Next deadline
Sunday 3 November 2024 at 11 PM
Our Mentoring Scheme offers Bradford artists and creative companies 16 hours of tailored advice and guidance. We'll match you with a mentor who is a specialist in your specific area of development to help you identify your creative and strategic goals and support you to achieve your full potential.
At Bradford Producing Hub, we value the support of our peers within the creative and cultural industries. We’ve run our mentoring scheme for a few years now, and we continue to be amazed at the huge impact just a few hours with the right mentor can have on artistic practices and creative careers.
We can fund up to 16 hours of mentoring, divided and delivered in a way best suited to your needs. This could be in small chunks or half-day sessions – whatever suits you and your mentor.
What does the Mentoring scheme include?
Through our Mentoring scheme, artists and creatives of all art forms can apply to connect with a mentor who can offer support in the following areas:
- Artistic and creative development
- Career planning
- Business planning
- Brand or marketing development
- Specific specialisms such as audience development, digital, or evaluation
- Anything else that will help you develop your creative career or company
Our Mentoring scheme is designed to support and encourage you to proactively manage your development, maximise your potential and develop the skills to reach your creative goals.
Please note: Mentors are not assigned to do work for you, but to guide you through the next steps in your artistic and personal growth.
Who our Mentoring scheme is for
To be eligible for our Mentoring scheme you will meet the following criteria:
✔ You live or work in Bradford or you can identify a strong connection to the District
✔ You are 18 years old or over
✔ You’re an individual or a small organisation (with no more than 5 employees and are not NPO funded)
✔ You have clear and achievable goals for your practice or your organisation
✔ You have at least 2 years experience in your practice and not currently in full-time education
✔ You’re involved in making or supporting live or visual arts:
- Live arts include spoken word, dance, theatre, storytelling, music, movement and other art forms that have elements of live interactiveness with audiences
- Visual arts include sculpture, printing, painting, drawing, photography, pottery and other art forms that involve creative expression through visual means
When we say ‘artists’, we mean creative people of all kinds including those in roles required to make and support the delivery of brilliant art. This includes creatives, producers, curators, administrators, company managers, marketing, technical, production, makers etc.
There are a few things that our Mentoring scheme cannot support:
✘ Activity that is not linked to the development of skills related to your creative practice or company
✘ Activity which is more suited to specific existing training – see Spare Bob for applying for funding for training
✘ Assigning a mentor to do any work for you rather than supporting you to undertake it yourself
✘ We cannot support artists or companies where the main discipline is fashion, film (such as cinema, as opposed to an artist using film or video to make or share their work), commercial graphic design or videogame design
What you can expect from us
- 16 hours of mentoring with one assigned mentor
- This can be spread out in a pattern that works best for you and your mentor, such as:
- 8 x 2-hour weekly or fortnightly sessions
- 16 x 1-hour weekly sessions
- 4 x 4-hour sessions
- We can suggest additional potential mentors on your offer of a place on the programme
- Check-ins with BPH to help keep you on track
- Support with booking a space for any in-person sessions
- Support with any access requirements you might have – see our FAQ section for more information
What we expect from you
- Your mentor must be confirmed within 2 months of your offer of a place
- Your mentoring must be complete within 6 months of being matched with your mentor
- We expect you to suggest at least 2 potential mentors you’d like to work with in your application
- We expect you to be proactive in your meetings with your mentor and to meet with them at regular intervals to ensure your mentoring is complete within the 6 month period
- The completion of any tasks or work assigned to you by your mentor in between sessions
- Attendance at a mid-point check-in with a BPH staff member
- The completion of an evaluation at the end of your mentoring
How to apply
Before completing your application, you may wish to join us for our online info session. You can book a place to join us live (recommended) however, if you cannot attend the live Q&A, you can also book to receive a recording of the session.
Applications should be made using our online application form. If you need to complete your application another way such as by uploading a video or audio application, please see our FAQ section, where you can also see a copy of the application questions.
If you have any questions about our Mentoring scheme, you can email us at hello@bdproducinghub.co.uk
FAQs
If it’s more accessible for you to make your application by submitting a video or audio file, then you are welcome to do so. Please email your application to hello@bdproducinghub.co.uk by the deadline.
Here are some guidance notes for submitting your application via email:
- Please use the subject line ‘Mentoring application submission‘.
- Please attach, or link to, an audio/video application of no more than around 5 minutes in length. This should answer all the questions detailed in the ‘What are the application questions?’ FAQ below.
- In the email, please include the following information:
- Your full name
- Your email address
- Your telephone number
- Your full postcode
- Your connection to Bradford
- Whether you have any access requirements we need to consider when communicating with you, or when handling your application (you’re welcome to upload an access rider too)
- An acknowledgement that you meet all of the eligibility criteria detailed in the ‘Who our Mentoring scheme is for’ section above.
To help you prepare your submission, the main application questions include:
- Tell us a bit about your creative practice.
- What kind of mentoring would you like to receive?
Which areas of your work or organisation are you wanting to focus on? - What specific goals would you like to achieve through mentoring?
- How could mentoring help you in your long-term development or artistic ambitions?
- What qualities or experience are important for you in a mentor?
- Please suggest 2 people you would like us to approach to be your mentor
You can aim high here and suggest your dream mentors in your area of work!
Please include some contact information if possible, such as a link to a website, LinkedIn or social media account.
We can suggest additional potential mentors on your offer of a place on the programme if needed.
We are not able to pay for your time to take part in the mentoring, however, we can cover any support or access costs you may have. We will pay your mentor directly so that they are invested in your sessions and are generous with their knowledge and expertise.
Yes. Please tell us about any access needs or other personal costs you will incur to receive mentoring. Access costs could include support workers, childcare and other caring costs, translators and other language support including BSL, plus any other access support costs.
To request this, please complete our Bursary & Access Fund form once you have made your application. Please note that bursaries are not available for this programme.
If we receive more applications than places we have available, we will make decisions from eligible applicants based on the following criteria:
- Representation from a diverse group of artists and creatives representing a range of creative practices from within the Bradford district
- Those who we think will benefit most from mentoring at this point in their creative career
- Those who are ready to seize this opportunity and really make the most of their time with their assigned mentor
We will send you a confirmation email to arrange a meeting with you to discuss the next steps. If you have a mentor already identified, we will ask you to include them in the meeting as well.
If you want us to suggest a mentor for you, we will review our mentors and advisors database and send you some options that we think would be a good fit. It’s entirely up to you who you choose, and if you don’t feel we have someone suitable already we’ll agree with you on how we should go about identifying and approaching someone different.
Once you have been matched with your mentor, we’ll have a kick-off meeting where we will make sure everyone is clear about what you want to develop, how often you would like to meet with your mentor, how your sessions with your mentor might run, and any additional support you will need. It will all be friendly and informal!
Once your mentoring is underway, we might ask you to:
- Fill in a short form to tell us how the mentoring is going
- Be generous with your learning and share useful things with other artists in Bradford
- Have a chat with someone from our team to help us understand what difference mentoring has made to you
We might suggest another way to support you, e.g. combining similar applications and providing a training opportunity, or putting you in touch with someone who has offered the support in kind. We have a limited amount of funds available and receive more requests than we can support, so please think about what you will do if we can’t provide you with mentoring this time.
You are always welcome to reapply for our next round of mentoring.
