Annual Report 2024
"In our 25th anniversary year, 80,653 young people facing barriers in their lives participated in lifechanging experiences in music across the country. We know how important these musical moments are for young people facing barriers in their lives. In fact, our latest flagship report, Sound Of the Next Generation (2024) found that music is young people’s favourite hobby. They see it as a vital part of their lives and want more of it. And yet, our report also found that young people are getting less access to music education. This comes at a time when a quarter of our funded partners, providing crucial out of school music and creativity, are at high risk of closure.
In 2023/24, the number of funding applications we received reached an all-time high, meaning success rates fell to an historic low. Demand is significantly greater than the sum available. Our sector is in crisis.
In response, we’ve provided stability funding to organisations in need, strengthened our Exchanging Notes learning and development programme to provide bespoke guidance to our funded partners on topics they need most right now. We’ve bolstered our board with two new Co-Chairs, Charlotte Edgeworth and Isaac Borquaye, following the departure of YolanDa Brown after six years of sterling service. They will help to oversee strategy, raise our profile, and secure crucial partnerships and income from a wide range of donors in keeping with our new fundraising strategy to enable us to significantly increase investment.
This year, £9,944,177 in new grants was invested across 281 organisations, 86% of which were outside London. We launched the Youth Music Energiser Fund. £1.5 million will be invested in a 3-year programme to explore, celebrate and energise creative practice with 2- to 4-year-olds. Importantly, it will centre the voices, rights and lived experience for children at an age where they are often undervalued and underestimated.
Throughout all of this, we’ve grown the involvement of young people – from informing funding decisions, to creating our content. We’ve platformed young people in to the industry, with our increasingly high profile annual Youth Music Awards event, four in person networking events for emerging creatives in different cities around the UK, and distributing 150 grants in to the pockets of 18-25 year olds. 2023/24 was the first year of our new business plan for the period April 2023 to March 2026. The plan is underpinned by three, strategic objectives:
1. Equalise access and outcomes for children and young people.
2. Empower projects and professionals to survive and thrive.
3. Inspire change amongst the creative ecosystem.
As we have for the past 25 years, we remain focused on equalising young people’s access to music, whatever their background or goal. Guided by their voices and views. And continuing to raise awareness of the transformative power of music.
This is all made possible by a fantastic grassroots community of music leaders, youth workers, educators, producers, administrators, trustees, donors, and partners across the UK. A powerful movement dedicated to building communities and addressing the many barriers young people face in their lives."
- Matt Griffiths, CEO of Youth Music
Download our 2024 Annual Report below to learn more about our latest impact.
Every Youth Music project measures its impact, helping us build a unique national overview. We're an outcomes-based funder, which means that we ask organisations to tell us what changes they expect their project to bring about.
OUTCOME 1: Equalise Access and Outcomes for Children and Young People
This year, we have renewed our youth voice strategy and launched the Energiser Fund to explore co-creation with 0-5s. We’ve also established a ‘youth voice partners’ programme, to learn from the projects that are leading the way in putting young people’s voices front and centre. Over 12 months, we’ll be working with young people from Jubacana in Oldham, Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham and Allstar in Bradford to support our funding decisions and embed more youth voice across different areas of our operations.
As part of this, the greater involvement of young people themselves in the assessment
process has been particularly valuable, benefitting from their insights and lived experiences to inform our decisions.
OUTCOME 2: Empower Projects and Professionals to Survive and Thrive
Inspire Progressive Practices
Exchanging Notes is our learning programme designed to spark sustainable, nationwide changes in sector practices. It’s led by experts inside and outside of our community.
- 338 people attended one of 22 workshops over the past year.
Flexible Funding
Each year, we ask all those who have applied to us to rate us against our ten funding principles in our annual feedback survey. We’re pleased that the vast majority of people are happy with the way we fund. However, this year has seen small increases in those who rate us below average. It’s a real challenge to maintain our customer service levels with an ever-increasing volume of applications. Flexibility, transparency and not wasting time are the areas of lowest satisfaction. This coming year, we will continue to reflect on the way we administer and communicate about our funding in response to this
OUTCOME 3: Inspire Change Amongst Creative Ecosystem
Join Forces to Increase Impact
Partners:
"Ticketmaster is committed to backing the next generation of talent, making our partnership with Youth Music a perfect fit. Having worked together the last two years and seen the platform that their events, Youth Music Awards and the Next Gen, give to rising artists, we can't wait to see what's next."
– Andrew Parson, Managing Director, Ticketmaster UK.
"Youth Music has been a really flexible partner with our small social enterprise YGN (Young Guns Network), working with us over the last 7 years to curate one-off events, as a funder of projects to create employment for young people in music and a collaborator on an events series. They've connected us with speakers and opportunities which have helped us sustain the project, we love Youth Music!"
- Remi Harris MBE and Sam Potts, Co-Founders, YGN/ Young Guns Network.
Real Living Wage
“We were delighted to offer the inaugural Creative and Cultural Living Wage Champion award to Youth Music, in recognition of their work tackling low pay in the music industries and beyond. Youth Music has consistently celebrated the Living Wage: among the NextGen network; influencing others in the cultural sector; and as a Living Wage Funder, supporting and enabling hundreds of grantees to pay the real Living Wage.”
– Lianna Etkind, Partnerships & Campaigns Manager, Living Wage Foundation.
Ambassadors
GRAMMY Award winning artist Eve, chart-topping singer-songwriter MNEK and BBC Radio 1 presenter Jess Iszatt have been announced as our new Ambassadors.
The trio joined longtime Youth Music ambassadors, DJ duo BICEP, to help celebrate our 25th anniversary. The ambassadors will use their voices and influence to raise awareness of the importance of grassroots music for young people who are facing barriers to access. Particularly at a time when funding for crucial grassroots music projects is in crisis.
Secure Income
Partnerships
We appreciate the generous support of new and returning partners from across the music industries. Highlights include:
- PPL UK came on board as partners in the Youth Music NextGen Fund.
- Ticketmaster continued to support the Youth Music community.
- For the Youth Music Awards, in association with our long-term partner, Hal Leonard Europe, we secured 17 corporate partners. We also received inkind support from partners including LCCM, ATC Live and Shure.
- We joined the pilot of McDonald’s new ‘Makin It’ initiative, which aims to provide young people with local opportunities and training in football, youth work and music.
- PayPal Giving Fund in May selected Youth Music, raising more than £30,000 from members of the public.
- DJ Mag’s Best of British Awards, the Heavy Music Awards and Spotify’s Misfits Prom all supported Youth Music.
- Fred Again ran a guestlist donation at his sold-out London shows and Hot Chip supported us through a DJ set.
Youth Music has been huge for my career...Being a part of the awards for the past two years and being paid to present and host made me realise I could really do this as a career and it’s also given me the materials I need to apply for other things.