Banner: Chris Smith with participants in The Caravan Darkroom (2022)

Grants for Community Photography Projects

What the grants are for

We have three charitable objectives, which are to:

• promote, preserve, develop or practise the art of analogue photography

• support the provision of community photography to improve the mental health and well-being of children and young people under 25.

• support learning in the art of analogue photography.

This grant scheme funds photography projects designed to meet the second of these. 

Projects eligible for this scheme will aim to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children and young adults under the age of 25, allowing them to take part in organised activities that provide a hands-on experience of photographic techniques.

For these grants, projects can use either digital or analogue photography.

What makes a good project?

You should have clear aims and objectives for what you want to achieve, and have worked up plans for how you will target participants, deliver the activities and achieve the desired outcomes.

The needs of the children and young people who will benefit should be identified, and the project should be aimed at those in need.

If partners are involved, you should have agreements in place.

You should have assessed risks and know how you will mitigate them.

Activities within the project should provide learning opportunities for the children and young people taking part. If a project additionally gives learning opportunities for those providing the activities this could improve the case for funding.

The setting or environment in which the project takes place and the impact it might have on mental health and wellbeing should be a consideration.

The project should enable all participants to be actively involved in the art of photography. This could include using cameras and other photographic equipment, learning photographic techniques or creating photographic images.

Projects should provide participants with an experience that leaves them with a positive view of photography as an art-form.

Activities might be a single workshop or event, or a programme of linked activities and might involve working with the participants solo or in groups. Examples of activities that might be included are:

• Outings with a photographer to learn how to take pictures of people or landscapes using digital or analogue film

• Dark room experiences

• Creating images using techniques such as cyanotype or pinhole cameras

• Learning printing techniques using a range of media.

You will find illustrations of some of the projects that have benefitted from past grants on the Supported Projects page of the website.

Constraints on funding

We impose a small number of constraints on what we will fund:

·      Your project must not have already started - although it can be part of a wider programme of ongoing activities.

·      Projects must not make use of Generative AI.

·      Projects must take place in the UK.

·      All those who will have direct contact with the children or vulnerable adults must have passed a DBS or Disclosure Scotland check. 

Please note there may be some elements within projects that we do not fund, or which are discretionary.  See Costs you can and cannot include, under Making an Application.

Note also that the constraint on the use of Generative AI also applies to your application. If we discover that your application has been generated by AI it is likely to be rejected as contrary to the spirit of what the Foundation promotes.

Disclaimer on risk

Your project is done entirely at your own risk.  By submitting an application you acknowledge that you have read and accept the Foundation’s Disclaimer: All risks whether to the applicant or any third party, whatsoever and wheresoever, remains with the applicant, and the Foundation accepts no liability either to the applicants or any third party carrying out the project for which the grant is given.