Next deadline
Thursday 15 May 2025 at 11 PM
Our Mentoring Scheme offers Bradford artists and creative companies up to 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 your growth.
What the Mentoring scheme includes
At Bradford Producing Hub, we value the support of our peers within the creative and cultural industries. Over the years, we’ve seen first-hand the huge impact the right mentor can have on artistic practices and creative careers.
We can fund up to 16 hours of mentoring, structured in a way that best suits your needs. This could be in small chunks or half-day sessions – whatever works best for you and your mentor.
Through our Mentoring Scheme, artists and creatives working in live and visual arts can apply to connect with a mentor who can offer support in:
- Artistic practice and creative development
- Career planning
- Business planning
- Brand or marketing development
- Specialist areas such as audience development, digital strategy, or evaluation
- Other tailored support that aligns with your creative ambitions
Our Mentoring Scheme is designed to empower you to take charge of your development, build confidence, and equip you with the tools to succeed.
Please note: Mentors are not assigned to do work for you but to guide you through your next steps in artistic and professional growth.
Who can apply for Mentoring
To be eligible for our Mentoring Scheme, you must:
✔ Live, work, or have a strong connection to the Bradford District
✔ Be 18 years or older
✔ Be an individual creative or a small organisation (with five or fewer employees and not NPO-funded)
✔ Have clear, realistic goals for your creative practice or organisation
✔ Have at least two years of experience in your field and not be in full-time education
✔ Be involved in making or supporting live or visual arts:
- Live arts include: spoken word, dance, theatre, storytelling, music, movement, and other performance-based art forms.
- Visual arts include: sculpture, printmaking, painting, drawing, photography, pottery, and other forms of visual expression.
When we say ‘artists,’ we mean all creative professionals, including producers, curators, administrators, company managers, marketing professionals, technicians, and makers.
What we can’t support
✘ Development that isn’t related to your creative practice or organisation
✘ Training-related activities (consider applying for Spare Bob funding for training instead)
✘ Mentors completing work for you rather than supporting your learning
✘ Artists or companies whose main discipline is:
- Fashion
- Film (such as cinema and commercial film production, visual artists using film/video in their work are eligible)
- Commercial design including graphic design, animation and motion graphics, and video game design
What you can expect from us
- Up to 16 hours of mentoring with a dedicated mentor, structured as:
- 8 x 2-hour weekly or fortnightly sessions
- 16 x 1-hour weekly sessions
- 4 x 4-hour sessions
- Alternative suggestions for mentors if needed
- Regular check-ins with BPH to support your progress
- Support with booking a space for in-person sessions
- Support with any access requirements you might have – see our FAQ section for more information
What we expect from you
We expect that you:
- Work with us to confirm your mentor within two months of being accepted onto the scheme
- Complete your mentoring within six months of being matched
- Suggest at least two potential mentors in your application
- Meet your mentor regularly to stay on track
- Complete any tasks or work assigned to you between sessions
- Attend a mid-point check-in with a BPH staff member
- Complete a short evaluation at the end of your mentoring
How to apply
Before applying, we encourage you to attend our online info session. You can book a place to join us live (recommended), or if you can’t attend you can register 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 below, where you can also see a copy of the application questions.
The closing date for this round of Mentoring is Thursday 15 May 2025 at 11 PM.
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 can apply for Mentoring’ 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 limited funds available and usually receive more applications 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.
