3 February 2010

Scottish Government announces a funding boost for new business sponsors of the arts

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Arts & Business says ...

"This additional funding demonstrates the Scottish Government’s determination to support the arts and encourage involvement from new business sponsors. Despite the economic climate, attendances at cultural events and arts venues are holding up well. This is a good time for businesses to benefit from involvement in the arts, with tangible commercial benefits, whether it be branding, customer engagement, heightened community profile or staff development.
I would encourage businesses throughout Scotland, particularly those in emerging sectors such as the computer games industry, to consider arts sponsorship as a rewarding way of adding value both to their business and to Scottish culture."
Fiona Hyslop, Culture Minister

"Research shows that it is those companies that continue to successfully market themselves that recover from periods of recession faster by stealing a march over their competitors, and arts sponsorship is a very cost effective form of promotion.
Those businesses that engage in arts sponsorship know it to be a rewarding way to promote their brands and services, or engage with their communities. For those companies that have not yet tried it, having the chance to obtain double sponsorship benefits for their investment through this government scheme is a great opportunity."
Barclay Price, Director , Art & Business Scotland

"Our sponsorship of Inspace at the School of Informatics has been one of real mutual benefit. By providing our own technical and professional expertise to the project the gallery has been able to develop its own artistic and educational goals, and we at Pufferfish have gained enormously through increased profile with new and target audiences.
At the same time we’re benefitting from the School of Informatics research into how people behave and interact with 3D equipment such as ours which is in turn contributing to our own product development. These are the sort of outcomes that you just don’t get with standard advertising and promotion." Read more on this story...
Oliver Collier, CEO of Pufferfish Ltd

The Scottish Government is providing an additional £50,000 of funding for the Arts & Business Scotland New Arts Sponsorship awards scheme to be used for the remainder of the financial year 2009/10.

The PufferSphere with Jon Oberlander, Director, Inspace and Fiona Hyslop, Minister for Culture and External Affairs
Photo and courtesy: The Scottish Government

The scheme provides match-funding for first-time arts sponsors, or for companies that have not sponsored for at least three years, and is also open to non-Scottish based companies to sponsor arts activities in Scotland. An arts organisation receiving an eligible business sponsorship grant gets £1 of funding for every £1 of sponsorship through the grant scheme, and in doing so, doubles the sponsorship benefits offered to the business.

Already this year (2009-2010) grants have been awarded to 31 new business and arts partnerships. The grant scheme has generated £583,283 in total for the arts in Scotland.

A successful arts business sponsorship which received a grant of £13,000 from the scheme is that of the partnership between Inspace, a new public gallery facility at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics and Edinburgh-based electronic display company, Pufferfsh Ltd. Inspace leveraged in-kind sponsorship worth £23,000 from Pufferfish Ltd towards the costs of exhibitions. In return for its sponsorship Pufferfish is being given access to research obtained by the School of Informatics into the ways in which people interact with and behave around the sphere in various scenarios for its own research, product development and application purposes. The company will also be given marketing and branding opportunities on the Inspace website and on exhibition materials.

Click here for full guidelines on the scheme and how to apply

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