Design Exchange (Scotland) CIC

Support for Artists & Designers in Scotland: We support over 320 artists and designers from our Edinburgh and Glasgow stores. We work with the artists and designers to help develop their products, working on branding, pricing, product sustainability, marketing, and social media. The artist rent a space within our store for an affordable fixed fee, which covers our costs for running the stores with any profits reinvested to support the artists and to run our social & charitable projects. The artists keep 100% of the sale of their products. We have paid out over £20m to the artists we work with since 2015, which not only supports the artists, but also supports the local economy. Support for Charities & Social enterprises : We provide social enterprises and charities with a free space to sell products, to help them raise funds towards their projects. As well as a free space within our store, we provide support and advice on how to develop their products and increase their income. In this financial year we provided a free space in our Edinburgh store, to help and support a wonderful social enterprise business, Abandoned Artists CIC, who work with displaced people. Their particular focus when they set up, was to help and support Ukrainian’s who fled the war, by offering art therapy groups. To help and support this project, we provided art supplies from the Art Bank and gave this group a free space within the store, to sell their products and raise funds. This project supported a group of 8 artists, which helped them gain confidence and improve their English, while being under incredible difficult circumstances, having to leave their homes and sometimes their families, due to the war in Ukraine. Free art classes at YMCA Edinburgh: We run free art classes at the YMCA Edinburgh in Leith. The YMCA work within an area of deprivation. Our art classes are currently running for their women’s group every Wednesday. We provide all the materials for the classes and pay an artist to run the classes. Art Bank: We run an Art Bank where we collect art supplies and materials from the 320 artists we work with and from call outs to the public. We donate the supplies to charities, schools, and social enterprise projects to run art classes. As budgets are cut for the arts, schools are finding it difficult to support the arts, with many Teachers using their own money to purchase materials for art projects. We started the Art Bank to collect materials that would have otherwise been likely put into landfill, to help Schools and Charities access good quality art supplies. In this financial year, we have provided art supplies to 12 charities and social enterprises in Scotland, with a number of them now receiving regular supplies to run art classes for groups that help to support a varied section of the community, from kids, adults with learning disabilities, refugee groups, women’s groups and groups that support mental health and homeless. Business Support for Artists: As we come into our 10th Year, we have many artists who rely solely on the income from our stores for their businesses and livelihood. We provide business support to our artists to help them gain confidence in areas such as finance, marketing and branding, which not only allows them to improve their sales in our stores, but to help them create products that sell well online and in other stores, to grow their businesses. This year we are creating a series of online training programmes, specific to artists, to help them look at their costs and how to increase their income. We have also developed an app that will allow our artists to quickly look at their product profitability.