First, some good news. Heard about our Rescue the Roots campaign? Who hasn’t, thanks to fantastic advocate Jordan Stephens! We’ve had pledges of £850,000 since it started. Matched with an equal amount of funding from Youth Music’s reserves. This has significantly bolstered our grants budget in 2025/26, so we can invest more than £11 million into grassroots music this year.

We’re delighted that Arts Council England has approved our extension funding for 2026/27 with an uplift to £10.13million. Which means more money into our Trailblazer and Catalyser Funds. Meanwhile, we await to hear the outcome of our annual application to People’s Postcode Lottery. Big thanks to the Arts Council, National Lottery and player of People’s Postcode Lottery, for this vital funding that supports inspirational grassroots projects and young creatives across the country.

This year, we’ll continue to focus on income generation to bolster the cultural infrastructure that supports young people in our country. With less than one in five applications successful, fundraising remains an urgent priority. We’ve some exciting new partnerships in the pipeline to help us grow the funds we invest it organisations and young people. Watch this space…

Funding news and deadlines

Need funding? Deadlines for 2026 are now live. 

Our grant-making database, Grant Tracker, is being discontinued. Migrating to a new system is a big project for us over the coming months, and you’ll see a new platform by the end of the year.  This means that we’ve had to make some changes to the grants deadlines from last year’s schedule: 

• Catalyser Fund happens earlier than last year – the deadline is 20 March 2026.
• The next Trailblazer Fund deadline is 10 April 2026.
• The next NextGen Fund deadline is Friday 6 February 2026. 

As we review the Shift the Scene Fund proposals, we’re excited to see the recommendations of our Excluded by Design? research being implemented by so many music projects working with Disabled young people across the country.  

And, you’ll see more from the Energiser Fund this year, as we ask, “How do we do ‘youth voice’ with babies and toddlers?” For the curious, this Exchanging Notes webinar is a good starting point. 

Looking beyond Youth Music

A suite of Government strategies and reviews were published last year, including the first national youth strategy in over two decades, an independent review of Youth Music’s main funder, Arts Council England, and a review of school curriculum and assessment. They followed the Creative Industries Sector Plan earlier in 2025. We’ve been digging into the reports to think about how they impact our work, and how roll out of the recommendations can be done in the most inclusive and equitable way. Our analysis will be published later this month.

Support for our communities

Last year we launched our new-look website, which brought together all our audiences under one roof. At Youth Music, we’re privileged to work with a brilliant, diverse range of people and partners, thinking about children and young people from their early years through to their early careers. One minute we’re talking national cultural policy, the next minute young people’s mental health, the next it’s ones to watch for 2026. That might be rounded off by talk about fair pay, phonk music, or AI and its impact on music, grant-making, and future jobs. 

As we’ve merged audiences on our website, we now want to bring more people together through our online learning and networking space, Exchanging Notes. To reflect this aspiration, we’re rebranding to Exchange and will diversify programming over the coming months. 

Life at Youth Music is busy, but never boring. Despite the challenging external environment, we’re grateful to be part of such an amazing community of young creatives and grassroots music organisations. People who are getting on, who often move in silence and don’t have time for self-promotion. So we urge you to get those nominations in for our annual Youth Music Awards. Expect this year’s party to be better than ever, as we host up north for the first time.

Our door is always open. We’ll be conducting our annual NextGen and Feedback surveys later in the year, but if you’ve got things to discuss in the meantime, don’t hesitate to get in touch.