Regional Creatives Fund
The Brief
Create and manage a regional funding programme designed to strengthen the creative industries by supporting grassroots organisations by unlocking employment opportunities across the UK.
Our Role
At Neighbourgood, our love for the creative industries runs deep. We’ve seen first-hand how creative organisations drive culture, confidence, skills, and connection (particularly at a local level) yet are often underfunded and under-recognised. That belief sat at the heart of our work on the Regional Creatives Fund.
The Fund was launched by Amazon in 2025 to address a clear gap in support for regional creative organisations. Prior to this, the programme did not exist. Neighbourgood supported the development of the Fund, working closely with the Amazon Impact team to help shape a model that was values-led, accessible, and rooted in real community need. From structure and criteria through to assessment and reporting, we are an extension of the Amazon team, helping bring the Fund to life.
The Regional Creatives Fund provides grants ranging from £1,000 to £30,000 to organisations delivering creative upskilling, inclusion, and opportunity in their communities. Through the 2025 programme, more than 40 charities and creative organisations were enabled to access funding, representing a significant investment in regional creativity and grassroots impact at scale.
Neighbourgood’s role spanned the full lifecycle of the Fund. We helped design and managed a robust vetting and scoring framework aligned to the programme’s values, assessing applications across impact, inclusion, viability, and alignment. This ensured funding decisions were transparent, fair, and rooted in both qualitative insight and quantitative rigour. We also supported the delivery of the Fund’s judging day in London, working closely with the Amazon team to design and facilitate a structured, values-led assessment process. We coordinated scoring frameworks, briefing materials, and moderation, ensuring judges were supported to make confident, consistent decisions.
Crucially, alongside our colleagues at Clearbox we helped translate this data into meaningful narrative – spotlighting funded organisations, sharing learning from across regions, and demonstrating the real-world impact of investing in creative communities. Our approach balanced accountability with advocacy, ensuring the programme’s impact was understood not just in numbers, but in people, places, and potential.
Our Impact
The Regional Creatives Fund is a powerful example of what can happen when funders invest in creativity with intention, trust, and strong delivery partners. We are incredibly proud to have supported the Amazon team in launching and delivering a programme that didn’t exist before 2025, and has already enabled dozens of organisations to grow, reach more people, and strengthen the creative industries from the ground up.
While the vision and leadership sit firmly with Amazon, Neighbourgood was proud to play our part within the team – helping to ensure the Fund delivered meaningful, lasting impact for creative communities across the UK.