Training & Business Advice
Links to organisations offering Training and Business Advice to the Creative Sector, and Advice sessions with our Advocates.
You can also contact us for advice, signposting, and information at hello@cabn.info
For details of any current professional development events CABN is hosting please visit our News & Events page. To search support and events provided by other organisations, follow the links below.
Business Gateway provides practical help, advice and support for new and growing businesses in Scotland.
For the latest diary of events in the Scottish Borders visit their website. You can also follow Business Gateway Scottish Borders on Twitter.
The Scottish Borders office of Business Gateway is located at:
Ettrick Riverside
Dunsdale Road
Selkirk
Email: info@bgateway.com
Tel: 01835 818020
visit website
"We’re a bunch of creative entrepreneurs who’ve come together because we thought that sharing what we know and helping each other with what we don’t know and having people around us to moan to and celebrate with would be a pretty powerful thing. We’ve been talking about it and researching what’s out there and learning for a while now and we think we’ve built something pretty unique and pretty flipping cool.
You’re here now, so you can be the judge…
Using all those ideas and all the stuff we learned we developed The Creative Entrepreneurs’ Club, a member-driven community, designed to help creative people grow cool businesses in an authentic and empathic way. That means it’s relaxed, it’s fun, it’s practical it’s accessible and it’s super useful.
Our big thing is that we take a collaborative approach to programming, listening to our members to shape everything we do, rather than assuming we know what’s good for you.
This is a community for everyone. We welcome members just starting out, those scaling up and those leading growing, established businesses. We provide relevant tailored content and events for creatives at each stage of their business journey. It’s not one size fits all, but more like, lots of sizes to fit lots of different needs in one place."
Visit Website
Getting help from The Prince’s Trust Scotland
The Prince's Trust Scotland offers a wide range of services to help young people (aged 16-30 years) to set up and run their own business. This includes grants, loans, help, advice and support everything from business planning to access to business competitions.
You can get full details of the help available on the The Prince’s Trust website
The Scottish Borders Chamber of Commerce is one of 26 in the Scottish Chamber network. Their job is to inform and facilitate sharing of information to help members’ businesses flourish. Networking also plays a major part in as do member2member business relationships – including collaboration with neighbouring Chambers.
They represent the interests of their members to all levels of government. Businesses of all sizes are welcomed and they encourage business cooperation through networking events and by publicising local and national business events run by others.
Members meet up on the last Friday of each month for lunch, a guest speaker and a bit of business “networking”. You can also sign up for their regular e-bulletin.
For more information please visit the website.
These are extremely challenging and uncertain times – public health is a priority as we face huge changes to our lives and the lives of our families and friends. We recognise the serious personal and professional impacts for the creative sector and the uncertainty surrounding this.
Many sectoral agencies and organisations are working hard to develop and provide support, and we aim to keep you up to date through sharing this information and developing our own programme of support as best we can. Please subscribe to our bi-weekly e-bulletin and social media for the latest local and national updates, including targeted funding and advice.
Here are some resources for advice and information to support the Culture and Creative sector:
Culture and Creative Sector Support from Scottish Government
Scottish Government helpline 0800 028 2816
Scottish Borders Council COVID-19 Business Support
Scottish Borders Business Resilience Group on facebook
Arts & Business Scotland - share with you some helpful sites and some useful information on the subject of the governance of your organisation during this time.
Business Gateway - Guidance for Business owners in Scotland
Craft Scotland -A Maker's Guide to Coronavirus (COVID-19) - Useful resources specific to the Craft Sector.
FUNDING
Creative Scotland has launched three funding programmes designed to provide further support to sustain the country’s creative community during the COVID-19 outbreak:
- A Creative Scotland Bridging Bursary Fund will help sustain creative practice by freelance creative professionals who have lost earnings due to the cancelation of work as a result of COVID-19.
- A parallel Screen Scotland Bridging Bursary Fund will provide similar one-off bursary support to self-employed screen sector workers
- The Open Fund: Sustaining Creative Development will provide support for individuals and organisations to sustain their creative development in the coming months.
The Society of Authors - Emergency funding for authors affected by the COVID-19 Coronavirus crisis.
Visual Arts Scotland - The Emergency Art Workers Support Fund
Third Sector Resilience Fund - The Third Sector Resilience Fund (TSRF) is a £20m emergency fund for charities, community groups, social enterprises and voluntary organisations working in Scotland.
Scottish Governments Business Support Fund
Museums and Galleries Scotland - Financial Support for Museums during COVID-19
Youth Theatre Arts Scotland - Guidence and resources for the Scottish Youth Theatre Sector
Acting for Others - provides financial and emotional support to all theatre workers in times of need through the 14 member charities.
Everything you wanted to know about being an artist, but didn’t know you needed to know, and probably didn’t know who to ask anyway.
The White Pube Successful Funding Application Library
Funding applications are forms you complete and submit to funding bodies, organisations or trusts in the hopes of gaining money to support something you would like to do. In the arts, funding covers all sorts: a gallery’s running costs and programming, artist fees, staff payment, materials, money for research and development, marketing, printing, production, archiving, organisational development, travel… everything really. The arts relies on it. Artists and groups apply for themselves and if they’re lucky, they’ll get something; and big galleries apply to lots of different private and public funders in order to make up their big budgets. But knowing where to start when writing an application can be difficult; knowing who to apply to can be tricky as well.
This library is a resource of successful funding applications that you can learn from. Personally, I found writing them really confusing until I spent time reading some and then I could finally get a handle on the language used and the way budgets are put together. Take a look below, see if anything is relevant to what you're hoping to do, or learn from other applications' writing and shape. Look at what is being applied to and where, and check out the funders these are addressed to see to if they are appropriate for your project.
Craft Scotland - A Maker's Guide to the EU Exit (Brexit) 2021
On 1 January 2021, the UK exited the EU. Craft Scotland are committed to keeping the sector informed as the business landscape changes. The EU Exit (Brexit) may impact Scotland-based makers and anyone working in or with the Scottish craft sector.
This maker guide lists resources to help you prepare your craft practice and business for the post-transition period. This article will be updated regularly as developments happen.
https://www.craftscotland.org/journal/article/maker-guide-brexit-2021
Scottish Enterprise - Exporting to the EU from Scotland
New rules for businesses took effect on 1 January 2021 and some of the changes are significant. Scottish Enterprise has resources to help you continue trading in the new operating environment with advice on exporting and selling online here:
https://www.scottish-enterprise.com/support-for-businesses/operate-after-brexit/export-to-the-eu
Creative Scotland - Links to useful information and guidance regarding the UK’s exit from the EU:
https://www.creativescotland.com/resources/professional-resources/guidance-and-toolkits/eu-exit