“The solution lies with giving a young person a trumpet. The solution lies in giving a young person a saxophone,” said Femi Koleoso of Ezra Collective in his Brit Awards speech about tackling society’s problems.
However, charity Youth Music is warning of an existential funding crisis facing many of the projects giving out those instruments – and working with young people and music in other ways – in the UK.
In fact, the charity’s latest research suggests that 41% of grassroots youth-music projects are at risk of closure – up from 24% when it conducted a similar study last year.
Youth Music also says that 54% of the projects it supports have a waiting list of young people who they can’t work with due to lack of funding. And while its support can help, the organisation is only able to support 18% of the projects who apply for its grants.
The data has been published as part of the launch of ‘Rescue The Roots‘, its latest and biggest fundraising campaign. The charity will match every donation up to £1m with the aim of raising £2m that can be distributed to the projects at most risk of closure.
“It’s an exciting moment, and a much-needed moment,” said CEO Matt Griffiths in an interview with The Price of Music podcast today. He talked about who Youth Music is hoping for donations from.
“That could be philanthropists, foundations, industry partners, public donations and of course artists as well. Artists often do really recognise the need for this because they’ve been through it themselves,” said Griffiths.
“That’s phase one for us, Rescue the Roots. And then over time… restore and grow the roots, where we can begin to grow this ecosystem more and meet this demand, so success rates for applicants to Youth Music go up, and organisations at risk of closure go down.”
In the interview Griffiths also spelled out the scale of the challenges facing grassroots youth-music projects in the UK.
“The grassroots youth-music projects are in a state of crisis, to be honest,” he said. “We surveyed them all in January, and 41% said yes, [they’re] at risk of closure, which is unprecedented for us… because of the cost-of-living crisis, because of employers’ costs, because of the economy, and also a lot of these organisations that we support are pretty small.”
“They’re two, three-person social enterprises, maybe £200k-£300k turnover, and what tends to happen is there’s been really rigorous and harsh funding cuts, particularly with youth services and particularly with local-authority cuts, and many of the organisations we support have seen their funding cut. As a small organisation, if a piece of the pie goes, they’re suddenly in a really vulnerable position.”
Griffiths also talked about the current mood he sees among the people working on the grassroots projects who are facing these challenges.
“The people working in this system – and a lot of the industry – are good humans, and really want to make a difference. So what is a constant is that resilience and that persistence and that focus on young people… and understanding what they need to then inform what you then do. That’s a real strength of this system: it’s not imposed on people, it’s with and for young people who across the nation and across the UK love music,” he said.
“That passion never dwindles [but] think there’s a sense of exhaustion, because it’s a part of the system that is suffering, with the high percentage at risk of closure… The love of music and the passion for supporting young people just doesn’t go, but there is this general sense of exhaustion at the moment.”
“And a big sense of hope that things will get better, but [with] global events too, mixed in with UK events, it feels like a really tough time… We need to raise the profile of this, to really be able to get into people’s understanding that it’s such a significant part of where it all starts.”
