Analysis

Arts legacies: A slow start, but a brighter future?

Fundraising | Meg Abdy | 18 Jan 2011

Arts organisations are being pushed to fundraise more and more, but they still lag generations behind other charities in their legacy income and marketing. In an exclusive analysis, Meg Abdy discusses exclusive research into the state of arts legacies in the UK.

Last October, an extraordinary event took place at the Theatre Royal Bath. A cast of 180 local volunteers took part in an epic production of Ben Hur, complete with sword fights and chariot races.

But the performance was remarkable not only for its huge scale, or its impact on the local community, but also for how it was funded. The production was sparked by a significant legacy from former Archers actress Margot Boyd (Mrs Antrobus to her fans).  Boyd wanted to give local people the chance to experience - and hopefully fall in love with - theatre the way she had.

Today, both government and policymakers hope that many more people will follow Margot Boyd’s example, and leave money to the arts in their wills. Cultural organisations, perhaps even more than other types of charity, are feeling the pain of government cuts.

Funding body Arts Council England has suffered a 30 per cent budget cut, while local authorities across the country are slashing (and in some cases closing) their cultural programmes. The crisis in public funding has accentuated arts organisations’ need to diversify their income, raising more from trading (including ticket sales, gift shops and cafes – currently 32 per cent of income) and individual giving (currently just 8 per cent of income).

Like the Labour Government before it, the Con-Dem coalition is looking to the cultural sector to raise its fundraising game. In December, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt announced an £80m matched fund to boost philanthropy in the arts. This spring, Arts Council England will launch a series of new initiatives to support arts fundraisers, including training, mentoring, research and development and awareness raising. 

In this brave new world, legacies have come under special scrutiny. A sector-wide legacy campaign was one of five strategic recommendations from Arts & Business to grow fundraised income. Meanwhile, Hunt used the launch of the matched arts fund to outline his ambition for the UK to become “the first country in the world where it is normal for people to leave 10 percent of their legacy to charity”.

Last November Legacy Foresight, in partnership with sector think-tank Arts Quarter, set out to explore current legacy performance and practice in the arts.  We used an online survey to ask a series of questions. How many arts organisations are receiving gifts in wills, how many do they get and how much are they worth? How – if at all – do arts organisations promote the idea of legacy giving to their supporters? How much resource do they commit? What methods do they use to engage with stakeholders? And how important is legacy marketing to their future strategy?

Arts legacies low and not promoted

In all, 198 cultural organisations responded, from a representative range of art-forms, sizes and locations. Our respondents ranged from national institutions such as the National Theatre, the Imperial War Museum and Glyndebourne, to local powerhouses such as Hull Truck Theatre Company, Polka Children’s Theatre and Derby Dance. Here’s what they told us.

In the arts, levels of legacy income are low. Just 41 per cent of the organisations surveyed had received any gifts in wills over the past three years. Among those receiving legacies, 77 per cent had received fewer than ten bequests over three years, and over half received less than £25,000 a year from this source. Only one of the sample (a large, national institution) received over £500,000 a year in legacies – putting it on a par with a ‘typical’ local hospice. (To put it in context, charity market leader Cancer Research UK receives around £3m a week from legacies).

This relatively poor performance is perhaps not surprising, given that just 38 per cent of respondents actively promote the idea of legacy giving to their supporters.  (In fact, according to a recent Arts & Business survey, less than 20 per cent of arts charities do any form of legacy marketing, suggesting our survey attracted the legacy converts). It would appear that arts lovers are writing unsolicited gifts into their wills, without the knowledge or engagement of the organisations concerned.  

There were many reasons given for not promoting legacy giving. The most common were a lack of capacity (27 per cent), more pressing priorities (21 per cent), and a perceived lack of expertise (18 per cent). A fifth (21 per cent) of arts organisations without an active legacy strategy admitted that they had “never thought of working on this”.

Of those who do promote legacy giving, the resources deployed are also low compared to other types of charity.  Only one organisation employed a dedicated legacy manager. Almost half of the organisations pursuing a legacy fundraising strategy (46 per cent) had made no discrete staffing provision of any kind – looking to resource their legacy activities as a modest adjunct to a current role within their fundraising or marketing resource. Even among the 30 largest organisations surveyed (those with total income over £5m), the most likely staffing was a part-time middle-ranking fundraiser or less.

Challenges facing arts legacies

However, there is a growing awareness of the potential legacies can bring. Half of all the arts organisations surveyed told us that legacy income will be important to their organisation in the next five years. A quarter described it as very or extremely important.

Legacy fundraising may prove challenging for the cultural sector for a number of reasons. First, capacity. Beyond the largest institutions, many arts organisations are struggling to get up to speed with fundraising in general, much less legacy marketing. 

Second, tangibility. Many legators prefer to leave money for concrete projects, where they can imagine objective, measurable outcomes (this is particularly true of the baby boomers, who would love to extend their control from beyond the grave!). In contrast, many arts programmes are seen as ephemeral and hard to define.

And finally, longevity.  Many arts organisations have been founded in the past 30 years. Legacy Foresight’s past research has shown that legators tend to give to the causes they grew up with – hence the dominance of Victorian and early twentieth century charities in today’s legacy league table. This pattern was reflected by the arts organisations in our survey. Over three quarters of the 35 organisations founded before 1950 had received gifts in wills over the past three years, Conversely, only 19 per cent of the 95 responding organisations founded after 1981 had received any legacies in the past three years.

Advantage arts

Despite the risks, smart arts organisations may also enjoy significant opportunities in legacies. They are known to appeal to those vital major donors - we estimate that around half of all legacy income comes from just 5 per cent of large bequests. According to the Coutts Million Dollar Donors Report 2009, arts and culture accounted for 23 per cent of the £1bn given by individuals as £1m+ donations.  Wealthy baby boomers may represent particular potential for arts organisations – as they reach retirement, this group has the time, the energy and (despite the recession) the money to engage with culture, which will stand arts charities  in good stead from 2020 onwards, when the boomer population starts to decline.      

Some of the best–loved theatres, museums and galleries are rooted in local communities – and our research shows the fastest growing legacy sectors, such as hospices, wildlife trusts and air ambulances often have a strong local fan base. And culture may not be easily measurable, but it does provide enormous pleasure and sometimes changes lives too – as Margot Boyd would I’m sure testify. 

Meg Abdy is the director of Legacy Foresight.

Picture courtesy of V&A. 

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