Tell us your ideas

Our open call for proposals to be part of our festival year in 2025 is now live.

Do you have a brilliant idea for an event or activity that you’d like to run as part of Children’s Capital of Culture in 2025? Then you’ve come to the right place!

The Children’s Capital of Culture team are working closely with local children and young people and partner organisations across Rotherham to put together a brilliant festival year programme for everyone to enjoy.

This means that if you have an idea for an activity – whether it’s a festival, an exhibition, an installation, a community event, a sports competition, a performance, or something else entirely! – that you’d like to be part of Children’s Capital of Culture festival year, it can be!

All you need to do is to follow this process:

1. Step 1: Complete an expression of interest form
2. Step 2: Full application
3. Step 3: Youth programming panel
4. Step 4: Cultural partnership board

Read on for more information about each of these steps!

Step 1: Complete an expression of interest form

First of all, you need to complete a short online expression of interest form, where you can tell us all about your idea.

Complete an expression of interest

We’ve put together some detailed guidance notes that explain more about the programme proposals process, and help you better answer the questions in both the Expression of Interest form and the full Application Form.

View our guidance notes

The guidance notes also explain more about how to submit your Expression of Interest in alternative formats, including as a video or audio file, and about the support we can give you to help complete these forms.

After you have submitted your form, it will be assessed by the Programme Manager for Children's Capital of Culture and by Rotherham Council’s Head of Creative Programming and Engagement. All Expression of Interest forms are reviewed within ten working days of being submitted.

After this time, all applicants will receive feedback by email letting them know if their idea is:

• Not appropriate to the programme
• Potentially appropriate, but additional information is required
• Can be progressed to a full application form, in which case we’ll send you a copy of this form (you can also see all the questions on this form by viewing the ‘guidance notes’!)

Step 2: Full application

The full application is a more detailed form, where you can share more details about how your project will be run and managed, any potential risks and how you plan to manage them, and other key questions.

Your application will be assessed by the Head of Creative Programme & Engagement and Children's Capital of Culture Programme Manager within 10 working days of receipt.

If it is decided additional information is still required at this stage, the Head of Creative Programming and Engagement and/or Programme Manager will review this with you.

If additional information is not required, your application will be sent to the Youth Programming Panel for review.

Step 3: Youth Programming Panel

Our Youth Programming Panel are a diverse group of brilliant young people from Rotherham, aged 13-to-25, who help shape the Children’s Capital of Culture programme.

After applying to be part of the Panel, and taking part in in-depth training sessions, they’re now each paid the Real Living Wage for every panel they sit on. These young people make informed recommendations to the Cultural Partnership Board, who then have the ‘final say’ in the programme proposals process.

After meeting to review your application, the Youth Programming Panel will either:

• Recommend that your proposal is approved
• Recommend that your proposal isn’t suitable
• Ask to meet with you (either in-person or online) if they’re unsure about whether to recommend your proposal, and would like to speak to you about it in more detail

Step 4: Cultural Partnership Board

The Cultural Partnership Board is a diverse group of freelancers, businesses, charities, and public bodies who play key roles in the Rotherham cultural sector.

The Cultural Partnership Board have a programming sub-group, who meet regularly to consider all the application forms we’ve received, as well as the accompanying recommendations from our Youth Programming Panel.

If your proposal is approved by the Cultural Partnership Board, then it will officially form part of the Children’s Capital of Culture festival programme!

If your proposal becomes an official part of the Children’s Capital of Culture festival programme, you’ll benefit from:

• Full use of the Festival year 2025 brand
• A feature paragraph in our quarterly highlights guides
• Additional communications and marketing support, including being showcased on our website, mailing list and social media channels, and, where appropriate, promoted across our press and PR contacts
• Additional support from the Children’s Capital of Culture team as appropriate – whether that’s support with recruiting volunteers, connecting to schools or community groups, or additional on-the-day staffing to support event delivery. Let us know what you need, and we’ll try and help out!

The programme proposals process isn’t an application to a funding pot. Instead, it’s our way of making sure that youth and community voices have a key role in forming our festival year programme – so that Children’s Capital of Culture has a brilliant, thoughtful programme of activities that is truly democratic.

Children’s Capital of Culture do have some seed funding available, but this is applied to by completing a different (and simple!) application form. Our first round of seed funding will be open for applications in early 2025. For more information about this, you can sign up to our mailing list.

Sign up to our mailing list

Programme schedule

Our programme proposals process is open on a ‘rolling basis’, meaning you can apply anytime – but there are some key deadlines to meet if you’d like to feature in our printed highlights guides!