1. Your project must be a new collaboration between two or more people.
2. Your project should create a positive social impact.
3. Each person on a team must be part of our Amps network at the time of applying and presenting your project.

That’s it!

Amps is an active community of people who want Dundee to thrive as a creative city, connect with others, feel supported and help build our collective future. The network connects through events and projects designed to help establish links, showcase work and develop collaborations.

New supporters are always welcome and your subscription contributes to the Community Ideas Fund – join Amps and help make Dundee even better! You can also support a Pay It Forward subscription, which will help someone experiencing cost as a barrier to getting involved.

By ‘positive social impact’ we mean that your project should reach beyond your project team to have a positive effect on others.

This could mean your project brings people together to share their knowledge or be heard. Perhaps it encourages people to try something new, learn a skill, make something together, explore their community, or look at things differently. Your project could give support or opportunities to others through an event, workshop or exhibition. Take a look at projects by previous fund recipients for inspiration.

The ‘community’ in Community Ideas Fund refers to the Amps community – this fund exists thanks to everyone’s Amps subscriptions, of which approximately 50% goes towards this fund.

The Amps community also decide which project will receive the funding through an anonymous vote at our evening Forum event on Thu 11 April.

While Creative Dundee are unable to support you with writing your application, we’re able to answer any questions you may have about applying, suggest and connect you to potential collaborators, and provide encouragement to apply!

We have two open group sessions that people can attend to share their idea with others for feedback or ask questions about the fund. These take place in Creative Dundee’s workspace on Wed 21 February, 6:00–6:45pm and Sat 24 February, 10:00–10:45am. Please get in touch to RSVP and for access info.

We also recommend running your idea past someone who isn’t involved in your project before applying. They can reflect back what they understand your project to be about and what it hopes to achieve. If they’ve misunderstood your project or something is unclear to them, you can revisit your idea with this in mind.

We’ve tried to keep our application form short and simple, but we know that some people may prefer to share their idea in a different way. Please get in touch if you’d like to chat about this.

We accept all eligible applications, so please make sure that at least one person from your team is available to pitch your project to the Amps community at our Amps Forum on the evening of Thu 11 April 2024, otherwise people will be unable to vote for your idea.

You are welcome to make your pitch in the form of either a five-minute presentation or a five-minute pre-recorded film. These pitches help Amps understand the purpose of your project.

We ask that the successful project takes place by the end of March 2025. Please keep this in mind for your project’s timeline.

The fund exists to spark and resource collaborations that have creativity and experimentation at their heart, and that will have a positive social impact in Dundee, so consider how your project fits this aspiration.

We encourage you to consider the time contribution of your project team when thinking about how you will spend the fund. You are welcome to allocate money to cover people’s time.

We ask everyone to send their presentation slides or pre-recorded film that they will use to pitch their project at the Forum by midnight on Mon 8 April. This helps us to ensure that both you and Creative Dundee are prepared for the event.

Please be sure to apply by the deadline at midnight (aka one minute after 23:59!) on Sun 31 March. We are unable to accept applications after this time.

We ask that the successful project take place by the end of March 2025.

We encourage you to document your project’s progress, through photography or other media.

We want people to know about how they can get involved in your project, so please consider how you can keep Creative Dundee up-to-date so that we can share your project with the Amps community and others. We’ll do our best to share events on social media and in emails, but we need your support to do this.

Typically we provide 70% of the fund upfront upon receipt of an invoice, a project timeline, an outline budget and return of a signed agreement. The remaining 30% of the fund is paid after the project’s completion upon receipt of an invoice, documentation of your project and a blog post about your experience. We are happy to discuss alternative payment options to best suit the recipient, with the understanding that 30% will be paid after the project’s completion.

Amps who are not applying for the Community Ideas Fund still have an important role to play – it’s the wider network who vote to select which project receives the fund!

All projects are pitched to the network at our evening Forum event on Thu 11 April, where Amps in attendance can vote on the project they would most like to see come to life. We encourage voting for the project you find most exciting or that strongly resonates with you, rather than the one with the most familiar faces. We also stream this part of the event on Zoom in order to include Amps who want to vote but are unable to attend in person.

For Amps who are part of the network via an organisation’s subscription, please note that organisations have a maximum of three votes for the Community Ideas Fund. Pitching teams and the Creative Dundee team do not vote.

If you don’t have a project to pitch but would like to lend your creative or practical skills to help a project, let us know! We’re more than happy to connect people.