The public debate on private giving

Philanthropy can only supplement arts funding, not be a substitute for it. And so Arts & Business looks to confirm in its new report what the sector has suspected ever since Conservative ministers first began talking up the benefits of a US-style funding system.

The headline figure here isn’t that almost three-quarters of arts organisations have stepped up their fundraising campaigns in the past six months, but that just 2% of all “philanthropically active individuals” in Britain contribute their cash to the arts. The likes of Lord Sainsbury, whose £25m donation to the British Museum made headlines last month, have always been rare.

But, surely, that tiny 2% suggests that the full potential of private giving in the UK remains untapped by the cultural sector? It’s a statistic that Jeremy Hunt, I’m sure, will be keen to emphasise while rebuffing claims that the value of private giving in the UK is wildly overestimated.

And yet, no. A&B, whose very business it is to broker money deals between arts organisations and private donors and corporations, admit that the wealthy are incredibly “hard to reach” and that they’re only ever interested in London’s major players: the Nationals or the Tates.

For any other, particularly regional, organisation in the country, private investment in the arts is far from the answer to growth for the sector. Moreover, even A&B admits that the market may already be saturated. The opportunity, instead, is to focus on existing support bases, implement friends’ schemes, or try crowdfunding. Essentially, diversifying income streams (AP225) to help steer companies away from sole reliance on public subsidy. Easier said, of course, than done.

Bridging the gap
Gemma Bodinetz. Vicki Featherstone. Iwona Blazwick. Julia Peyton Jones. Monica Mason. Jude Kelly. Kathryn McDowell. See? Look! Plenty of top women in top jobs, directing major arts institutions across the UK.

Well, sort of. A couple of years ago, Margaret Hodge (then Culture Minister), slammed the arts for failing women, for promoting inequality and for shunting off the headline jobs to men. Ironically, at that moment, women were excelling in the arts like at no time before: more were leading major organisations; more were gaining high profile within the sector at large. But, statistically speaking, the numbers were – and still are – shoddy (p2).

The Skillset report confirms that culture has a narrow edge over the creative and media industries when it comes to supporting female talent at the top (and paying fairly for it), but not enough to make it a much more reassuring option for women wanting to lead.

The optimist in me would like to think we’ve reached a tipping point; arts organisations cannot afford not to have the most talented people at their helm. Whether a meritocracy is born out of economic necessity or a social commitment to gender equality, the idea that all men and women working in the arts will be equally judged, paid and recognised can’t be too distant a notion.