Fundraising support – neurodivergent creatives
Get help to communicate your ideas and project plans, and apply for funding.
Applying for funding can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re neurodivergent. That’s where one-to-one Access Support can help.
How I help
Many funders offer a service where they’ll fund two to three days’ of my time to help you. Ask them if they offer an ‘Access Support’ service and if they do, you can request me as your support worker. But if they don’t, you can also contract me directly.
What it involves:
- An initial short online meeting. We’ll get to know each other, discuss the project and what the funder is looking for (the guidance).
- Setting up online documents. If you’re happy to work in this way, I’ll then set up an online folder containing:
- a text version of the online application form
- a blank document/s that will become the ‘additional information’ document that can often be submitted
- any guidance documents provided by the funder (often I’ll create a simplified version of these).
- An initial ‘deep dive’ meeting. We’ll discuss the project, where you’ll tell me your ideas and plans, I listen, ask questions and take notes, asking further questions to get to the heart of the work and its potential impact.
- Looking at the funder’s questions. In the previous or next meeting, we’ll begin to look at the online form questions, answering each one-by-one.
- Writing up. In the following days or week, I will then work alone to write this up.
- 1-3 more meetings. We’ll meet again a few times to review what we have so far, edit it, and discuss further.
- Transferring information to the funders online form. At our final meeting, we’ll usually share screens and you’ll transfer the information from Google Docs, onto the funder’s online application system, with my help. We can skip this stage if funders just ask for documents to be emailed.
- Success or next steps. Then we’ll be in touch again once we know the outcome of the application, to either celebrate or commiserate and discuss any next steps (eg taking on the feedback and reapplying).
