Tailormade coaching support for Scotland’s creatives

Creative Scotland has launched Creative Scotland Crowdmatch 2021 in collaboration with Crowdfunder – the UK’s largest crowdfunding platform – offering expert coaching and match funding, to support Scotland’s creatives to run successful crowdfunding campaigns. 

The second iteration of the programme will launch with a series of introductory, free to attend webinars: 

Friday 27 January 12:00 – 12:45 

Thursday 4 February 18:00 – 18:45 

From Monday 25 January, interested parties will be invited to express their interest in participating by noon Monday 8 February.

A shortlist of projects, selected by Crowdfunder and Creative Scotland, will receive tailored coaching support from the expert Crowdfunder team to set up their campaigns.  

Jason NuttallProgramme DirectorCrowdfunder said: “We were blown away by the successes of the projects involved in Creative Scotland’s 2020 initiative.

“The range of ideas and the creativity shown in things like the rewards offered was fantastic to see. We have high expectations for this competition, and are looking forward to supporting the chosen projects to being their campaigns to life in 2021.” 

Jackie StewartCreative Industries OfficerCreative Scotland said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for practitioners and organisations across Scotland to raise funds for creative projects as well as grow awareness of their work and foster meaningful relationships with audiences.” 

Expressions of interest are invited from all artforms, and shortlisted projects will be announced on Tuesday 16 February. 

Thanks to National Lottery players, Creative Scotland will contribute a total of £75,000 of match funding, and entrants can receive up to £10,000 towards their projects. 

Eligibility criteria, information about the initiative and about Crowdfunder is available on the Crowdfunder website

The first phase of the programme which launched last year, saw 18 projects achieve their target crowdfunding campaign figures with many stretching beyond their original targets. 

In total, those 18 projects raised £151K with funds coming from a mix of Creative Scotland match funding (£40,000), match funding from other Crowdfunder partners (Royal Bank of Scotland Back her Business £18,225) and pledges from 2,360 individual supporters. 

The recording and production of experimental focus musician James Lindsay’s second album, Torus was made possible through the first iteration of Creative Scotland Crowdmatch. 

James Lindsay said: “I couldn’t have done a pre-order self-release like this independently to the same effect.

“The crowdfunding process gave people the drive to help the project and the tutorials offered by Crowdfunder were very helpful in helping me bring some shape to the campaign” 

Eligibility criteria, information about the initiative and about Crowdfunder is available on the Crowdfunder website

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davepickering

Edinburgh reporter and photographer