Wider aims of the Culture and Creative Investment Programme

We want the enterprises we support to contribute to the wider aims of the Culture and Creative Investment Programme. 

Programme goals

Companies we invest in will help us address one or more of these areas:  

• more resilient and sustainable culture and creative freelancers, businesses and organisations  
• Innovative and effective partnerships between the culture and creative sector and other sectors, especially digital and technology sectors  
• Increased investment and economic growth  
• Increased opportunities for residents and wider audiences to experience and be inspired by culture and creativity  

Diversity

We want to support a diverse range of people and encourage businesses to consider how age, disability, ethnicity/race, gender, religion or belief and sexual identity/orientation can broaden their influences and practices, to not only enrich their work, but also address other challenges and opportunities in audience development, public engagement, workforce and leadership.  

We want to support beneficiaries who are committed to developing diversity, particularly for those that are disable-led or representative of Ethnically diverse or female founders/artists. 

Jobs/training opportunities and workspace

We are seeking to support and invest in businesses that will safeguard and create jobs, opportunities for training and creation/safeguarding of space for shared community and/or business activities.  

Investment from other sources  

Through the programme we are seeking to leverage an additional £1.25mil in match funding. 

We will support beneficiary companies to maximise other private and public investment. 

Investments that offer the opportunity to co-invest and share due diligence with co-investment partners are attractive. We want our investment to unlock future funding. 

Environmental strategy  

We want to minimise the impact of our investment activities on the environment and are interested in any measure’s beneficiaries have in place to minimise their environmental impact.  

Geographic spread  

We want to support cultural and creative sector businesses across the North of Tyne region. As part of our funding decisions, we will consider whether a business is based in an area of low cultural engagement or aligns to the Creative and Cultural zones being developed by the North of Tyne Combined Authority. 

Range of cultural sectors and creative industries  

We want to support a range of beneficiaries across the cultural and creative ecosystem.  

Size and type of businesses – we want to support freelancers and a range of differently sized and businesses.