The Stage

Arts & Business - culture sector needs its own Comic Relief

Published Tuesday 23 March 2010 at 17:30 by Alistair Smith

Arts & Business intends to launch an arts fund-raising campaign following the model of Comic Relief, as one of five new initiatives designed to help the cultural sector generate £1 billion of annual investment from private funders by 2016.

The proposal is one of five ‘key priority recommendations’ made by A&B in a new consultation document entitled A Private Sector Policy for the Arts. The campaign would be led by the City of London’s financial sector in a bid to stimulate donations to the arts from individuals working in big business.

Launching the document, A&B chief executive Colin Tweedy said: “We are going to investigate creating a campaign for the arts like Comic Relief - as important to generate funds for the arts, led initially by the financial community. We are looking at a programme that is UK-based but also international. We know how successful Sport Relief was and this has never been tackled to raise similar funds for the arts. We’re going to test the water, but we don’t know what it will be yet.”

The organisation’s four other priorities are a return to a matching grant programme, whereby business sponsorship is matched by public funding, a new challenge fund to encourage giving from the general public, a concerted bid to improve legacy programmes in the arts, and tax reforms. The organisation also wants arts bodies to reach a “gold standard” of having their income split a third from earnings, a third from the public sector and a third from the private sector.

The policy document will undergo a two-month consultation period and a final report will be published and presented to ministers after the general election.

“What we’re trying to do is to provide whoever is the new political masters with the tools to raise the money from the private sector and our target is £1 billion by the year 2016,” explained Tweedy.

In 2008/9, the arts received investment of £654.9 million, down 7% from its 2007/8 peak of £686 million. Despite this, Tweedy has insisted the organisation’s target of £1 billion is “ambitious, but feasible”.

The full report is available at www.aandb.org.uk