For most dancers who lead sessions in community settings there are often multiple sources of funding - from the paying public, to work brokered for you by a dance agency or sports centre, or work that you pitch for yourself via local funding schemes. Contact your local authorities and find out about their priorities and ways they are meeting them across family, health and social care departments as well as making relationships with an arts/cultural department if there is one. Quite often dance will meet community needs in a variety of ways, and as long as you are willing to embark on a process of demonstrating how your dance sessions work with people to increase their sense of health, wellbeing, social engagement and cohesion as well as making dance happen with people, then you will often be able to get funds for projects designed by you in this way. It is worth networking locally to find out what smaller schemes might be happening that could benefit you in your area and we also keep you up to date in our funding section. The national lottery also provides funds for a lot of community dance and arts, though Arts Council England's Grants for the Arts programme, the Big Lottery Fund, and Awards for All (for small grants of up to £10,000).
FCD is not a funding body, and is not able to offer grants to other people or organisations. We can usefully direct you to the latest schemes that can offer you funding for your ideas - please visit our funding page.
We can also offer you a toolkit to get started on your fundraising efforts which is packed with signposts to vital information about sources of funding, practical exercises and useful examples to help you access the resources you need. Read more about our Fundraising Toolkit.