Youth Music is a national charity investing in music-making projects for children and young people experiencing challenging circumstances. Our projects help young people to develop musically, of course, and they gain personal and social outcomes too. We support young people to build their confidence, resilience, and self-esteem. To meet different kinds of people, learn to trust each other, and make friends. To develop vital skills they need, get support to be able to face the world, and take control of their own lives.
Youth Music became a Living Wage Friendly Funder in April 2018 - we were proud to be the first in the arts and culture sector. Our work is all about breaking down barriers, so it was important to us to lead the way in ensuring people working in music education receive a fair wage.
We pay all our staff the London Living Wage, and have made it compulsory for the members of our Alliance for a Musically Inclusive England to pay the real Living Wage to their staff. We are planning to introduce this requirement for all our grantholders by the end of 2018.
We have introduced a staff Values Committee to ensure we are living our values of equality, excellence, creativity, knowledge and change. We've changed our recruitment process to make it more accessible to all candidates, including anonymising applications and using different advertising channels to reach under-represented groups.
We take an active role in the Living Wage Friendly Funder Steering Committee. As part of our role we have pledged to contribute to the design and delivery of the Charity Action Plan.
We've also introduced a paid internship programme. Five people have now taken part, bringing new skills and experiences to our organisation while being paid a real Living Wage.
Angela Linton, Youth Music's Chief Operating Officer, says:
"We're delighted to be shortlisted for the Friendly Funder Award as we're committed to paying people the real Living Wage to lift workers out of poverty - and helping our grantholders do the same."
We're really looking forward to the awards ceremony, particularly because a group of young musicians from School Ground Sounds (an organisation funded by Youth Music) will be providing the soundtrack for the evening, performing a live set!
Youth Music are shortlisted for the Friendly Funder Award in the 2018 Living Wage Champion Awards. The Awards celebrate individuals and organisations that have made an outstanding contribution to the Living Wage movement, find out more here.