Expanded links between the arts and business will benefit whole land
The new Culture & Business Fund Scotland will bring to life creative projects of all shapes and sizes, explains David Watt
On 3 April, the new Culture & Business Fund Scotland (CBFS) was launched by Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop. Providing critical pound for pound match funding of private sector sponsorship of arts and heritage activities, the CBFS will help to bring to life creative projects of all sizes, throughout Scotland.
In the current economic climate, rising costs and shrinking budgets are putting pressure on arts and heritage organisations’ finances, making private sector sponsorship more important than ever.
Evolving from Arts & Business Scotland’s renowned New Arts Sponsorship Grant (NASG), which recently celebrated a decade of success, investing over £7.5 million across more than 500 individual arts and heritage projects, the CBFS is bolstered with a new dedicated heritage strand and will also allow projects to continue to receive funding during their second and third years.
2017 is also the official year of History, Heritage and Archaeology, and widening the scope of the new fund to include support for Scotland’s crucially important heritage sector is timely. Ranging from archaeology to historic buildings and taking in intangible heritage, green spaces, libraries and museums, our hope is the new heritage strand will attract lots of exciting new applications.
We are also particularly keen to highlight the opportunity the new fund offers for projects to apply for second and third year funding, a key facet that has been particularly welcomed by businesses and cultural organisations that have participated in the New Arts Sponsorship programme in previous years. This innovation should hopefully encourage applicants to be even more ambitious with their project proposals and enable relationships between culture and business to strengthen and grow over a longer period of time.
Over the past decade, NASG helped a wide variety of arts and heritage projects of all sizes located across the length and breadth of Scotland get off the ground, ranging from the creation of a unique sculpture celebrating the role of herring gutters in the Shetland fishing industry to the marketing and promotion of a new local arts festival in Galashiels – and from a specially commissioned piece of event theatre telling the story of Aberdeen and engaging the local community across the city to an interactive theatre production exploring issues around the impact of climate change, launched on the Hebridean island of Eigg before touring the Highlands and Islands and beyond. With a wider scope, I am confident that the new fund will help to realise a similarly eclectic mix of arts and heritage projects in the years ahead.
Eligible projects can receive grant funding between £1,000 and £40,000, matched by business sponsorship to the same value. In the fund’s inaugural year, £300,000 will be provided by the Scottish Government, via Creative Scotland, while Historic Environment Scotland will make an initial contribution of £36,000 towards developing and raising awareness of the fund within the heritage sector.
Programmes such as this have the important benefit of encouraging private investors to give generously to the cultural sector with the reassurance that the value of their investment will be matched by government support. As well as doubling the financial stimulus to qualifying cultural projects, allowing larger and more complex projects to get off the ground, this approach also amplifies the positive impact on business from being associated with these projects. I have spoken to many organisations that have enjoyed fruitful partnerships with the cultural sector as a result of our previous NASG programme. Common to all are the huge benefits they have seen to their own business as a result of getting involved.
A public opinion poll commissioned by Arts & Business Scotland to coincide with the launch of the new fund demonstrates the extent of these benefits to business.
A majority of Scots say they would be more likely to buy goods and services from businesses that support arts and heritage projects in their local area. Some 69 per cent agree it
is important for businesses to support such projects in their local community, while more than three in four Scots agree that supporting local cultural and heritage projects reflects well on businesses.
As many participating businesses will testify, supporting cultural projects isn’t just an act of selfless philanthropy. There are lots of good, hard-headed business reasons for doing it. With its new wider scope and longer term focus, I look forward to seeing the Culture & Business Fund Scotland deliver many more successful partnerships between business, heritage and the arts over the next year and beyond. David Watt, Chief Executive, Arts & Business Scotland