Spotify Partners With Youth Music to Launch Fund Supporting Grassroots Youth Spaces

New initiative aims to preserve and protect at-risk spaces for children and young people experiencing challenging circumstances.

Spotify will be partnering with Youth Music to create a dedicated fund to support 15 grassroots youth spaces across the UK currently facing imminent closure or struggling to survive. This initiative will provide essential resources to sustain spaces where young people gather, create, and engage in music and other forms of artistic expression, especially in underserved communities. 

The Spotify and Youth Music Fund aims to address an urgent need to protect spaces that offer young creatives a platform to explore their talents, collaborate with peers, and pursue their artistic ambitions. Over the past decade, financial constraints and shifting community resources have put many grassroots music spaces under increasing pressure, with numerous locations at risk of permanent closure. This fund is designed to help prevent that outcome and secure the future of these vital community assets.

The funding will support a wide range of initiatives across those community hubs, such as a band project for disabled young people; a youth-led studio in a remote coastal town; and a music project to promote inclusion for minoritised women and people of marginalised genders. 

Our recent Sound Of the Next Generation Report (2024) surveyed 2,100 children and young people to understand their relationship to music, finding that music is young people’s favourite thing to do and a vital part of their lives. This was in stark contrast, however, with the our findings that young people are getting less access to music education. Many grassroots youth spaces that provide out of school music and creativity are at high risk of closure.

The report revealed that two thirds of youth music spaces are focused on short-term survival, with a quarter considering closure. The situation for young people is equally dire; 98% have reported increases in mental health issues, 69% are experiencing poverty and 47% are going hungry. Demand for services is going up while costs, rent and bills are rising. At the same time, donations and funding are decreasing.

Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary: “The grassroots music sector is the beating heart of our world-famous music industry. It is vital for emerging artists to hone their talents, as well as providing thousands of jobs and spaces for young people to explore their love of music. But for too long, the sector has been under increasing pressure with many spaces at risk of closure.

"This partnership between Youth Music and Spotify is a welcome contribution. Along with our Supporting Grassroots Music Fund, we can collectively continue to do more to secure the future of these vital community assets and protect the talent pipeline."

Matt Griffiths, CEO of Youth Music: "These spaces are the heart of local communities, giving young people a place to feel connected, inspired, and empowered. With Spotify's support, we can give these vital spaces a lifeline, ensuring that they continue to serve young people for years to come."

"We recognise the incredible role that grassroots spaces play in shaping the future of music and creativity, especially for young people who rely on these spaces to express themselves and develop their craft," said Dina Gabriel, Spotify’s Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Impact. "By working with Youth Music, we can make a meaningful impact in safeguarding these spaces and the opportunities they create."

The partnership is part of Spotify’s larger Creator Equity Fund Program and a continuation of Spotify’s commitment to supporting youth wellbeing and protecting youth spaces, following an earlier partnership with Mentivity, a youth mentoring organisation based out of South London. That partnership saw Spotify provide funding to support the opening of Mentivity House, a new youth hub on the Aylesbury Estate in Peckham, in addition to the creation of The Centre, an award-winning short film that showcased the vital role youth spaces played in the early years of some of the UK’s leading music artists, including Youth Music alumni and Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective.