Youth Music — Trailblazer Fund (for organisations in England)

Youth Music's Trailblazer Fund, backed by Arts Council England, gives organisations in England between £2,000 and £30,000 to run music projects for children and young people aged 25 and under. The framing is "make, learn and earn": the project should trial or test a new way of working, sustain a grassroots programme, or disrupt how things are usually done locally — or all three. It also has to sit within one of six themes: early years, disabled, d/Deaf and neurodivergent young people, the youth justice system, young people facing barriers, young adults, or organisations and the workforce.

The examples Youth Music gives are useful for gauging scale: a new CIC helping nurseries build music into the day, a youth centre trying music activities for the first time, a Music Education Hub handing budget and decision-making power to a youth board.

Round 13 closes at 5pm on 28 August 2026, with decisions on 11 December and projects starting between January and March 2027. Round 14 opens on 23 October with a 20 November deadline. Applications go through Youth Music's grant system, which has recently changed, so you will need to create a new account. The full applicant guidance and the application questions are both downloadable in advance — worth reading before you start writing.

Access Support and an Application Access Fund exist for disabled applicants. Youth Music also asks people to be careful with AI-drafted answers, noting that such answers tend to say too little about actual practice and that this counts against you at assessment.