Microfunding for Cultural and Creative Sectors

Background & Facts about the CCS

The Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS) constitute one of the most dynamic industries in the European Union and the global economy The sectors have tremendous economic value, they constitute 4.2% of the European Union’s (EU) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and create 7.4 million jobs, employing mainly young people.
Cultural and creative sectors are important for ensuring the continued development of societies and are at the heart of the creative economy. Knowledge-intensive and based on individual creativity and talent, they generate considerable economic wealth. More importantly, they are critical to a shared sense of European identity, culture and values. In economic terms, they show above-average growth and create jobs while strengthening social cohesion.
The CCSs is largely composed of micro-enterprises, non-profit organisations and creative professionals that often lack access to financial support and might not have the specific skills for realising and managing their business ideas. Moreover, the crisis caused by Covid-19 was particularly critical for the CCS due to the sudden and massive loss of revenue opportunities. The suspension of activities and the cancellation (or postponement) of events, shows and festivals generated a chain of negative effects, which were difficult to compensate for even when venues could reopen and events could be organised.

About the Project

The challenges in accessing finance is one of the most critical obstacles to the sector´s growth. Among others, access to finance is prevented by specific characteristics of CCS organisations: lack of tangible assets, high uncertainty of market demand, generation of value over long and uncertain periods of time, lack of knowledge of funding opportunities etc. 
The Pro-CCS: Microfunding for Culture project supports the overall CCS reinforcing the competences of professionals active in the CCS and aims at bridging the cultural and creative sectors with the financial sector in order to facilitate access to credit for the CCSs. The project will create dedicated channels in order to provide solid information on the economic potential of the CCS to financial intermediaries so that they can overcome a traditional distrust of the sector and support its growth. In addition, the project will develop training that will equip the CCSs with the necessary knowledge to bridge the skills gap of professionals in the sector.

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Involved Partners

The Pro-CCS: Microfunding for Culture is led by the Ente Nazionale per il Microcredito, involving important organisations so as to constitute a powerful task force cooperating to address this challenge at the European level. The consortium is composed of 5 organisations from 4 different countries. It is characterised by a highly transversal nature, involving different types of organisations covering the full range of the activities foreseen by the project: a national public body (ENM, Italy) expert in the implementation of microfinance policies and tools at European and national level; an innovation and business centre (InnoGrowth, Bulgaria); a business incubator part of a worldwide network (Impact Hub Leipzig, Germany); European cultural network supporting the CCS at EU level (Culture Action Europe, Belgium) and a consultancy company (Euradia Italia) specialised in institutional relations, project management and communication.