Discovery phase of Catalyst digital response fund

Collage Arts like many organisations is doing far more work on-line and more of the work we have created is digital. This is an exciting journey for us and our partners and participants.

Duncan Sones, Collage Arts Development Manager explains; ‘I think we have what is best described as an embarrassment of riches. Collage Arts is developing great digital content, but it is not easy for audiences to discover it. In addition, we need to audiences with specific access needs. Some of our products are designed for people with limited English, other need to support people for whom literacy is struggle. 

We have other challenges. Some of the materials we develop support teachers and arts industry professionals. Then we have hard hitting dramatic work exploring issues that relate to Black Lives Matters issues and the challenges of dealing with COVID. Then we have work which celebrates young people’s creativity.”

A Discovery Phase grant from the Catalyst and National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Response fund will help Collage Arts to work out how to deal with all these issues. If work in the discovery phase shows promise, we can apply for development funds and support from a digital agency.

Duncan continues: ‘We are really pleased that we are working as part of a cohort of projects and I am sure we will learn from each other.  In addition, we have committed to share everything we learn with some of our colleagues in organisations facing similar challenges. Our aspiration is that the solution we create can be used by many more arts organisations to help us all serve our audiences with properly curated digital content.’

We will be working with Founders and Coders as a media agency. Our training cohort is:

We look forward to meeting them on-line.

Thanks to National Lottery players for making this possible – stay tuned for updates!

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