Funding Announcement

Curious Minds is thrilled to have been included in Arts Council England’s National Portfolio – having been awarded funding of £2.4m over 3 years, from April 2023 to March 2026.

This will enable us to continue working with schools, arts practitioners and the wider youth workforce across the North of England, to tackle unequal access to creativity and cultural education for children and young people.

Our inclusion in the National Portfolio underlines the importance of our work as a field catalyst for cultural education, which has never been more needed than it is now. Post-pandemic, we continue to see a devaluing of arts and cultural subjects within formal education at all phases, and the cultural participation gap between the most and least well off in society is widening ¹.

Curious Minds has ambitious plans for tackling these challenges and access to regular, reliable funding as a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) is crucial to our ability to bring about change. Our region has an already rich and fertile cultural ecology. We are excited to continue our valuable work with as wide and diverse a network of partners as possible – making the North of England a great place to grow up, achieve your potential and get into a creative career.

Naturally, today’s announcement brings great pleasure for the team at Curious Minds and for many other organisations welcomed to Portfolio status. Yet we are equally aware that there are some who will not be celebrating. To those people and organisations we extend our solidarity and support. We recognise that the coming months will be challenging and are as committed as ever to working with high-quality cultural education practitioners, regardless of NPO status.