Creative Experts (Contact Theatre)
Contact
City / Suburb: Manchester
Website URL: https://contactmcr.com/hire-us-3/creative-consultancy/
Postal Code: M15 6JA
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Description of SE/Org:

Delivering innovative creative solutions to business and the community, the Creative Experts programme is all about supporting young people to become fully professional and successful in the creative industries.

We deliver corporate and community creative services such as training, conference enhancement, community engagement projects, mentoring and consultation on behalf of Contact, one of the UK's leading arts organisations recognised internationally for it's pioneering work in young person-led decision making and leadership.

Creative Experts bridges the gap between the corporate and creative sectors in the North-West, and is made up of young, emerging creative practitioners and future arts leaders. We believe that young people should be paid whilst learning, training and developing on the job.

Products or services sold:

Creative solutions, conference enhancement, staff training, role-play and mentoring as well as bespoke community engagement projects.
Social mission:
Arts, heritage, sport and faith, Citizenship and community, Employment, training and education, Income and financial inclusion, Supporting social enterprise / voluntary action

Mission Statement:
Creative Experts was originally seed funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation as a programme of paid talent development for young people identified by Contact as ‘future arts leaders.’

Most of the Creative Experts have been beneficiaries of Contact’s ground-breaking arts leadership and participatory projects such as Contact Young Company and Future Fires – we are all succeeding thanks to Contact.

And so now our priority is to ensure Contact succeeds for generations to come.

And Creative Experts has been so successful, it is now turning a profit for Contact – helping it continue to deliver life-changing opportunities for young people in Greater Manchester.

The creative industries are booming here – and we want to play a part in ensuring the right talent is developed.

We know first-hand that the arts are notoriously hard to break into.

Especially when you’re asked to work for free or exposure.

And we think there’s another way.

Every Creative Expert in our team is paid to deliver work. It’s a fundamental core value of the business and not one that every training programme is able to provide.

Creative Experts can apply for work tendered as either a Lead Artist or an Assistant Artist – you can apply for either role no matter how long you’ve been on the programme. It’s all about on-going paid learning, training and development.
We are developing a unique self-sustaining model that uses freelancers as a means to keep project costs low. We are truly young people-led - we don't have lots of business experience but we're currently using our creative skills to tear up the rule book and seek to find new ways to deliver a successful social enterprise model.

We have a wealth of experience in funded arts projects, project management and delivery of large scale community projects, marketing and selling your 'good news' story in order to boost profile and revenue, delivering fun and innovative solutions and training programmes and connecting young people with business.