As creative practitioners, we are aware it can be difficult to navigate between financial
options available depending on your status. Make sure you are getting all the financial help
available to you by using the table below.
We will keep on updating it with new resources to always provide the most up-to-date financial support info for you!
As creative practitioners, we are aware it can be difficult to navigate between financial
options available depending on your status. Make sure you are getting all the financial help
available to you by using the table below.
We will keep on updating it with new resources to always provide the most up-to-date financial support info for you!
You may be able to get Universal Credit if:
• you’re on a low income or out of work
• you’re 18 or over (there are some exceptions if you’re 16 to 17)
• you’re under State Pension age
• you and your partner have £16,000 or less in savings between you
• you live in the UK
If you have employees, you can claim for 80% of their wages plus any employer National Insurance and pension contributions, if you have put them on furlough because of coronavirus. If you have an other employment paid through PAYE your employer may be able to get support using the Job Retention Scheme.
MORE INFOThe repayment will cover up to 2 weeks starting from the first day of sickness, if an employee is unable to work because they either: have coronavirus, cannot work because they are self-isolating at home or are shielding in line with public health guidance.
You can claim if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:
• have submitted your Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018 to 2019
• traded in the tax year 2019 to 2020
• are trading when you apply, or would be except for coronavirus
• intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020 to 2021
• have lost trading pro ts due to coronavirus
• your trading profits must also be no more than £50,000 and more than half of your total income
Small Business Grant Fund Eligibility:
• Businesses with a property that on the 11 March 2020 were eligible for Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) Scheme.
• Businesses which on 11 March 2020 were eligible for relief under the Rural Rate Relief
• Scheme are also eligible for this scheme.
Eligible recipients will receive one grant per property.
Hospitality and Leisure Grand Fund Eligibility:
• Properties which on the 11 March 2020 had a rateable value of less than £51,000 and would have been eligible for a discount under the business rates
• Expanded Retail Discount Scheme had that scheme been in force are eligible for the grant.
• Charities which would otherwise meet this criteria but whose bill for 11 March had been reduced to nil by a local discretionary award should still be considered to be eligible for the RHL grant.
• Recipients will receive one grant per eligible property
No need to do anything you’ll be contacted by HRMC if you’re eligible
You could be eligible if you’re on a low income or claim benefits. Your bill could be reduced by up to 100%. You can apply if you own your home, rent, are unemployed or working.
You can claim if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:
• have submitted your Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018 to 2019
• traded in the tax year 2019 to 2020
• are trading when you apply, or would be except for coronavirus
• intend to continue to trade in the tax year2020 to 2021
• have lost trading profits due to coronavirus
You will need to confirm to HMRC that your business has been adversely affected by coronavirus. HMRC will as usual use a risk based approach to compliance.
Your trading profits must also be no more than £50,000 and more than half of your total income for either:
• the tax year 2018 to 2019
• the average of the tax years 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, and 2018 to 2019
You’re eligible if:
• your business is based in the UK
• your business has an annual turnover of up to £45 million
• your business has a borrowing proposal which the lender would consider viable, if not for the coronavirus pandemic
• you can self-certify that your business has been adversely impacted by coronavirus
We've compiled a list of grants and prizes available to UK residents, which you can filter by creative industry, to make sure you're seeing grants that are relevant to your practice. We'll be doing our best to keep this list up-to-date with the latest grants and initiatives to support creatives around the UK. All grants listed are open for applications and are automatically removed after the deadline.
If you are feeling anxious, wondering what the coronavirus crisis means for your practice, feel free to reach out to us at any time.
We’re not experts, but we’re happy to share our knowledge and to try to help you stay optimistic during these tough times. You can contact us from our website chat or on any social media.
The scheme helps small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and up to 25% of their turnover. The maximum loan available is £50,000. The government guarantees 100% of the loan and there won’t be any fees or interest to pay for the first 12 months. After 12 months the interest rate will be 2.5% a year.
You can apply for a loan if your business:
• is based in the UK was established before 1 March 2020
• has been adversely impacted by the coronavirus
You may be able to get Universal Credit if:
• you’re on a low income or out of work
• you’re 18 or over (there are some exceptions if you’re 16 to 17)
• you’re under State Pension age
• you and your partner have £16,000 or less in savings between you
• you live in the UK
You could be eligible if you’re on a low income or claim benefits. Your bill could be reduced by up to 100%. You can apply if you own your home, rent, are unemployed or working.
If you have employees, you can claim for 80% of their wages plus any employer National Insurance and pension contributions, if you have put them on furlough because of coronavirus. If you have an other employment paid through PAYE your employer may be able to get support using the Job Retention Scheme.
MORE INFOThe repayment will cover up to 2 weeks starting from the first day of sickness, if an employee is unable to work because they either: have coronavirus, cannot work because they are self-isolating at home or are shielding in line with public health guidance.
You can claim if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:
• have submitted your Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018 to 2019
• traded in the tax year 2019 to 2020
• are trading when you apply, or would be except for coronavirus
• intend to continue to trade in the tax year2020 to 2021
• have lost trading profits due to coronavirus
You will need to confirm to HMRC that your business has been adversely affected by coronavirus. HMRC will as usual use a risk based approach to compliance.
Your trading profits must also be no more than £50,000 and more than half of your total income for either:
• the tax year 2018 to 2019
• the average of the tax years 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, and 2018 to 2019
You can claim if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:
• have submitted your Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018 to 2019
• traded in the tax year 2019 to 2020
• are trading when you apply, or would be except for coronavirus
• intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020 to 2021
• have lost trading pro ts due to coronavirus
• your trading profits must also be no more than £50,000 and more than half of your total income
You’re eligible if:
• your business is based in the UK
• your business has an annual turnover of up to £45 million
• your business has a borrowing proposal which the lender would consider viable, if not for the coronavirus pandemic
• you can self-certify that your business has been adversely impacted by coronavirus
Small Business Grant Fund Eligibility:
• Businesses with a property that on the 11 March 2020 were eligible for Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) Scheme.
• Businesses which on 11 March 2020 were eligible for relief under the Rural Rate Relief
• Scheme are also eligible for this scheme.
Eligible recipients will receive one grant per property.
Hospitality and Leisure Grand Fund Eligibility:
• Properties which on the 11 March 2020 had a rateable value of less than £51,000 and would have been eligible for a discount under the business rates
• Expanded Retail Discount Scheme had that scheme been in force are eligible for the grant.
• Charities which would otherwise meet this criteria but whose bill for 11 March had been reduced to nil by a local discretionary award should still be considered to be eligible for the RHL grant.
• Recipients will receive one grant per eligible property
No need to do anything you’ll be contacted by HRMC if you’re eligible
We've compiled a list of grants and prizes available to UK residents, which you can filter by creative industry, to make sure you're seeing grants that are relevant to your practice. We'll be doing our best to keep this list up-to-date with the latest grants and initiatives to support creatives around the UK. All grants listed are open for applications and are automatically removed after the deadline.
If you are feeling anxious, wondering what the coronavirus crisis means for your practice, feel free to reach out to us at any time.
We’re not experts, but we’re happy to share our knowledge and to try to help you stay optimistic during these tough times. You can contact us from our website chat or on any social media.
The scheme helps small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and up to 25% of their turnover. The maximum loan available is £50,000. The government guarantees 100% of the loan and there won’t be any fees or interest to pay for the first 12 months. After 12 months the interest rate will be 2.5% a year.
You can apply for a loan if your business:
• is based in the UK was established before 1 March 2020
• has been adversely impacted by the coronavirus
As creatives ourselves, we know it's not always easy to make a living from creative work. Although there are tons of websites for freelancers out there, none of them are designed specifically for creatives. No offence to existing freelancing platforms, but we simply felt they weren’t understanding the complexity of a creative practice, nor the love we creatives have for what we do.
So we designed a platform dedicated to creative freelancing, to make it easier and more profitable. The need for a dedicated creative freelance platform adapted to the creative process is obvious, as we freelancers spend a stupid amount of time on repetitive admin tasks instead of truly focusing on our creative practices.
Before we even start talking about managing your admin, you need to find jobs. And finding clients can be frustrating to say the least. So we created SSSHAKE to automatically match you with all freelance jobs you have the right expertise for: just fill in the creative services you can offer, and receive relevant freelance job opportunities straight to your inbox. Our project matching system works by combining your roles, creative services and location to provide you with relevant opportunities to your specific freelance practice. As you receive opportunities, you'll be able to decide on a case by case basis which ones you want to apply to. Every brief will have been manually approved before you receive it, to ensure that it's thorough and fair. But we're constantly working hard to make this matching process more precise, so you only receive the opportunities that are right for you - and it's thanks to your help and feedback that we'll continue to improve and refine our matching system, so please do let us know if you feel you've received an opportunity that doesn't seem right!
We aren’t LinkedIn and we'll never ask you to put yourself in a box. Creativity flows when unrestricted and we want to encourage you to develop cross-disciplinary skills. You can add as many roles and creative services to your profile as you wish, and they're all user-generated, because it's important for us to allow you to define your practice as you see fit. You can learn more about roles and creative services, here.
With SSSHAKE, you don’t need to upload your portfolio to your profile: just add links to your existing one(s). We're sure you've had enough of uploading your portfolio to yet another online platform, so instead, in every application to a freelance opportunity, we'll ask you to add up to three relevant portfolio examples that relate to the brief, to show the client how you might interpret their needs. Your portfolio links, saved to your SSSHAKE profile, are automatically added to your application details. It means that you never have to worry about keeping your SSSHAKE profile up-to-date, just your existing portfolio! If you don’t have a portfolio, check out this article where we listed some free website builders where you can host it.
Working well with someone often depends, not only on their expertise, but also on getting along with them personally, so we wanted to add a more personal touch to your SSSHAKE profile. You can answer different personality questions, like what your dream collaboration would be, to add your own twist to your profile. It's not mandatory, but we encourage you to choose questions that you feel would give your prospective clients and fellow SSSHAKE members a better understanding of you, your creative aspirations, and inspirations!
Collaboration is part of our DNA, and we believe it's important for creatives to work with other creatives on projects in order to learn from each other, expand their skills, and develop their practices. Our very first event was all about networking to foster unexpected collaborations, and so was our first app. So, it was only natural for us to include and encourage collaboration on our new platform by allowing creatives to ask for help from other creatives, as long as the project in question has no direct commercial intent. We'll do our best to only approve unpaid collaboration briefs that follow our house rules, but please do get in touch if you feel a collaboration opportunity you receive doesn't follow these guidelines.
As we provide both paid freelance job opportunities, as well as collaboration requests, you have the choice to opt-out from receiving specific kinds of opportunities, to give you the flexibility to focus on your goals. You can opt back in at any time, as your practice changes.
You can find more info about how our platform woks here.
Through our experience freelancing in the creative industries, we came to the conclusion that while freelancing has so many benefits, in terms of freedom and flexibility, it's genuinely a complicated and intricate process. Not only do you have to focus on your creative practice, but you also have to be your own manager. And being your own manager is tiring and time-consuming. You end up having to take care of a whole range of tasks that have nothing to do with your art - from finance, to CRM, and more.
We are working hard to release new features that include contracts, invoicing, account management and much more. Keep an eye out for that, and if you want to become a beta tester, get in touch!
As creatives ourselves, we know it's not always easy to make a living from creative work. Although there are tons of websites for freelancers out there, none of them are designed specifically for creatives. No offence to existing freelancing platforms, but we simply felt they weren’t understanding the complexity of a creative practice, nor the love we creatives have for what we do.
So we designed a platform dedicated to creative freelancing, to make it easier and more profitable. The need for a dedicated creative freelance platform adapted to the creative process is obvious, as we freelancers spend a stupid amount of time on repetitive admin tasks instead of truly focusing on our creative practices.
Before we even start talking about managing your admin, you need to find jobs. And finding clients can be frustrating to say the least. So we created SSSHAKE to automatically match you with all freelance jobs you have the right expertise for: just fill in the creative services you can offer, and receive relevant freelance job opportunities straight to your inbox. Our project matching system works by combining your roles, creative services and location to provide you with relevant opportunities to your specific freelance practice. As you receive opportunities, you'll be able to decide on a case by case basis which ones you want to apply to. Every brief will have been manually approved before you receive it, to ensure that it's thorough and fair. But we're constantly working hard to make this matching process more precise, so you only receive the opportunities that are right for you - and it's thanks to your help and feedback that we'll continue to improve and refine our matching system, so please do let us know if you feel you've received an opportunity that doesn't seem right!
We aren’t LinkedIn and we'll never ask you to put yourself in a box. Creativity flows when unrestricted and we want to encourage you to develop cross-disciplinary skills. You can add as many roles and creative services to your profile as you wish, and they're all user-generated, because it's important for us to allow you to define your practice as you see fit. You can learn more about roles and creative services, here.
With SSSHAKE, you don’t need to upload your portfolio to your profile: just add links to your existing one(s). We're sure you've had enough of uploading your portfolio to yet another online platform, so instead, in every application to a freelance opportunity, we'll ask you to add up to three relevant portfolio examples that relate to the brief, to show the client how you might interpret their needs. Your portfolio links, saved to your SSSHAKE profile, are automatically added to your application details. It means that you never have to worry about keeping your SSSHAKE profile up-to-date, just your existing portfolio! If you don’t have a portfolio, check out this article where we listed some free website builders where you can host it.
Working well with someone often depends, not only on their expertise, but also on getting along with them personally, so we wanted to add a more personal touch to your SSSHAKE profile. You can answer different personality questions, like what your dream collaboration would be, to add your own twist to your profile. It's not mandatory, but we encourage you to choose questions that you feel would give your prospective clients and fellow SSSHAKE members a better understanding of you, your creative aspirations, and inspirations!
Collaboration is part of our DNA, and we believe it's important for creatives to work with other creatives on projects in order to learn from each other, expand their skills, and develop their practices. Our very first event was all about networking to foster unexpected collaborations, and so was our first app. So, it was only natural for us to include and encourage collaboration on our new platform by allowing creatives to ask for help from other creatives, as long as the project in question has no direct commercial intent. We'll do our best to only approve unpaid collaboration briefs that follow our house rules, but please do get in touch if you feel a collaboration opportunity you receive doesn't follow these guidelines.
As we provide both paid freelance job opportunities, as well as collaboration requests, you have the choice to opt-out from receiving specific kinds of opportunities, to give you the flexibility to focus on your goals. You can opt back in at any time, as your practice changes.
You can find more info about how our platform woks here.
Through our experience freelancing in the creative industries, we came to the conclusion that while freelancing has so many benefits, in terms of freedom and flexibility, it's genuinely a complicated and intricate process. Not only do you have to focus on your creative practice, but you also have to be your own manager. And being your own manager is tiring and time-consuming. You end up having to take care of a whole range of tasks that have nothing to do with your art - from finance, to CRM, and more.
We are working hard to release new features that include contracts, invoicing, account management and much more. Keep an eye out for that, and if you want to become a beta tester, get in touch!
