SMART exists to ensure that young people in Suffolk have access to arts opportunities that enrich their lives. We provide funding to help Suffolk’s young people to access high-quality music and arts educational opportunities. We do this by bringing together Suffolk arts alumni and using their skills, passion and experience to help us raise these funds.
Why? Because arts education leaves a wider impact than merely learning a particular arts skill. Alumni of Suffolk music and arts organisations have developed creativity, critical thinking, motivation, collaboration, self-confidence and communication skills during their arts education. They are now making an impact and innovating in many industries in Suffolk, the UK and around the world. We want to enable further generations of Suffolk young people to enjoy the same benefits, and to go on to have similar impacts.
We are a small charity, set up as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation and run entirely by volunteers. Our roots are in music, growing out of our close links with the Suffolk County Music Service. Since founding the charity in 2018, we have focussed on building our funds, through a combination of member gatherings (including an orchestra at Latitude Festival in 2019) and member-led fundraising events.
We are now in a position to offer two sources of funding to support talented and committed Suffolk young people in need of financial support: (i) one-off grants for all arts opportunities, and (ii) SMART scholarships, which can help enable access to Suffolk County Music Service tuition and ensembles. Ultimately we are looking to grow our membership and funds to enable us to support Suffolk young people across a wide range of arts.
