ESP members and EP volunteers took part in an informal session with Lisa Meyer, Co-founder and Creative Director of Capsule on how to raise funds for an idea, a proposal or an existing project.

Thanks to her wide expertise on fundraising for high profile projects such as Supersonic Festival and Home of Metal, Lisa shared a series of possible paths that you can undertake while developing a project and making it sustainable. She gave suggestions not only on how to submit a funding application, but also on finding sponsors, establishing in kind partnerships and networks and implementing creative strategies such as crowd funding campaigns.

The audience were invited to bring questions, projects, specific cases or broad queries to stimulate a discussion on how to raise funds for cultural and artistic projects on a local, national and international scale.

Lisa is the creative director of Capsule, crafting extraordinary cultural projects for curious audiences, a cultural alchemist: an innovative arts producer initiating, commissioning and producing multi disciplinary work.

Supersonic Festival is our core project; now in its 13th year it attracts audiences, performers and industry interest from across the globe. Named by Stuart Maconie BBC 6 Music as ‘the UK’s premier experimental music festival” and featured as number two in The Times guide to the fifty best events of the summer (2015). Momondo also named Supersonic as one of the ten best European festivals.

Other achievements include producing and curating the opening season for the Library of Birmingham which attracted an audience of 1.2 million over a four month period and conceiving Home Of Metal, a ground breaking heritage project which was shortlisted for a National Lottery Heritage award.