TRANS MUTUAL JOY GRANT
WHAT IS IT
We are looking for a Birmingham based trans, non-binary, or gender-diverse creative to create a small one-off event for local trans folks with a focus on making a space to provide some support, rest, community, and hopefully some joy in the face of rising transphobia and hostility.
Fatt Projects will give you a small budget to cover your time co-ordinating, event costs, and access to our equipment, space and resources (see below for details), and the rest is up to you.
We want the idea for this event to come from the community - you come up with the idea, and we’ll support you to make it happen.
All we want is for you to create something enjoyable and/or empowering for local trans people. Your idea might be a creative workshop, a community dinner, a dance class, a games night, a film-screening, some live music, a pamper session, a group trip to an exhibition, a hike in the hills, whatever you think the community would benefit from right now.
WHAT’S THE OFFER:
A fee of £200 to cover your time organising your event (to cover one day’s work).
A budget of £300 to cover event costs - this could include paying yourself or others to facilitate an event, covering costs of materials, covering costs of catering, providing support with travel costs, paying for entrance fees/tickets to something etc.
Access to Fatt Projects office space in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter (if desired), including our flexible small event/meeting space (can host between 15-20 people) or zoom pro-account for an online event. Please note you don’t have to host your event in our space.
Use of our audio/visual/electronic equipment (if needed) including projector, basic PA set up, led lights etc.
Optional producing and marketing support to promote your event including access to our social media platforms, mailing list, and basic graphic design support.
SOME ADVICE:
Don’t be too ambitious with your proposal. We recognise this is a small amount of money so make sure what you’re proposing reflects the budget and resource available.
Your idea should be low-fi and not require large amounts of set-up, we’re able to offer use of basic audio-visual equipment.
This isn’t a space to offer therapy, professional wellbeing or mental health services. We are only looking to support a proposal which is about bringing the community together for a social experience.
This isn’t about scale or reaching loads of people, if only five people participate that’s fine (if more are able to then that’s also great).
KEY DATES:
Deadline to apply: 10am on Monday 23rd June.
Notification of decisions: Monday 30th June.
Proposed event to happen sometime between July-August 2025.
HOW TO APPLY:
Complete the short application form on the Fatt Projects website by 10am on Monday 23rd June. Alternatively you can send a video or voice-note no longer than five minutes in length to hello@fattprojects.org with the following information:
your name, pronouns, where in Birmingham you are based.
A bit about your work/what you do (this could also be provided as a link to a website, CV, or social media profile in the email).
An outline of what your event idea is.
What support you think you might need from Fatt Projects.
Your idea doesn’t need to be fully formed, we just want to get a sense of what you’d want to do. We have designed the application process to be intentionally short and easy to complete. We’re anticipating you can put everything together in less than an hour.
CRITERIA:
There are only 3 criteria to apply for this:
You should be trans, non-binary, and/or gender-diverse, live in Birmingham, and be over the age of 18.
The event you’re proposing should be aimed at trans, non-binary, and/or gender-diverse people living in Birmingham*
The event should be free for people to attend, we won’t support any proposals that include selling tickets.
*exactly who the event is for is up to you to decide as long as the participants are over the age of 18. For example, you might want to create something exclusively for trans-femmes, or for trans and non-binary folks from the global majority, alternatively you might want to open the event to any trans, non-binary, or gender-diverse people and their family, partners, friends, and allies. It’s up to you.
We recognise that people from outside Birmingham might attend and that’s absolutely fine, but we’re anticipating that the focus of the event is for people in our immediate community in Birmingham.
HOW WILL WE MAKE DECISIONS:
All proposals will be read/watched/listened to by a minimum of two people, we will make a decision as to which proposal we support based on how practical it is for us to support the idea within the resources available and what we feel is likely to have the most impact for the communities taking part.
We only have the resource to support one proposed event, however we are also issuing a call to other local arts organisations to match this offer with their own resources in the hope that as a sector we might be able to support a range of activities across the summer. If any additional resource becomes available we’ll update people via our mailing list, website & social media.
