Student Opportunities benefit both museums and galleries and students in a range of exciting and transformative ways. Students can explore an interest in the arts alongside future career options, while providing organisations with a skilled and accountable resource.

Benefits for museums and galleries:

• build knowledge of how to effectively engage youth/student audiences by working directly with students
• develop a wider and more diverse range of voices within your organisation
• help develop the diversity of the whole cultural sector, creating a fit for purpose and engaged workforce
• payment assures students take their responsibilities seriously and are a reliable and accountable resource

Benefit for students:

• training that empowers them to feel confident in their area of responsibility and develop skills
• practical experience of working within an arts organisation, helping them to build their CV
• an increased awareness of the range of careers available in the cultural sector.
• networking opportunities with arts professionals and other students across the UK
• the opportunity to help diversify the voices that contribute to how arts organisations operate, enhancing cultural experiences for all young people

Why are we funding Student Opportunities?

Art Fund has had a relationship with students since 2017 when we launched the Student Art Pass nationally, helping students overcome price and awareness barriers to visiting more often. Our student members have told us that they want to go ‘beyond visiting’ and become active collaborators and participants in the world of art and culture. To open pathways into the arts, we offer regular creative competitions and paid opportunities in collaboration with museums and galleries, and this has fast become one of the most popular membership benefits we offer.

In addition to providing funding, the Student Art Pass team can assist you with audience insights to help you shape the marketing of your opportunity to appeal to young people, and assist with recruitment by promoting it to the 23,500 Student Art Pass members who are located across the UK. We look to support opportunities that are relevant and accessible to as many as possible within this community.

What we’ll fund

We encourage applications that focus on facilitating public engagement with art – whether that be online or in real life. We will fund the costs associated with paying students for the time they spend supporting your organisation in delivering projects. This is based on the current national and London living wage rates.

We cannot fund

• Core staff costs
• Costs relating to ongoing overheads
• Retrospective funding for projects that have already been delivered

Who we’ll support

We will consider applications from UK public museums, galleries, historic houses, libraries and archives that:

• have a public presence (eg a building open to the public) or a public outcome (eg a festival or public art programme)
• can demonstrate that they operate to standards of best practice within the sector (eg through Arts Council England accreditation)

Please note that all participating students will be contracted to work for you, the partner organisation, via your HR team.

All grant recipients will be asked to sign our conditions for paid opportunities.