Northings pays its editor, writers and reviewers a professional rate, to ensure that we bring you the highest quality of coverage of the arts and culture in the Highlands and Islands. This means that, on average, it costs £1500 a month to maintain Northings, with the vast bulk of that sum going to writers based across the Highlands and Islands. Because the site is based on WordPress, hosting and web maintenance costs are kept to a minimum.

Since its inception Northings has been supported by Highlands and Islands Enterprise but, due to overall budget cuts, HIE has had to reduce its support in 2012/13, and it may be reduced further in succeeding years. We’re therefore appealing to the Northings community to help us keep the site going with the same level of coverage and with a number of new features planned to come on stream in future months.

Apart from links to Amazon, which produce a small income for Northings from every ‘click through’ which results in a sale, we’ve avoided placing advertising on the site as we believe that to do so would compromise the clarity and authority of the site. Nonetheless, we’re actively looking for sponsors or major donors who would work with us to respect and promote Northings’ values. But every donation, no matter how small, will make a difference.