(Left to right) Nicola Cruickshank, Marketing Assistant at Ocean Terminal; Heather Robertson, Living Memory Association Manager; Caroline Kaye, volunteer at Living Memory Association; and Tommy McCormick, Culture & Business Scotland Fund Manager

Photo: Culture & Business Scotland

News

Online marketplace for Scottish arts organisations launches

Scheme established by Culture & Business Scotland seeks to provide new opportunities for creative collaboration by allowing businesses to purchase products and services from cultural organisations.

India Stoughton
3 min read

A new online marketplace platform has launched to allow cultural organisations to offer their services to businesses in Scotland.

The Culture and Business Scotland (C&BS) Marketplace will allow arts and heritage organisations who want to sell products and services to apply to have them listed on the platform.

Business organisations can browse all the creative solutions on offer using filters such as “supporting innovation, creative thinking and problem solving in the workplace” or “improving staff health and wellbeing” and then commission products or services via Culture & Business Scotland. 

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Not-for-profit cultural organisations in the pilot group include the Scottish Book Trust, Scottish Ensemble, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Screen Education Edinburgh.

“Past experiences have shown us that giving businesses and culture organisations the opportunity to forge meaningful connections is hugely empowering, not only for those organisations involved but for wider society as well, and the impacts have the potential to reverberate for generations to come,” said David Watt, CEO of Culture & Business Scotland.

“The launch of our Marketplace initiative will increase those opportunities, both in number and in scope, and help to ensure that organisations from both sectors are equipped for a more innovative, forward-thinking future.” 

C&BS said the initiative is a new incarnation of the charity’s commitment to match-funding, which has previously helped organisations such as the Edinburgh-based Living Memory Association to find sponsorship from the Ocean Terminal retail centre in Leith.

Through the match funding, the association was able to benefit from the use of several vacant units in the shopping centre, helping them to expand their mission of using reminiscence to engage with communities and reduce social isolation. 

Mark Haywood, Living Memory Association Director, said: “This has been a phenomenal partnership for The Living Memory Association and investment from Culture & Business Scotland made it possible.

"It has raised the profile of The Living Memory Association, led us into new areas of work and allowed us to support a whole range of fascinating artistic and heritage endeavour. It has meant we can support individuals and groups to showcase and develop their work and bring them into direct contact with the public.

"We have used the new units to engage people and work with older people to record their memories and value their life experience."

Michelle MacLeod, Ocean Terminal Manager, said that she “could not have believed that this partnership would be so socially and economically beneficial”.