Multi-Year Funding Programme: Stage Two now closed for applications

We received applications from 281 cultural organisations with a total ask of £87.5m per year.

This compares to the 285 organisations which were successful at Stage One of the process, when the annual financial ask was £87.4m.

Applications will now be assessed against the published criteria, and we aim to announce the outcome from Stage Two by the end of October 2024, with funding in place for successful organisations from 1 April 2025.

Speaking on today’s announcement, Iain Munro, Creative Scotland’s Chief Executive said:

“The applications we have received in Stage Two of the Multi-Year Funding Programme are testament to the enormous cultural and creative potential that exists in Scotland.

“However, as we have emphasised consistently, our budgets remain extremely limited, and we anticipate being able to fund only a proportion of the organisations which have applied.

“Our decisions will depend on the budget made available to us by the Scottish Government in the coming financial year and beyond. While we welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to increasing funding for culture by £100m over the next five years, and the intimation that £25m of this will be allocated in the 2025/26 financial year, we await confirmation of what this means for Creative Scotland’s budget.

“In the meantime, I’d like to thank all organisations which submitted an application to Stage Two of the Multi-Year Programme. We recognise and appreciate the significant amount of work that has gone into these applications, and we will give careful consideration and attention to every application before reaching our decisions.”

Background

Full details of the Multi-Year Funding Programme, including the timeline, criteria, and application guidance, can be found on our website.

Any questions on the Multi-Year Funding Programme, or any other aspect of Creative Scotland’s funding, should be directed to our Enquiries Service.

Previous Multi-Year Funding Programme announcements: