CBFS generates huge investment in culture

Support for the arts

A Scottish government funded programme designed to encourage closer collaboration between the arts and heritage sectors and the business community has generated almost £650,000 of investment in cultural projects during its first year.

Launched in April 2017, the Culture & Business Fund Scotland (CBFS) is managed by independent charity Arts & Business Scotland and is funded by the Scottish government via Creative Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland.

The CBFS programme is the successor to the New Arts Sponsorship Grants programme which, over the previous decade, invested more than £7.5 million across more than 500 individual cultural projects.

Like its predecessor, the CBFS programme provides match funding for business sponsorship of arts or heritage projects. During the first 12 months, total investment from the fund amounted to more than £260,000.

During this period, every £1 of CBFS investment has leveraged £1.41 in business sponsorship, creating a total investment of £645,698 into 38 creative partnerships located throughout Scotland.

The success of the programme was celebrated at a special event at the Scottish parliament, hosted by Joan McAlpine, convener of the Parliament’s culture committee and attended by cabinet secretary for culture, tourism and external affairs Fiona Hyslop.

Many CBFS grant recipients were present on the evening and attendees were treated to a special performance by Drake Music Scotland’s Digital Orchestra, the world’s first disabled youth orchestra.

A key innovation of the CBFS programme is that it specifically supports longer term partnerships between business and the arts and heritage sectors, providing ongoing funding for those partnerships in their second and third year.

For instance, a partnership between the Scottish Salmon Company and the National Theatre of Scotland to deliver the Theatre in Schools Scotland programme is now in its third year. Over that three year period, the programme has successfully taken high class theatre performances into local schools across all 32 local authority areas in Scotland. 

Accountancy firm KPMG partnered with Scottish Ballet to deliver a project designed to help children from deprived backgrounds from a local school close to Scottish Ballet’s headquarters to engage with the arts.

The partnership also funded Scottish Ballet’s latest digital season project, “Haud Close Tae Me”, a short dance film featuring a specially commissioned poem by Scotland’s Makar Jackie Kay.