives represent our biggest ‘pot’ of money and we call them ‘open funding’; they are open to all genres and all career levels. There’s three deadlines a year, and I usually recommend that The Open Fund or Women Make Music are the first initiatives that people check out. It’s all project funding so you’d fill in an application online for a project that you think will help you get from A to B. Marika Hackman got Women Make Music for the recording session with The Big Moon that became I’m Not Your Man. ORGANISATIONS Promoters, festivals, venues, record labels, magazines, large performance groups, radio stations… these all count as organisations to us. If you are doing work to help the development of music creators then your next project could be supported by The Open Fund for Organisations or others. Liverpool Sound City have got The Open Fund for Organisations for the new music programming strand of the festival. If you would like to talk more about what might be suitable for you email me at maxie@prsfoundation.com and I will pass you on to the relevant member of the Grants Team, or check out www.prsfoundation.com.
Words by Maxie Gedge - PRS Foundation
