DYCP: A Recipe for Success
Artists often ask about my experience writing a successful DYCP application. People share their challenges and dreams…
Naturally, the first thing most people say is:
“Please can I read your application?”
Tricky question?
Well, no, not for me. I committed in my DYCP year - December 2023 to November 2024 - to share my learning with others. I thought that would be through regular blogs which I would in turn post on social media and share with my online creative networks.
Over the few years I’ve been fortunate enough to have conversations with artists across the North of England to help them unpack their DYCP ambitions, creative dreams and ideas for an application. As more people requested my support in their own DYCP applications, the more I was able to pivot to offering free 1-1 conversations that drew on my experience and - critically - supported their unique ideas, personal story and future ambitions.
My application was the best fit for me, in my circumstances, sure. It’s not the only answer to DYCP’s call to action, nor should it be seen to be.
I have shared parts of my application that really resonate with others in the hope it’s a useful reference point, rather than the route to a successful application. Looking back, the shift in how I shared my learning was a shift towards who I truly am. Without realising it - and frequently giving myself I hard time that I wasn’t making time to write and post those blogs - I’d done what is natural to me; tuned in to people, not algorithms.
Why are we here, together, now?
You asked!
People continue to contact me asking about my DYCP experience - sharing their challenges in writing an application and hopes for their futures - six months on from completing mine. I’ve had time to reflect on what I learnt and I hope some of those ingredients I used can help shape your recipe for success. What’s more…
I want to share it with YOU.
I want you to succeed.
I sense our arts (funding) landscape is changing, perhaps quite dramatically quite quickly, and I know that change requires fresh ideas coupled with mutual support. I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t step up and say it, offering to be the role model that I wish I’d had much earlier in my arts practice (yet been fortunate enough to find in my producing career!).
It’s time we did more than dream up our futures and hope for the best.
Writing a DYCP application is more than a dream. It’s a road map for your future.
It’s going to shape everything you do next, regardless of Arts Council England’s reply to your hard fought-for words articulated late at night when the bills need paying tomorrow. A ‘Yes’ from DYCP is wonderful - when it happens to you be assured I’m cheering you on - but what really matters is that you have a plan you know you’re going to realise regardless of someone else’s opinion, decision or funding parameters.
Are you ready?!
Let’s delve into the ingredients that make your ideas a reality!
I’ve got you.
Take Your Time
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Words, Words, Words
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Step Change
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Who are you, really?
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Be bold, Scrap it!
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Take Your Time 〰️ Words, Words, Words 〰️ Step Change 〰️ Who are you, really? 〰️ Be bold, Scrap it! 〰️
1. Take Your Time
It took me about a year to write my DYCP application. I’m glad it did.
Be reassured - DYCP isn’t going away next week! This funding round deadline isn’t the only chance for you to apply. Arts Council England’s 10 year strategy - Let’s Create - committed to DYCP from 2020 to 2030, with a delivery plan for realising it until 2027. Yep, 2027! If this funding round doesn’t align with your life right now, wait. Keep forming ideas and shaping that final application.
Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment too - we’re juggling life, health, family, work and creativity every day of the week. We only have so much time, unpaid, to write applications for something we might, or might not, secure. DYCP is your future, so….
take your time to think, write, re-think
stop and walk away
come back with new ideas; scrap old ones
Sound familiar?! It’s a creative process after all; dreaming up the future. And that’s what we do best.
2. Words, Words, Words
What if you’ve never written an application before? What if you’ve done so many you’re exhausted by it? What if you’re dyslexic or have another form of neurodivergence that makes these words, these bureaucratic forms, overwhelming? What if the words just don’t seem to flow and you feel stuck, lost even?
Forget the form for a minute!
Remember how you show up as you elsewhere in life…
When I wrote my application, I was travelling from Northumberland to Teesside twice a week on a fixed term contract with a 1 year old at home (who did not sleep at night!), juggling freelance contracts and trying my best to carve out time to be creative. Yes, I find words fairly easy and forms don’t overwhelm me (after years as a Producer) but…. I did need to shape my wild and wide ranging ideas into something coherent before I pressed submit.
Here’s a few things I did that might help you….
Talk out loud to yourself, regularly! Speak the words your thinking and suddenly the thoughts are real. It’s so powerful, honestly, and you can easily then dismiss the ones you don’t like, hone the ones you do.
Write bullet points. Not sentences. Write everything down in a few words, no judgements. (Sentences can come later).
Got that incredibly long list that looks like chaos?! Yep, I did too. Now, it’s time to Group them together into themes or similar topics. Let’s say you’ve got the wish list for creative training courses on there - group them together under ‘Training’. Do this until everything has it’s heading (yep, use ‘Other’ for the seemingly random ones!) By the way - read on for extra support on this as I’ve put together the key headings ACE ask for (as of May 2025) so you could be guided by their format from the off.
Record yourself. One of the best things I did, but I didn’t know it then, was record myself speaking my ideas out loud whilst baby slept in the car one day. I listened back recently. Wow - I was almost there! I sounded unsure of myself yet what I said was so close to what I wrote in my final application. What I did do at the time was listen back to it when I was able to Write it down on a word document. Like gathering a sketch in the fleeting moment to come back to in the studio later.
Talk to other people. You’re going to have to say it out loud - not write it down - so you’re going to get into a flow AND gather that all important feedback from the person who’s listening. When that trusted person give you words in response - write it down!!! They’ll have articulated your thoughts for you and it might just be the words you need.
Maybe you need a creative outlet for your thoughts…. collage it; journal it; dance it out! What if you teach others as part of your job right now…. imagine your plans are the information you’ve teaching someone else; then say it the way your students need to hear it from you!
Finally, access support. Check it out via Arts Council England and, if you are eligable, apply for it.
3. Step Change. Yes, really, STEP CHANGE!
One of the best pieces of advice I was given whilst forming my application was this. If you hold onto one thing whilst you articulate your ideas, let it be this too.
What’s the biggest step change that DYCP could make to you LIFE?
Let’s break that down for a moment - it’s a big one…..
What key events happened in your life (to get you to this moment)? Study, jobs, volunteering, creative achievements, upbringing, where you’ve lived….?
Where are you now in your a. career b. creative practice c. personal life?
What are the biggest challenges, or barriers, you are facing now? What might they be in a few years time? (Another way into this is - what happens if you don’t change? What’s life like in 2 years time if you carry on as normal?)
What does life look like in 5 years time?
When you articulate this, you have the key building block for the whole application.
I was at a cross roads and I looked down a road I’d never imagined before; a life where I combined my creative and producing experience into one entity and made it viable to live and work in rural Northumberland while we raise our family. For me, the seemingly impossible. Yet, it’s the foundations of a 5 year plan I’m still absolutely focused on in 2025. I’ve written it into other funding bids since and I don’t want to veer off it. I put too much time into finding that needle in a haystack in the first place!
🎉
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You’re half way there - HURRAY!
Feeling like you need a little extra support? I’ve got you!
Book a 1 hour, 1-1 conversation to unpack your big ideas & shape them into your DYCP plan
studio@francesarnold.co.uk
This is all about YOU. It’s not general advice.
It’s me listening hard to YOU, reflecting it back and asking ‘what if….?’ I’m tuning into you during our time together.
You’ll gain more clarity on YOUR ideas.
studio@francesarnold.co.uk
£50 per hour on video call
““My conversation with Fran was REALLY helpful and allowed me to gain some clarity on some thoughts that have been swirling around for some time. I feel like I know what I am working towards more, and am going to set aside a short amount of time weekly to journal these ideas””
4. Who are you, really?
When I started writing my application I dismissed parts of my personal life, past and present, as unimportant to a DYCP application. I was a mum to our first child at the time; lots of people are. I grew up in a rural, farming community in the 1990s to first-time farming parents who juggled jobs elsewhere too, so what?
It struck me deeply when a good friend and fellow creative navigating family life in Northumberland said, ‘and of course, you’re a new mum’.
It turned into a just a handful of words in the application but that push to share who I am with others as part of my whole journey, my whole career, was critical.
Growing up in the North York Moors on a sheep farm with parents, and a community around me, for whom the arts was just not a career they had experience of played it’s part in how proud I am now of getting an art degree and working ever since in the sector as both an artist and producer. It’s also why many routes are closed to me in the arts*. That’s why I’m taking the journey I’m on now. Being a new mum had left me focused on paying the bills and my artwork was not doing that at the time, so I didn’t invest in my creative development. I could easily have let my creative practice go but writing DYCP reminded me how integral it is to who I am and what I can offer the world.
You might find this easy, I hope you do, so keep going; write it all down. Start to shape that story of who you are and where it’s taking you via DYCP’s support.
If you’re like me, I hope this gives you the permission that someone magical gave me to start telling yourself, and then the world, that your whole self does matter and it’s key to shaping your unique step change.
P.S. if you go on to the concept of personal branding in future this stuff is gold dust to being authentically you!
*this is a whole other story! One I hope I’ll share with you another day
5. Be bold, scrap it!
Maybe this isn’t what you are expecting to hear right now?!
Scrap it? But I’ve put hours into this and I want to do it all!“
Think of it like weeding out seedlings… it feels hard to let a few go when they have so much potential but in the end the strongest ones truly flourish. Some ideas are not as refined as others. Scrap the words, sentences, ideas, plans that just aren’t as beneficial to you as others. I kept a ‘Binned It’ word document on to go so I didn’t loose it all until I was 100% ready to press delete!
Remember that you’re applying for public money, with specific parameters around what ACE can fund and what it can’t. You don’t have to let go of an idea from your whole life, but you may scrap it from a DYCP application.
Primarily, DYCP is for your PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.
Think of it as the activity that will support your development before you embark on that project / career change / new collection of paintings
ACE outline the activity they will fund and outcomes your activity must meet. Check your ideas and planned activities do fit those criteria. For example, training does. If in doubt, talk to ACE and check it out before submitting. It might be you need to develop the rationale further in your application to demonstrate how something does fit.
If your ideas don’t fit ACE’s criteria for DYCP, or you can’t afford to do it all within budget!!, let them go towards other applications or commissions or contracts. Perhaps slim things down or adjust how much of someone’s time, or your time, you spend on an actvity. They’re not abandoned. You’re just honing the ideas to be true to yourself whilst giving you the best chance of explaining to someone looking at at a screen, behind a desk or on a train, who’s never met you before, how your plans meet their organisation’s goals (on time and in budget!).
The chances are, ideas you let go of may actually be some of the next steps you take after DYCP. Maybe your big ambition is that new collection of paintings for gallery exhibition. Rather than scrap that idea, what if DYCP helped you to a) invest time in some training with a painter you admire who has something new to teach you, b. invest time networking with UK & international galleries across to find the right fit for you c. do R&D in the studio into the subject matter / techniques you might use when creating the final paintings d. network with other artists who’ve had solo exhibitions in similar galleries, mediums etc.?
Application Forms.
Are you still with me?!
Hang on in if those words put the fear in you!
I’ve got some practical tools and straight talking advice from years as a Producer that you are going to LOVE! All in my next blog!
I’m talking “How to….
write a budget
cost your time
write a timeline
answer questions within the word count
make the most of supporting evidence
Feeling like you need a little extra support?
Book a 1-1 with me that’s all about YOU!
Book a 1 hour, 1-1 conversation to unpack your big ideas & shape them into your DYCP plan
This is all about YOU. It’s not general advice.
It’s me listening hard to YOU, reflecting it back and asking ‘what if….?’ I’m tuning into you during our time together.
You’ll gain more clarity on YOUR ideas.
Contact me studio@francesarnold.co.uk
£50 per hour for a video call hosted by me, on Zoom at a time that suits us both
““Fran managed to see what I wanted to do with such clarity; I feel much better armed for my DYCP application!””
P.P.S Remember the ‘themes’ we chatted about grouping ideas & activity into earlier?
Here’s the current (May 2025) ACE list of EXAMPLES of activity they can fund within DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES. Why not think of each one as a ‘theme’ to help you articulate your ideas?
building new networks
experimenting with new collaborators or partners
international travel to explore your practice
professional development activities, such as training & working with a mentor
research and development time to explore your practice and take risks
If in doubt, contact Arts Council England directly.
I am not affiliated with Arts Council England in any way. All information I share here is done so in good faith, based solely on my personal experience of applying for, and receiving, a DYCP grant from ACE in 2023 and 15 years of experience as an Artist and Creative Producer in the arts sector.
Copyright: Frances Arnold, 2025