Today, Business to Arts is pleased to announce sponsors for the 2023 Awards season with a new award joining the slate. This year’s sponsors include Innovation Partner Accenture, and category partners daa, ESB, Irish Life, Kmend, the Arts Council, The Irish Times, and TileStyle. 

The National Concert Hall will return as the Awards’ venue partner and events company Catapult will continue to support the Awards as production partner.

A new award, the ‘Creative Access Award’ supported by Community Foundation Ireland, will recognise corporate-cultural partnerships that offer the opportunity for marginalised and underrepresented groups to participate in the arts. This may take the form of an education programme, the provision of equipment, or a programme specially designed to include these kinds of groups.

Speaking about the new Award, Community Foundation’s Chief Executive Denise Charlton said:

“Community Foundation Ireland shares a mission of equality for all in thriving communities with its donors, supporters and 5,000 community partners. Access to arts is an equality issue. As Ireland’s philanthropic hub, the Community Foundation, is proud to sponsor the new Creative Access Award to acknowledge those who continue to break down barriers to make art, creative and colour open to all.”

The annual call for nominations for the Business to Arts Awards will launch later in March this year and the Awards will take place at the National Concert Hall on Tuesday, 12th September.

After 12 years of crowdfunding creativity in Ireland, Fund it closed on 15th February 2023.

Founded in 2011, Fund it was the first Irish-owned crowdfunding website to support creative projects. Over the years, Fund it successfully supported project creators in crowdfunding over 1,700 creative projects ranging from new albums to poetry publications, community festivals to photography exhibitions, radio studios to documentaries. 

Fund it worked directly with project creators to provide confidence and guidance on their crowdfunding journey, which contributed to the platform’s high success rate. In recent years, the crowdfunding landscape has changed significantly, with new platforms arising from commercial companies with the resources to provide competitive user-focused functionality. Fund it has seen a decline in new projects and funders, making it too challenging to support the operating costs required to keep Fund it running.

While it is disappointing to have to make this decision, the Fund it team is immensely proud of the service provided to all of the project creators that have successfully launched projects on the platform and the funders who have supported them.

The Fund it website will remain online as an archive for one year.

For all further questions relating to Fund it’s closure, head to the Fund it FAQs.