For online information on funding sources for the arts related projects, try the BDS Sponsorship or Funders Online sites. For general guidelines to thinking about funding, see the pages of the City of Westminster Arts Council and the Artquest articles on writing applications and the basics of applications.
Government Funding is run by the Directory of Social Change (DSC) and lists all theavailable funding from the Department for Education and Skills, the Department of Health, the Home Office and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - in all around £180m worth of funding.
For information directly on EU funding strands, see the Grants and Loans from the European Union website. The main funding programme from the EU is Culture 2007, which replaced the old Culture 2000 programme in 2006.
Eligibility criteria:
See more information at the Culture 2007 website set up by EUCLID on the new Culture programme. EUCLID is the European &international information, research and consultancy services to thecultural sector.
There are a range of grants that artists' can apply for but few of them will give money purely for funding the production of work. Applying to trusts, grant making bodies or attracting sponsorship are ways to support your practice in other ways, such as exhibiting, travel fellowships, residencies, community arts, educational fees and business start up.
Studios are often a costly investment and artists' who do not have a regular income can fall into arrears. There are various ways around this problem (such as sharing space with several artists). Subletting from other artists can also be a less costly alternative to taking on short-term studio leases. There are many artists' studio complexes in London, some of which also offer inexpensive professional development courses.
Investing time in professional development training and undertaking short business courses are essential to the success of earning a living from your artistic practice. If artists cannot establish a market or client base for their work then other methods of generating income have to be explored.
Artists often, by choice or necessity, have to take on 'multiple roles' (such as education and community wok, commissions and teaching) in order to support their studio practice. Many publications and websites (including Artquest's) publicise these opportunities on an ongoing basis.
Claiming benefits can become a complicated matter when sales of work or the odd short-term opportunity occurs. This is why it is important to develop management skills.
Whether you are on job seekers allowance, or other government support (such as incapacity benefit) there are a number of ways to declare earnings whilst reducing deductions from your benefits. For instance, artists claiming incapacity benefit are, for medical reasons, permitted to earn 'therapeutic' earnings.
If you retain all receipts for materials and equipment then these can be off-set against a payment. For example, if a painting is sold for £80 and the material cost of production was £20, then your 'official' income is £60.
Selling via the internet, either through internet galleries or your own website, is now a viable option for most artists. As an individual artist you may not be able to afford the costs in setting up a web site where on-line transactions can take place, so using email to conduct sales is a less expensive and simpler alternative.
When selling work in London's commercial galleries there is usually a commission charge that is included in the sale price, often this is between 33% and 100%. This may seem a lot but running a gallery in London is a costly business and in order to attract clients the gallery will spend many thousands of pounds on marketing the show and private view expenses.
Whether a dealer brokers the sale of a work on your behalf, or you conduct a sale yourself, it is a legal transaction. It is advisable that, when a price has been agreed, a contract be confirmed in writing. When organising sales of your work it is professional to render a 'bill of sale', usually referred to as an invoice. Although the layout of invoices may change, generally they should all contain: your name and (business) address; contact telephone and email (where applicable); national insurance number; self employment unique taxpayer reference number (if applicable); description of the work done or sold; cost (including VAT if you are registered to charge VAT); VAT number (if applicable); date of invoice; invoice number (for your own records, created by you).
A guide for making funding applications is in the Money section of this site.