Get involved with the Curious Communities Project
About this opportunity
Closing date for applications: 10am 14th July 2025
Do you love your community, feel its story is often unheard, have free time from July 2025 to January 2026, and live / work in the *Bradford District? – if you can say yes to these questions, then you may be one of the four to eight individuals we are looking for to run a Curious Communities project.
*Bradford District includes Keighley, Ilkley, Bingley, Shipley, and rural areas across Airedale, Wharfdale, and the Worth Valley.
What is Curious Communities?
We want to make sure that Bradford’s story of change is not just about how many people are engaged, which demographics participate, or what businesses benefit – but also expresses people’s ideas, feelings and individual experiences. So, Curious Communities invites communities who are often not given a voice to tell their stories of Bradford’s year of Culture 2025 in ways that have meaning to them. The project begins on the 21st July and concludes 31st January 2026. There may be an additional requirement to share the journey and outcomes of this work at an event in March 2026.
How will the Curious Communities team select applications?
There are a number of factors we will think about when selecting applications. This includes:
Quality
- Does your application give confidence that the project will be high quality and ambitious
- Inclusivity, access and representation
- That your proposed project actively considers and celebrates the rich diversity of our District and the communities, backgrounds and lived experiences here. And that you have thought about accessibility for yourself, your team, participants and audiences with a range of needs as central to the work and not an ‘add on’
Environmental sustainability
- That you’re thinking about environmental and sustainability standards and are making decisions accordingly. (We understand that this will be realistic and relative to the scale of the project, and that environmentally conscious decisions can be more expensive and therefore this will be reflected in your budget)
Audience focused
- That there is clear thought and understanding around who the work is for, how these people will experience the project and where there may be opportunities to deepen or extend this engagement
Relevance
- An understanding of communities (of place and/or shared experience) in the district, and an ambition to create work that reflects their interests and what matters to them
Selection process
Your application will be considered by a panel of both independent creatives/community workers and members of Bradford 2025 team.
What we cannot support
We can’t support companies or organisations unless the lead individual is based within the Bradford district.
We can’t top-up existing projects that are already funded.
How do you apply?
Please email [email protected] including the following in written or video form:
A brief and relevant biography of yourself and your relationship with your community (not more than 150 words if written, or 3 minutes if videoed)
Describe a recent project/activity/event that you initiated and delivered with your community. (not more than 150 words if written, or 3 minutes if videoed) Please include images of this work if you are able to share.
Outline some ideas you have for how you might begin your Curious Communities Project. (not more than 150 words if written, or 3 minutes if videoed)
Closing date for applications: 10am 14th July 2025
Shortlisted applicants will be invited for interview on 15th or 16th July 2025
What will you do?
- You will already have strong relationships with your community and so be able to confidently bring people from your community together from the start of the project. Community can mean the people where you live or work, or who you share identity, ability or interests with.
- With your community, you will develop *imaginative, creative ways for people in your community to express themselves. Examples of imaginative and creative community expression: making/doing, arts and crafting, place, space and map-making, singing, dancing, and music-making, up-cycling, playing, event-creating, garden-growing, cooking, baking and food-sharing, story-telling in pictures, signs, gestures and words – written and spoken, in rhyme or in prose, on walls, pavements, landscapes or books or any other forms of imaginative expression!.
- You will learn and share skills, ideas and practices within the Curious Communities team, and with other Bradford based community practitioners.
- You will take part in three-days of workshops 21st – 23rd July 2025 where you will get to know the rest of the Curious Communities team, share and develop ideas, and learn new methods for storytelling.
- You will be ready to begin the project immediately after the Curious Communities workshops. You should have enough time to run the project between now and the end of Jan 26. This time can be organised in a flexible way to fit your project and commitments, and we may need you to be flexible to fit around the community and programme activity and delivery that feeds into this work.
- With guidance, you will manage your budget, which includes paying yourself for your time and providing resources for the project.
- You will keep some sort of diary that records your experiences throughout the project so that you can share your learning, understanding and advice.
Find out more
If you have any questions about Curious Communities, please email [email protected] putting Curious Communities Questions in the subject heading.
To learn more about Our Patch, Bradford 2025’s Community Programme which this project sits within, see Our Patch on our website.