Nibble Scotland is delighted to welcome Jackie Brierton, Chief Executive of GrowBiz Scotland.

GrowBiz Scotland is a charity established in 2007 to support rural businesses across Scotland.

The Coronavirus crisis has had a disproportionate effect on the businesses and self-employed outwith Scotland's urban areas and without support that is specifically designed for their needs we risk losing a huge proportion of Scotland's economic activity and that means jobs, livelihoods, opportunities and life in some of our most beautiful regions.

Jackie outlines some of the new opportunities as we emerge from the COVID Lockdown with grants to help entrepreneurs to start new businesses with a support network under the umbrella REDS.

REDS - Rural Enterprise Development Scotland

REDS is a program of support that is designed specifically to support micro-businesses, social enterprises and the sell employed in rural Scotland. From nurseries to food producers, and accommodation providers to artists, GrowBiz have supported thousands of people to start and build their own businesses in Scotland's rural areas.

The Scottish and UK governments have provided much-needed temporary support, but many small enterprises and self-employed in rural areas are struggling to survive.

More than 60% of businesses in rural Scotland have closed their doors, and without our urgent support, many have no prospect of re-opening.

The REDS fund will provide flexible grants to social enterprises and small businesses in Scotland’s rural towns, villages, island communities and remotest regions - to get them and their communities back up and running.

And priority will be given to young people who want to develop their business ideas to create jobs for themselves and their peers.

REDS comprises an online directory which will be an interactive catalogue of all rural businesses in Scotland. From the directory, members can apply for grant funding up to the value of £5,000 to help them recover post-COVID and all members can access free and ongoing enterprise support.

The directory is currently being built, we are just a few weeks away from launch. But our primary focus is on building the REDS fund, we are crowdfunding to raise £3 million which would enable us to support 1,200 enterprises to re-open post-COVID.

We have the whole REDS concept neatly communicated on our crowdfunding page so please take a look at that here: www.reds.scot