Creative business support and funding

Funding support for creative businesses

Guide

If you're starting or growing a creative business, there may be funding options available to help you achieve your goals.

You can use our business support finder database to search online for available sources of funding and support.

You can also explore funding options from Invest NI, including:

innovation, research and development funding, such as Innovation Vouchers
capability development - including support with mentoring, consultancy and access to specialist knowledge
intellectual property support, including financial assistance to carry out intellectual asset management audit and protect patents, trade marks and design
a range of loans and equity funds

NI Screen offers various funding programmes across its economic, cultural and educational activities:

development funding- includes script, project and slate development for feature films, television and digital content
production funding - comes in the form of a recoupable loan and assists in completing budgets on productions which are almost fully financed
short films schemes - aim to help emerging film makers
skills fund - is a grant offered to individuals working in the Northern Ireland screen sector to support their training or development needs
games funding - including project development and project production funding

Northern Ireland Screen also runs two cultural funds: the Irish Language Broadcast Fund and the Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund.

The Arts Council NI offers a broad range of funding opportunities for creative and arts organisations and individuals in Northern Ireland:

find funding for organisations, including small grants programme, lottery project funding, music touring support and creative apprenticeships/internships programme
find funding for individuals, including support for individual artist programme, travel awards, etc

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