Grants for music creators

This funds the people who write music rather than perform it: composers, lyricists and arrangers, along with working groups, publishers or others representing them. You choose between a working grant, which is money to live on while you write, and a grant for expenses, which covers the costs around the work. Eligible costs include equipment and software, residency travel and rent, fees paid to musicians for performances you organise yourself, marketing and communication that advances your career, and training. Regular gigs and tours are not funded, and neither are mixing and mastering unless the recording exists to support an international breakthrough. Work produced entirely by generative AI is excluded.

You need to be a Finnish citizen, a permanent resident of Finland, or a company or organisation registered there. Only one personal application per round is allowed.

Working grants come in three fixed sizes, EUR 8,000, 16,000 or 32,000, corresponding to roughly a few months, six months or a year of full-time writing, and up to half can be spent on the costs of that work. Grants for expenses can be any amount between EUR 8,000 and 32,000. Grants are awarded only in the amount requested, so the figure you name matters. Working grants running four months or longer require Mela insurance, and around 15 percent of the grant has to be set aside for the premiums.

Rounds open 1 to 21 March and 1 to 21 September through the foundation online service; applications sent any other way are discarded, and English-language guidance and info sessions are provided. An expert committee reads applications separately, then meets to agree a recommendation for the board, which decides in May and November. Assessors look for a professional track record, including income earned from music, artistic ability and audience relative to your genre, and a clear account of what the grant would change and why now. No reasons are given for decisions.