From today, Scotland’s arts, culture and heritage organisations are invited to apply for investment to capitalise on opportunities presented by digital technologies.

Lesley Anne Rose, Creative Producer, Stellar Quines and Hamish Allison, Managing Director at Freakworks at the Freakworks Studios in Edinburgh where Hamish and his team helped develop an experimental prototype - a 3D digitised version of their stage production, ANA - a first for Scottish theatre. (Photo: Drew Farrell)

Over £400,000 is available through AmbITion Scotland’s new Make:IT:Happen fund which goes live today via the project’s getambition.com website. 

The Make:IT:Happen fund is part of the national digital development programme, AmbITion Scotland and has been created to help organisations to grasp the opportunities presented by digital technologies in order to grow business capability, capacity, creativity and confidence in these areas. 

Make:IT:Happen funding offers support through four digital investment strands:

AmbITion Approach (up to £5,000) supports organisations during the early stages of their digital development by providing an external specialist to help them assess and develop a wide-reaching strategy for organisational change. 

Digital Content Development (£500-£10,000) gives organisations the opportunity to enhance their digital development activity through the creation, or better use of digital content. 

Organisational Development (£500-£10,000) supports organisations to take advantage of digital technologies to grow their businesses, develop ideas and improve operational capacity.  

Sustainable AmbITion (£500 - £5,000) supports organisations to be carbon-aware and improve their green credentials through funding new digital technologies or approaches.

Make:IT:Happen funding can be used to support a project in its entirety or to augment a bigger digital ambition. Funds are available to not for profit arts, culture and heritage groups and organisations with relatively little or no digital knowledge/experience as well as well as to those that have some competence with digital projects, but limited resources. 

Hannah Rudman, Lead Consultant, AmbITion Scotland said: “The Make:IT:Happen funding strands have been specifically designed to support organisations adapt to the social, cultural, economic and environmental changes that the digital technology revolution is driving.

She continued: “Given the successes that have already been achieved through AmbITion Scotland’s work in this area with some of Scotland’s creative community, we’re looking forward to continuing an inspiring and rewarding digital journey.”

Iain Munro, Director of Creative Development, Creative Scotland said: “Make:IT:Happen is another step in ensuring Scotland's cultural sector has a sustainable digital infrastructure and is able to utilise the potential of new digital technologies.  Creative Scotland has developed partnerships with NESTA, AmbITion Scotland and Sync through our Cultural Economy programme to ensure this is realised.  We hope that organisations across Scotland make full use of what's on offer through this innovative programme.”

The Make:IT:Happen fund has evolved out of the work that AmbITion Scotland has undertaken since its inception on 2009. During that time, the project has enabled many organisations, large and small, digitally sophisticated as well as digital newcomers, to develop their businesses through opportunities offered by digital technologies.

Julie Tait, Director, Culture Sparks said: “Our experience has been that it’s easily accessible and focussed support that allow fresh ideas in the digital world to take shape rapidly. The Make:IT:Happen fund is responsive and offers a unique opportunity for arts, culture and heritage organisations to test out their aspirations for creativity and growth and to meet the insatiable demand from the public to interact with them in this way.”

There are five application periods between July 2012 and September 2013 as follows:

• July – September 2012 (decisions by 30 October 2012)
• October – December 2012 (decisions by 31 January 2013)
• January – March 2013 (decisions by 30 April 2013)
• April – June 2013 (decisions by 31 July 2013)
• July – September 2013 (decisions by 30 October 2013)

Applications for the first phase of funding opens today, Wednesday 4 July, 2012 and each of the four digital development funding strands has its own individual application deadline date:

• AmbITion Approach: 2 September 2012
• Digital Content Development:   19 August 2012
• Organisational Development: 16 September 2012
• Sustainable AmbITion: 30 September 2012

Whilst organisations are able to apply to one Make:IT:Happen funding strand during each application period, it is possible however to apply to the other Make:IT:Happen funding strands, or re-apply to the same fund if not initially successful, in subsequent application periods. In this way it is possible to apply to all of the funds at some point, which can help groups to achieve incremental digital growth.

The decision making process is a mix of closed assessment by a panel of individuals who have a wide range of expertise in digital developments within the arts, culture and heritage sector and will draw on the experience of individuals and advisors who have been instrumental to AmbITion Scotland’s work since 2009. 

AmbITion Scotland will also be trialing a participatory Peer Review method of decision making for applications to the Digital Content Development funding strand.

Funded by The National Lottery via Creative Scotland (as part of Creative Scotland’s Cultural Economy programme), the AmbITion Scotland programme and the Make:IT:Happen initiative are designed and delivered by Culture Sparks and Rudman Consulting.

Full Make:IT:Happen information, funding guidelines and application forms at: getambition.com.

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