The West Midlands Combined Authority Activate Skills Development Grant Programme has been launched to support freelancers, micro and small organisations in the West Midlands Creative and Cultural sectors to fund skills development projects and support the development of skills across the region.

Our Inclusive Network programme unites trailblazers, leaders, and creative activists to support, empower, and provide opportunities for traditionally excluded groups within the creative workforce. Through a mix of structured, semi-structured and informal activities, we aim to create a safe and nurturing environment for a diverse community of creatives in the West Midlands. 

In 2024-25, WMCRU meetings will explore key strategic challenges and opportunities that affect the sector and the region. It is aimed at those leading strategic activity in their organisations or networks.

Grow, is our mentoring scheme that works across art forms, skills and experience levels. In a sector that often relies on ‘who’ you know, rather than ‘what’ you know, Grow connects those working in the cultural sector across the West Midlands with expert knowledge and skills to support the development of the whole ecology of culture for the benefit of the people and places of the region.

The Chairs forum is a confidential regular meeting for those in voluntary governance positions in cultural organisations in the West Midlands with the goal of working collectively on challenges and opportunities facing boards.

Culture Central x people make it work x Collective is a leadership programme for those traditionally excluded from senior roles in the cultural sector.

Collective is the starting point of a three-year programme, that builds on our approach and ambitions for culture in the West Midlands and we have recruited 20 people to learn with and to help shape this first year.

Culture Central, in partnership with Birmingham Museums Trust, Creative Black Country, Stoke Creates and Open Theatre are working together to deliver a regional and place-based, volunteering and development programme.

Culture Central has been identified as the Birmingham 2022 Festival legacy partner and is taking forward recommendations in partnership with funders and stakeholders in the region.

Visit this page for more strands of Legacy work.

The West Midlands Place Profiler Dashboard brings together audience, demographic and social data from across the West Midlands, to help you and your organisation better understand the people and places of the region.

The More Than A Moment pledge is the West Midlands Arts sector’s promise to take radical, bold and immediate action, to dismantle the systems that have for too long kept Black artists and creatives from achieving their potential in the arts and cultural industries.

For four years, Transforming Narratives supported cultural and creative exchange between artists, creative practitioners and organisations in Birmingham, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Convene, Challenge, Connect was an accessible and imaginative sector development programme, delivered for the Birmingham 2022 Festival.

Covid-19 decimated the cultural sector around the world. We thought that the West Midlands should respond to this unprecedented threat in a typically generous, loud and collaborative manner.

Craft and Qawali used creative activities to bring together communities to share their heritages, with a specific focus on older women from the South Asian diaspora. The project involved community organisations, local schools and artists to present two strands of work around their cultural heritage.

In 2023-24, WMCRU meeting explored key strategic challenges and opportunities that affect the sector and the region. The sessions were aimed at those leading strategic activity in their organisations or networks.