A total of up to £10,000 is available for AAS Members to develop activity that supports the maker community in Scotland. 

• Applicants must have been an active Member of AAS as at 1 August 2025, and remain a member throughout the period of the award.
• Applications can be in the range of £1,000 – £5,000 (excluding access costs, funded separately) 
• The activity must address a need or challenge identified by multiple makers in Scotland related to sustaining a making practice, and be related to acts of commoning, mutual benefit and reciprocity. 
• Any type of activity is eligible, as long as it is appropriate to address the need identified. 
• All activity should take place between January – June 2026. 
• Activities can run as a single event or across up to six months. 
• Makers delivering activity should be paid at Scottish Artist Union rates for 2025-26. 
• Activity can be physical and / or digital. Online activity can be supported by access to AAS’s Zoom Workplace Pro account and / or presence on the AAS website, as appropriate to the activity. 
• AAS will promote the activity to AAS Members.
• You must not be in receipt of funding for the same activity from another source.
• You must hold a UK bank account to receive funds.

Participatory budgeting will be used to make the awards. This is a democratic process where AAS Member votes are used to inform how the total available budget is allocated to applications. 

Timeline

• Deadline for applications: 23:59 Wednesday 15 October 2025
• Eligibility assessment of applications by AAS Board and freelance staff: by Wednesday 22 October 2025
• Feedback to applicants of ineligible applications: by Friday 24 October 2025
• Member voting on eligible applications opens: Friday 31 October 2025
• Member vote closes: 23:59 Sunday 23 November 2025
• Applicants notified of the outcome of their eligible applications: by 17:00 Friday 28 November 2025
• Contracts issued and signed: by mid-December 2025
• Funded activity period: January – June 2026
• All funded activity completed: no later than end June 2026
• Evaluation meeting with AAS: after activity completed and before end July 2026

Participatory budgeting and AAS Member voting

If the total amount requested across all eligible applications exceeds £10,000, we will ask AAS members to vote on the applications they most want to see funded. In this case, relevant information from eligible applications will be shared with AAS Members in the member-only section of the AAS website.

• All current AAS Members (Professional, Associate and International) will be eligible to vote for the applications they wish to see funded.
• All Members who vote will identify a minimum of three applications they would like to see funded
• The number of votes will be totalled for each application.
• Funds will be awarded based on the vote totals starting with the application that received the highest number of votes, until the available £10,000 is allocated.

If the total amount requested across all eligible applications is £10,000 or below, then all activities will be funded and no Member vote will be required.

If you are not a Member of AAS but would like to join so that you can take part in future versions of the Fund, discover more about Membership benefits and how to join.