The BFBB’s Development Officer Philip Watson recently met with the Chief Executive and Head of Public Affairs of the Big Lottery Fund, Peter Wanless and Shaun Walsh at the Houses of Parliament.

The meeting was to discuss funding options for bands and to reveal statistics of the success rate of bands applying for funding.

Sucess rate

Exclusive information from the Big Lottery Fund headquarters revealed that applications for funding from brass bands met with about a 50 per cent success rate and whilst last year bands received around £109,663 in funding, so far this year only £53,902 had been granted.

National Youth Band funding

In addition to this, the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain (NYBBGB) has received £573,000 of Big Lottery funding over the last five years through Youth Music and this figure increases year on year.

Supplying information for brass bands Peter Wanless explained that two of the Big Lottery Fund’s current funding schemes will be of particular interest to bands:

Awards for All

The Awards for All is a Lottery grants scheme aimed at local communities. The fund awards grants of between £300 and £10,000 in a simple and straightforward way. Applications can be made at any time and the application form is short and simple.

The possibility of the BFBB becoming a helper organisation for bands that wish to access funds was also discussed as was the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and the legacy trustPhilip Watson

Reaching Communities

Meanwhile, Reaching Communities will give grants of more than £10,000 and up to £500,000, including a maximum of £50,000 for capital grants. The fund has set a maximum overall project size of £750,000 and £200,000 for the total capital element within a project. They will fund projects for up to five years.

Assist

Revealing further details of the meeting Philip Watson said: "The possibility of the BFBB becoming a helper organisation for bands that wish to access funds was also discussed as was the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and the legacy trust."

Philip added: "It was further agreed that the BFBB may be able to assist the Big Lottery Fund to access brass bands, brass groups and communities that it finds hard to reach."