An £80m match fund for arts philanthropy is one part of a “highly ambitious” ten-pronged plan to increase giving to the arts announced today by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
Hunt heralded his department’s ten-point plan to increase arts philanthropy as a “major new approach” to arts funding and giving, combining, he said, the best of US-style private support and European-style state funding.
Coming just a few months after his government announced massive cuts to public funding of the arts, Hunt was quick to stress that the government wasn’t seeking to substitute voluntary income for state grants. "Philanthropy is not about replacing state funding with private support," he said.
"Even though the very nature of philanthropy puts the onus on the private sector, the government is not prepared to just sit back and do nothing to make it happen.
"Instead we will play an active role in making sure that our sector can get the very most from the resources that are out there. But above all we are targeting a horizon shift: a generational change in the culture of giving that may be ten or 20 years in the making."
The ten-point plan, announced today in a speech to the European Association of Planned Giving (EAPG), included a wide range of initiatives, including making 2011 the 'Year of Corporate Philanthropy' and government plans to conduct a cross-sector review of how to increase giving, which will be due for release in spring.
A consistent theme within the ten points is the increasing of fundraising capacity, donor recognition and general fundraising best practice among arts organisations, both at the national and local level.
£80m match fund targets big and small
The £80m match fund scheme will be launched in 2011 and is aiming to reach arts organisations across the spectrum. The scheme, which is funded from DCMS coffers and from up to £50m from the Arts Council England over five years, hopes to help small organisations build their fundraising capacity, non-London-based larger organisations to identify potentially significant local donors and to encourage national organisations to set up “world class endowment funds”.
"Should we not start our own endowment century now?" said Hunt.
"In a hundred years' time I want people to look back and say that the multi-billion pound endowments owned by our national cultural organisations put their first roots in the ground back in 2010."
10 per cent legacy norm
Amid predictable aims to improve donor stewardship, remove barriers, encourage evangelist-philanthropists, harness digital technology and strengthen links between arts and other charities, Hunt also set a rather ambitious goal for legacy fundraising.
As part of the ten-point plan produced by the DCMS, Hunt outlined the aim to create a norm for people to leave a legacy worth 10 per cent of the value of their estate to charity in their wills. The target, which would set the UK up as the only country in the world with such generous legators, is part of an overall commitment set out in the plan to promote and increase all forms of planned giving.
“Not just more giving, but more effective giving, more planned giving, and more long-term relationships between the arts and their supporters,” said Hunt.
