In August 2020, the Scottish Government announced that the culture and heritage sectors in Scotland would benefit from a £59 million funding package to protect jobs and help the industry weather the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this, the Youth Arts Fund was created as an emergency response to support the youth arts sector.
To respond quickly and coherently to the challenge of creating a major new funding programme, Creative Scotland established the funding processes for the Youth Arts Fund based on the well-established Youth Music Initiative programme.
For 2021/22, the two funding programmes were designed to run in parallel, by merging some of the Youth Music Initiative’s funding strands into the Youth Arts Fund and making them accessible to the wider youth arts sector, with the same priority areas and target groups.
BOP was commissioned in June 2021 to undertake a one-year evaluation of the Youth Arts Fund and Youth Music Initiative’s Formula Fund. The evaluation looked both at the fund’s set-up as well as its impact on participants and the sector, and centred on collaboration with three self-nominated participant cohorts across the evaluation period.
These provided feedback to the evaluation framework and approach; contributed to the creation of eight in-depth case studies and fed back on the administration of the fund.
Download the Evaluation
Case studies
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: Passion4Fusion
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: Engage Scotland - ART evolution
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: Falkirk Community Trust
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: National Galleries of Scotland
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: Clifftop Projects
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: Media Education, The Dalry Film Club
Creative Scotland Youth Arts Fund Case Study: Scottish Youth Theatre