MA Arts Leadership & Fundraising
Study from anywhere in the world. Delivered through blended or fully online learning, full-time or part-time, this one-year Master of Arts will unlock your potential and prepare you for an enriching career as a leader in the contemporary arts sector.
Please note, this course is subject to validation.
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Overview
Delivered as either one-year full-time or part-time over two years, this MA programme will empower you to elevate your skills in leadership, management and sustainable business practices.
Join us from anywhere in the world – the programme can be completed entirely online or combined with in-person residency intensives. You also have the option to take accredited short courses to add to your learning experience and enrich your personalised journey.
The programme is delivered in modules, where you’ll be supported by RCS lecturers and industry experts to critically engage with your practice and to refine your identity as thinker, maker and leader. Core to the programme is the exploration and critical thinking around contemporary leadership and management theory, enabling you to upskill, reskill or take your career forward as a change-maker in the arts.
You will be part of a thriving and collaborative learning community with opportunities to share thinking, challenge assumptions and develop your distinctive competencies within a supported framework.
We welcome applications from a range of creative disciplines and backgrounds. You’ll have strong technical skills in your specialist practice but will work in RCS’s multidisciplinary environment, opening up the potential for cross-collaboration that reflects the nature of the creative industries.
Enjoy being part of a dynamic international community at RCS, a global leader in performing and production arts education, where you’ll build a professional network to develop your career.
The important details
UK Applicant Deadline:
30 May 2025
International (including EU) Applicant Deadline:
30 May 2025
Institution Code:
R58
Programme Code:
Full-time: 218F; Part-time: 215P
Application Fee:
£28.50
Welcome to Arts Leadership & Fundraising
Watch a short video with Director of Business Development, Helen McVey, where she discusses our new MA in Arts Leadership & Fundraising, what to expect from the programme, and who it is designed for.
Why Study Arts Leadership and Fundraising at RCS?
Are you an entrepreneurial thinker, looking to launch your own start-up and see your innovative ideas take flight? Maybe you’re working in the arts and ready to upskill or take your career to the next level.
If you are creative, curious and seeking a new challenge – the MA Arts Leadership and Fundraising programme is for you. Offered as either a one-year full-time or two-year part-time, the blended Master of Arts focuses on contemporary arts practice to prepare you for a sustainable career in the performing and production arts.
You’ll position your practice in relation to emerging industry contexts, policy environments and ethical and wellbeing responsibilities as a leader, maker, manager or producer.
Develop specialist skills and knowledge to thrive in your professional life – confident and resilient, inspired in your practice, and people-centred in your approach.
Enhance Employability
Your enhanced skills and practice, and your development of new work with specialist support, will open up new employment opportunities.
Specialist Learning Environment
In recent times of great change in the creative industries, this course ensures that you will be well-versed in and able to navigate contemporary expectations, debates and innovations in practice. RCS offers the highest level of specialist tuition across all the performing and production arts disciplines, ensuring the best possible learning environment closely linked to national and international partner companies and festivals.
Flexible Learning
The flexibility of the course means that you can fit your studies around work or family commitments, and study in the mode that best suits your needs (blended, online or distance)
Online Discovery Sessions
Join RCS staff members for free online discovery sessions about our new online blended learning degree programmes, including MA Arts Leadership & Fundraising. These sessions will give an introduction to how these programmes will work, what type of activity you will engage with while studying with us, and how they will develop you for future work in the Creative Arts Industry. Please use the links below to register for the session you’d like to attend.
Upcoming discovery sessions:
Graduate Destinations
Whether it’s enriching portfolio careers or taking a new professional direction, graduates of this course will:
- Contribute and innovate in a variety of creative employment fields.
- Develop creative entrepreneurship and competency in the creative industries.
- Enhance their sustainable professional practice in a way that incorporates an ethos of self-directed and life-long learning.
- Nurture visual awareness, literacy and critical faculties in order that they may consider, for example, aspects of form, semantics, human factors, business and professional practices, sustainability issues and cultural influences in the construction and development of creative practice skills and solutions.
Programme Structure
Designed to be flexible and responsive to your personal learning goals, learn how to apply your practice to the modern creative industries. You will also gain experience in cultural policy and fundraising and connect with RCS’s professional partners and your peers.
You’ll be assigned to a tutor group and have access to online resources, learning content and classes to support your progress.
The programme is divided into Situating Practice and Cultures and Context modules, allowing you to focus on expanding your practice.
You will study subjects such as policy, ethics and accountability; learn measurement methods such as economic impact and financial return on investment modelling; explore communication, leadership bias and effective advocacy alongside developing your personalised development goals and defined areas of academic research and enrichment.
The final module, Synthesising Practice, concludes with a presentation of a work-in-progress that combines your new knowledge with your existing practical and theoretical skills. It could be a new script, improvisation practice, choreography, film score, or even a new start-up entrepreneurial concept. You can also propose a substantial research project suitable for a PhD or DPerf application.
Learning is delivered alongside and in collaboration with our other blended Masters programmes, allowing you to broaden your creative context and build a network of peers as you gain new knowledge and skills. You will have the opportunity to really interrogate interdisciplinary leadership theories and approaches contextualised in a forward-thinking Conservatoire environment.
How to Apply
Apply via UCAS Conservatoires
Applications are made through UCAS Conservatoires website. The UCAS Conservatoires application system is separate from the main UCAS undergraduate application system. You can read our guidance about using UCAS Conservatoires on our dedicated How to Apply page.
Applicants will also be required to create an Acceptd account when they apply, which will be used for scheduling auditions. More information about this process will be available soon.
We do not offer deferred entry. If you wish to commence in 2026, you must apply next year.
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland institution code is R58. You will also require the following programmes codes to apply: Full-time: 218F OR Part-time: 215P
The closing date for all on-time MA Arts Leadership & Fundraising applications is 30 May 2025. If you submit your application after this date, we cannot guarantee that your application will be reviewed by the audition panel. If you do want to submit a late application, you must contact admissions@rcs.ac.uk in the first instance to check we are accepting late applications
Application/Audition fees
There is a UCAS Conservatoires application fee of £28.50.
Interview
The interview is designed to provide the programme team with an insight into your level of suitability for study on the programme. This will likely take place online.
The interview will comprise of two parts consisting of a short presentation and an interview.
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland may require an applicant to provide additional material in support of their application prior to, or following, their interview.
Your programme will culminate in a module which enables you to design and undertake a substantial project, synthesising your arts leadership and/or fundraising enquiry into one cohesive piece of work. You are invited to share some initial ideas for how you might use this project to deepen your chosen field of enquiry. For example, you may choose to focus on investigating:
- Opportunities within your specialist area that you would benefit from a deeper understanding
- The practical application of arts leadership and/or fundraising in a professional context
- Defined areas of arts leadership and/or fundraising/policy that you believe would benefit from further research or exploration
- Ways in which you might use this final module to address gaps in your own development
You will be requested to provide some evidence to support your initial proposals, drawing on published journal articles, books or other key sources and to be prepared to provide some critical analysis of these in light of your project ideas. We will explore this with you and support your ideas development as part of the interview process.
Following your presentation, there will be a 20-minute discussion about your presentation and application with the Head of Programme and a member of the delivery team. This will be used to explore your educational background, experience, opportunities and aspirations and you will be invited to address the following questions:
- What has led you to apply for this programme?
- How do you see this programme contributing to your professional development?
- What opportunities, if any, will you have to apply your learning in a professional context whilst on the programme?
The panel will take account of all aspects of the applicants’ profiles. This will include:
- Performance at interview
- Commitment to the programme
- Potential to benefit from the programme
- Readiness for masters level study
- Academic qualifications
- Personal statement
- References (2 references from appropriately qualified persons)
- Contextualised data
References
It is your responsibility to ask two separate referees to write references and ensure that these are sent to RCS.
The references must be written by two different people and we will not accept references from family, other relatives or close friends. You can submit your UCAS Conservatoires application form and send your references at a later date, but they must be received prior to your audition date.
UCAS Conservatoires provides reference forms for you to download and send to your referees for completion.
Policy
We have a number of policies and pages which you should read when applying to study at the Royal Conservatoire:
Entry Requirements
Academic Requirements
As the second cycle of higher education, postgraduate study represents a continuation of learning, training and/or experience rather than a beginning. As such, many of our applicants will have a degree qualification either in an arts subject, or in business or management.
However, we recognise that traditional application processes, which show a bias towards prior learning and achievement, can perpetuate existing societal inequities, favouring those who already benefit. For this reason, we embrace the principles of widening access and participation and, whilst prior qualifications and experience may be taken into account, our application process places emphasis on students’ values, potential and readiness for Master’s level study.
This is in accordance with the RCS Admissions Policy (including the Contextualised Admissions Policy).
English Language Requirements
The language of study is English. Applicants whose first language is not English will be required to provide evidence of proficiency in English. We accept the International English Language Testing System score (IELTS) (if applicable) – Level 7.0 with a minimum score of 7.0 in speaking and with a minimum score of 6.5 in all parts.
Full details of the English language tests and equivalencies we accept can be found on our English Language Requirements page.
Accreditation of Prior and Experiential Learning (APEL)
In some cases, applicants to the programme may already have achieved academic credit on another programme of study and are seeking to reduce the number of modules they will need to study on the programme. Applications for APEL will normally be decided prior to the applicant’s admission to the Royal Conservatoire.
Fees & Funding
Tuition Fees
For academic year 2025/26:
- Full-time: £14,700
- Part-time: £7,350
Please note these fees are subject to change.
Funding & Scholarships
You can find out about the funding and scholarships available for studying at RCS by visiting our dedicated page:
Cost of Living & Programme Costs
This course can be studied fully online if you live further afield and don’t wish to travel to participate in-person. The course is structured to be delivered online with in-person residencies offered to supplement and enhance the learning experience.
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Why RCS?
We are the only place in Europe where you can study all of the performing arts on the one campus. There is a distinctive creative energy at RCS and you’ll be made to feel part of our inclusive and diverse environment from the very beginning of your studies.
Our graduates are resourceful, highly employable and members of a dynamic community of artists who make a significant impact across the globe.
At RCS, students develop not just their art but their power to use it.
World Top Ten
We were voted one of the world’s Top Ten destinations to study the performing arts (QS Rankings) in 2025, the ninth time we have been placed in the top ten since the ranking was established in 2016.
Perform & Collaborate
Our curriculum is built around performance and collaboration and we hold professional partnerships with all of Scotland’s National Companies. Join forces across artforms and be part of the 500+ performances we give each year.
Outstanding Alumni
Our graduates are employed across the world and we take pride in the impact they have on their art forms. We’ll equip you with the skills to thrive as a professional and join their ranks.
Learn from the Best
More than 1,000 lecturers, tutors, artists, technicians, co-ordinators and support staff work at RCS across all our art forms. Study with some of the finest educators and performing and production artists in the UK.
A Campus Built for You
Our facilities are world-class. From rehearsal rooms and recording studios to our five professional performance venues, we have a campus to showcase and develop emerging artists to the highest standards.