Catalyst ignites arts fundraising push

173 of the 350 applicants to Arts Council England’s new three-year capacity building and match funding scheme, Catalyst Arts, will be sharing a £30m fund which has been created to help arts organisations become “more sustainable, resilient and innovative by increasing their fundraising potential and attracting new money to invest in additional artistic work” .

The successful organisations will be aiming to make a step-change in their approach to fundraising, using the first year’s funds to build fundraising capacity, potentially by recruiting a fundraiser. In the second and third years, funding will increasingly be used as match funding to incentivise gifts. Among the winners are Rural Media Company (Hereford) which will receive £153,705 to diversify its core income stream by introducing new creative digital arts projects, and Rich Mix and the Albany in Deptford, who get £240,000 to showcase how partnership in fundraising works in practice. Successful applicants to the £55m Catalyst Endowments scheme, which will offer match funding to help arts organisations build endowments that provide an annual income, will be announced at the end of June; and a £7m programme to support arts organisations with little or no fundraising experience will be launched in the autumn.