Trailblazer Fund

The Youth Music Trailblazer fund offers grants of £2,000 to £30,000 to organisations in England to run projects for children and young people (25 or under) to make, learn and earn in music. The project should trial work or test a new way of working, sustain a grassroots programme or disrupt the status quo (or all three!).

Your work must meet one of these themes: 

• Early years
• Disabled, d/Deaf and neurodivergent young people
• Youth justice system
• Young people facing barriers
• Young adults
• Organisations and the workforce.

A Trailblazer project could be:

• A new CIC testing out different ways of supporting nurseries to embed music-making into their day-to-day activities. 
• A small grassroots music organisation that wants to sustain a successful programme of music-making. 
• A Music Education Hub that wants to disrupt the status quo of their local music scene by setting up a Youth Board that has budget & power to make decisions about how the hub is run.
• An established youth centre trialling a programme of music activities for the first time

Check out our Trailblazer Fund project examples for more information. 

Trailblazer Fund Dates

Trailblazer Round 9
Round opens: 14 March 2025
Deadline: 11 April 2025
Notification: 8 August 2025
For projects starting between: September and November 2025

Trailblazer Round 10
Round Opens: 01 August 2025
Deadline:  5pm 29 August 2025
Notification:  12 December 2025
For projects starting between: January and March 2026

Trailblazer Round 11
Round Opens: 24 October 2025
Deadline:  5pm 21 November 2025
Notification:  20 March 2026
For projects starting between: April and June 2026
 

All deadlines are 5pm.