How does the money work?

Through Joining the Dots you can apply for up to £10,000 towards your potentially game-changing project. We’ve asked for a detailed budget for projects that reflect reasonable costs and market rates.

We have funding to support six projects. You’ll be paid in installments, based on a project plan and payment ‘milestones’ that we agree with you at the outset, and form part of your offer letter. Your final payment will be tied to you finishing the project and sharing your learning with us. All payments will be made by BACS.

How does it work with VAT?

Joining the Dots funding is a grant, so there’s no VAT involved and you don’t have to invoice us.

What if my idea will cost more than £10,000 to deliver?

That’s fine, as long as you can prove that you have in place the other money you’ll need, and have shown us a total budget for the project. You’ll also still need to deliver the project by June 2015.

Do I need to put any of my own money in?

Not necessarily, although we’d assume that you’ll put resources in ‘in kind’, for instance, everyday costs like phone bills and office costs. And if your project will cost over £10,000 or goes over budget, then you’ll need to make up the shortfall.

Can I include overhead costs in my budget?

You can include the costs of staff, but we’d expect you to cover overheads yourself.

What can the funding be used for?

As we said, we’re not being prescriptive about your idea. You can spend your funding on any activity as long as your project clearly fits one of our three themes.

What doesn’t the fund cover?

Again, Arts Council England rules apply here, so here’s a link to their guidelines. You’ll need page 15.

Will I need to pay the grant back?

No. It’s a grant not a loan. We want to unlock creative thinking not tie you up in lots of debt! However, you’ll be paid in instalments and each payment will be dependent on you doing what was agreed in your project plan.

Am I allowed to make a profit?

In the long run, we’d love that, especially if your idea is for a product or service you want to roll out! If you go on to make money from the idea we help you test, we’d like nothing more than to know that we helped make that happen.

However, you can’t make a profit on the activity our funding covers. Our funding is based on you simply balancing the books. So if you end up making more money on the test project we’re funding, or if your costs come in lower, we’ll go over the budget together and revise your final payment to take that into account. We hope you can see the fairness in this. It means we can invest the money you don’t need right now into another part of the project.

Read More: General Eligibility

Still got questions? Drop us an email: [email protected]