Catalyst Endowments Fund Announced

Catalyst Endowments,, is a £55 million scheme to help arts and heritage organisations secure their long-term financial stability by building endowment funds. Arts Council England has committed £10 million to the joint funding initiative with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Heritage Lottery Fund.

Organisations will be able to bid for grants of up to £5 million to support endowment fundraising from the Catalyst Endowments fund, which will be available to match funds raised from private donors. Bids will be reviewed by an independent advisory panel with around 50 organisations expected to benefit from the grants which will start at £500,000.

Further details of the Catalyst Endowments scheme and how applicants can apply will be unveiled in September 2011 with online applications open in October and decisions on awards expected in early 2012

Creative Leicestershire July ebulletin is out!

The Creative Leicestershire July ebulletin is now out. It's jam packed with jobs and opportunities related to arts, deign and media including:

A Commission Opportunity from Leicestershire County Council

Call for Entries: World Event Young Artists

Voluntary Arts: Epic Awards

See the full ebulletin, for further details and more opportunities

Perin Towlson Ceramics gets our graduate start up bursary

The ceramicist Perin Towlson who has just graduated from De Montfort University has won our graduate start up award for 2011. Perin creates beautiful decorative porcelain vessels which are on sale via http://www.degreeart.com/. She is showing with a group of DMU graduates at Art in Action in July and her work will be taken to Japan next year as part of the 'DMU to Tokyo' mission. Her pieces are fired twice and highly polished and she's currently working on access to an industrial-strength dust extractor. Any ideas? Perin's website is at http://www.perintowlsonceramics.weebly.com/.