The Talent Development Network (TDN) is PRS Foundation’s new approach to funding organisations, consolidating existing support into one holistic programme for organisations working at the frontline of talent development. We’ve listened to the sector and TDN offers:

• Up to 3 consecutive years of grant support providing organisations the opportunity to plan longer term initiatives.
• Between £10,000 and £25,000 each year to organisations to provide crucial, transformative, and impactful support to the UK’s most talented music creators to develop their careers.
• Access to a network of pioneering talent development organisations across the UK where organisations can share and learn from each other.

The Talent Development Network is available to not-for-profit organisations, with a track record of transformational talent development of at least 18 months, based in the UK with an eligible programme of activity.

This includes:

• Talent development-specialist development organisations
• Festivals
• Venues
• Promoters
• Commissioning organisations
• Orchestras and large ensembles (Large performance groups would include orchestras, choirs, jazz bands or folk groups with 12 or more performers)
• Curators
• Organisations that are limited by guarantee and/or a registered Charity.
• CIC organisations
• Collectives including creator-led collectives.
• non-music organisations including local authorities, museums, etc. where they are responsible for the management and delivery of music creator development-focussed activities.

Profit making organisations 
While we may be able to fund ‘profit-making’ organisations where they are delivering and managing talent development activities which are not-for-profit in their aims and objectives, we want to support organisations where our funding is crucial and therefore, we are less likely to give money to organisations we think should be paying for the proposed project themselves or via parent companies, or who have created an opportunity purely to secure additional income. For example, if you are part of or supported by a major label, major publisher or major/large live sector company, it is unlikely we will be able to fund you through the TDN programme. Please see lists of previously funded organisations (through The Open Fund or Talent Development Partner schemes) for an impression of the types of organisations we fund.

Collectives 
Although it is likely PRS Foundation will prioritise CICs, charities and established non-profit organisations for the TDN programme, if you are a creator-led collective with no formal legal status, PRS Foundation reserves the right to request detailed financial and business information from at least one member of the collective (e.g. a registered sole trader), or may insist that you partner with a more established organisation. If you are unsure whether you are an eligible collective, please contact info@prsfoundation.com. Please note that if you are considering applying as a creator-led collective whose support focuses primarily on your own music creator-development, it is likely we will be unable to support you through the TDN and encourage you to consider one of many PRS Foundation funds available to music creators.

Organisations can apply for grant support between £10,000 – £25,000.

Applicants are encouraged to thoughtfully assess their project requirements and propose funding amounts that accurately reflect the essential costs for their talent development programmes, please note that our budget allows for an average grant of £15,000.

We do not 100% fund programmes and expect that a certain proportion of your income will come from sources other than PRS Foundation’s Talent Development Network. We expect organisations to contribute at least 10% cash income towards the funded programme, with more established organisations with multiple income streams and partners, expected to contribute significantly more.

Detail of eligible spend can be found in next section.

TDN support will help to fund talent development programmes involving the creation, performance and promotion of new music by living, UK-based music creators, with a particular focus on creative and career development (e.g. a commission, residency, education project or tour).

Eligible activities will include:

• The creation of new music, including:
  • Composition and songwriting activities
  • Commissioning of UK-based composers and music creators
  • Recording (including production, mixing, mastering and related costs)
  • Creative collaboration
• The programming and performance of new music, including:
  • Touring or a series of live events featuring outstanding new music
  • Gigs, concerts, premieres or release launches
  • Festivals (where there is a focus on new music programming and wraparound support)
  • Installations
  • Other live activities and promotion of live events which feature a significant programme of new UK music
• Music creator/composer/songwriter/producer/talent development programmes
• Administrative costs relating to TDN-supported delivery which are not already covered by core organisational funding (e.g. staff time spent organising and delivering funded activities). Please note that these costs cannot exceed 20% of your grant request
• Development time (e.g. the time it will take the music creator to work on the new material)
• Workshops, masterclasses and similar capacity building costs of delivering career development support
• Fees and other costs relating to talent development expertise (e.g. mentoring or coaching fees, producer fees, advisor costs)
• Costs relating to recruiting or selecting talent for funded programmes
• Promotional activities/PR costs relating directly to the development of music creators and funded programmes
• Website creation (only if crucial to the promotion of the programme)
• The creation of music videos or other content when crucial to the development of creators involved in funded programmes
• Music creator fees and musician fees (we will not fund programmes if you do not pay your musicians fairly)
• Bursaries – where a programme supports creators and offers bursaries to contribute towards costs
• Equipment/rehearsal space hire if it is an essential part of the project
• Contingency (up to 10% of the total project budget)

We are likely to prioritise UK based activities but welcome international activity in the context of music creator development where an organisation has expertise and a track record of meaningful impact outside the UK.

We support high quality new music projects and programmes and therefore cannot support core organisational costs, salary costs or living costs. We can fund administration costs relating to the delivery of funded activities at a maximum of 20% of the grant request.

Additionally, we can’t support the following:

• Organisations that have been running for less than 18 months
• Projects and programmes which do not pay music creators for their time
• Capital projects (e.g. office or studio building work) or the purchase of equipment, vans, cars or similar items
• Tuition/education costs, or scholarships without prior approval from PRS Foundation
• Organisational research and development projects
• Any project raising funds for another charity
• Retrospective activity (i.e. projects or programmes that have already taken place)
• Activity that falls before our decision date (check our application stages and deadlines when you are applying)
• Organisations based outside the UK
• Costs relating to working with music creators based outside of the UK
• UK music creators who are no longer permanently resident in the UK
• Composers and songwriters who are members of other performance rights collection societies.
• Programmes where the lead composer/songwriter is a member of another Performance Rights Organisation (i.e. UK based music creator must either be a member of PRS or should be in a position to join)
• Start-up companies or for-profit record labels and publishers
• A roster of music creators/composers on a record label, publishing or management company
• Core funding including salary costs that are unrelated to your funded programme
• Licenses/fees for broadcasting
• Major record labels or publishers e.g. Sony, Warner, Universal
• Major live companies e.g. Live Nation
• Global Corporations

All PRS Foundation applications are completed via an online form and must be accessed through our grant portal.

You will need to set up an account and ensure that you verify your emails address (sometimes the verification email lands in junk mail). Once you have started a form, you can log back in using this link. Regrettably, we are unable to accept applications in any other format.

Project outline

PRS Foundation will be selecting grantee organisations based on their suitability to join the network in Phase 1, including assessing suitability for multiple years of support. But applicants will be asked to focus more on Year 1 (2024-25) plans and budgets. The annual renewal of funding support will be dependent on satisfactory delivery of activities, Network engagement, reporting and the submission of satisfactory plans for follow-up years.

Numbers of music creators

One of the things that makes TDN support distinct to similar funding for organisations is our priority for transformative music creator support, and as such the average number of music creators supported through TDN programmes will be lower than was the case through the Foundation’s Open Fund.

There is no limit to the number of music creators you can support in your application to PRS Foundation. However, we would recommend thinking about how you can evidence transformational support vs. value for money.

Applications with open calls

If your programme includes open calls, or if you have not approached or confirmed the music creators you are working with, the key thing for us is knowing:

1. Will the music creators booked be of high quality
2. What type of music creators are you working with
3. How do they benefit from your support

In listing and submitting music creators you’ve previously worked with as well as showing your track record, you give us an impression of the types of music creators you book and support. That includes musical quality, genres, career level and diversity of music creators. Our tip here is to get a good spread that represents what you are all about.

When managing open calls, please also consider adopting Sound and Music’s Fair Access Principles, a code of best practice for running successful, open and inclusive talent development programmes, competitions and awards for composers.

Budget

For the purposes of this budget, we request that you detail expenditure and income relating to your talent development programme. You should enter totals as per our budget template.

If you feel it is appropriate to break down expenditure in more depth in order to show detailed workings or breakdowns for a number of projects, we do allow you to upload an additional budget file.

For example, you may wish to detail music creator fees per project in a separate Excel file, adding the total music creator fee figure to the above budget template. Wherever possible, you should use similar formatting to our budget template.

If you have any questions at all about suitable presentation of budgets, please contact applications@prsfoundation.com before submitting.

Financial information

Organisations will be required to provide a recent set of financial accounts (if you/the organisation doesn’t yet have a set of accounts, then we’ll accept a spreadsheet that tracks your income and expenditure to date, or your most recent set of management accounts). For Collectives, PRS Foundation reserves the right to request detailed financial and business information from at least one member of the collective (e.g. a registered sole trader)

We want members of the Network to reach and support exciting, diverse talent in their specialist areas, and expect TDNs to be genuinely tuned in to the music creators they support and the communities they’re a part of.

As a proactive and inclusive funder of music creators from all backgrounds, our selection and support of TDN organisations will ensure that funded activities exemplify our belief in fair and equitable pay for music creators and musicians, with organisations we fund expected to be mindful of music creators’ wellbeing and the need to foster safer spaces for creation and performance of new music and talent development.

PRS Foundation believes that the success of the music we fund is driven by the diversity of the people who create it. Our commitment to representation and inclusion enables the creation and performance of exceptional new music which has a lasting legacy and shapes the future of music.

We therefore expect the organisations we fund to take a similarly inclusive and proactive approach and welcome applications from organisations specialising in addressing inequities, as well as encouraging all applicants to outline ways in which their programmes will help to create a fairer, more representative sector.

We want to see organisations we fund creating opportunities for ongoing development and wraparound support. This includes empowering the individual music creators you are working with, via projects that enhance their skills, knowledge, confidence taking into consideration their pastoral needs.

We are not simply looking for high volumes of participants or music creators. We want to see the impact your programme will have and how it will transform the creative and career developments of music creators in the UK.

TDNs are also expected to act as PRS Foundation Ambassadors, working strategically with us to encouraging and signposting music creators to the Foundation’s many funding opportunities. Organisations will also be encouraged to link composers and songwriters to PRS for Music, PPL and other relevant trade associations.

We want to support organisations who are keen to join the Network so that they can actively contribute alongside garnering knowledge from other organisations in the network finding inspiration to develop more inclusive models of working. We will expect organisations to actively contribute, engage and share information across the network of organisations for the benefit of all.

We expect organisations to evidence how they have listened to the creators and communities they work with, including how they have developed programmes following evaluations of previous activities.

We’ll ask you about your overall 3-year ambitions, with specific detail for year 1 and skeleton plans for years 2, and 3.

Where PRS Foundation’s Board and Team have decided to consolidate two major programmes (The Open Fund for Organisations and the Talent Development Partner Network), we are aware that some organisations and some types of activity will no longer be eligible. We are committed to ongoing review of organisations funding and may adjust accordingly for future years and phases; however, you may wish to find alternative sources of funding to deliver your project and we would suggest looking at our alternative funds:

• Beyond Borders
• New Music Biennial
• Resonate

and other funding organisations:

Arts Council England, Arts Council of Wales, Creative Scotland, Arts Council Northern Ireland, Youth Music, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Supporting Act Foundation, and other public and private funders, Trusts and Foundations.

The Talent Development Network runs in 3-year phases. If you are unsuccessful in Year 1, we will accept applications in Year 2, however, you will need approval or be invited by a member of the PRS Foundation team to apply, and you will only receive a commitment of up to 2 years of funding rather than 3. The same applies to applications to Year 3, if successful you will only be support for the final year of Phase 1.

Unsuccessful applications organisations in our current Talent Development Partner Network, will be offered 1-year transition funding, to complete their talent development activities whilst also exploring new models of income. They will be eligible to reapply for Year 1 of Phase 2 (2027-2030).

Online application form opens: 22^nd January 2024

Workshop Dates:

Workshop 1 – 15^th January 2024

Workshop 2 – 22^nd January 2024

Workshop 3 – 29^th January 2024

Workshop 4 – 5^th February 2024

Deadline for submitting applications: 26^th February 2024 at 6pm

Decision date: 13^th May 2024

Music Creators: PRS Foundation classes the following as music creators, Songwriters, Composers, Music creators, bands, producers or performers who are writing their own music

Transformational Development: We want organisations to think about a holistic approach to talent development ensuring that they understand the needs, aspirations and challenges of the music creators they work with, and that they are empowered with long term outcomes.

New Music: we mean music that would constitute a new work registered with PRS for Music

Local audiences:  A local audience refers to the people who live in the nearby area or community.

Regional audiences: A regional audience refers to the people who live in a specific geographic area, such as a particular region or locality.

National audiences: A national audience refers to people from an entire country who are collectively watching, listening to, or participating in events, programs, or content that is intended for a wide audience across the entire nation. It encompasses individuals from all regions and areas within the country. This includes the individual nations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

International audiences: An international audience refers to people from different countries around the world.

Project: a piece of planned work or an activity that has a defined start and end date and intended to achieve a particular purpose.

Retrospective Costs: These are costs which relate to any activity which takes place before we inform you of the outcome of your funding application. i.e. If our decision date is 13^th May, we will not fund any activity which takes place before that date and may deem your application as ineligible.

Programme: A programme is a collection of related projects and activities that are managed and coordinated together to achieve longer term objectives or benefits. PRS Foundation would consider a programme which has more than 1 strand of talent development activity with each strand of activity meeting our funding priorities.

Wraparound Support: A comprehensive and person-centric approach that beings together various services and resources to address the multifaceted needs of an individual or a community, promoting holistic well-being and success.

Core Costs: These are the regular and necessary expenses an organisation incurs in its everyday operations, excluding money spent on specific projects or activities.

Phase: Each phase of the TDN will last 3-years i.e., Phase 1 (2024-2027), Phase 2 (2028-2030)