Catalyst for philanthropy

Forty million pounds of Lottery money is to be made available as part of Arts Council England’s (ACE) new Catalyst Arts fund, designed to help arts organisations encourage philanthropic giving. This is the first of the five goals laid out in ACE’s NPO strategy document to have the details published. Other areas where strategic funding is being developed include digital, capital and touring, with further details on these expected in September.

Catalyst Arts will have three strands: The first is a £30m pot of Lottery funds to be invested in “an integrated match-funding and capacity building scheme”, which aims to increase arts organisations’ ability to fundraise for themselves. Details of how the scheme will work have yet to be confirmed, but an ACE spokesperson told AP that it will be open to all arts organisations regardless of NPO status, but that “we anticipate that organisations wanting to apply for a three-year award will need to speak to their regional Arts Council office for advice before making an application”.

The fund will offer tailored awards that cover a three-year period and will be open to individual organisations or those working together which already have some experience of fundraising. ACE said: “most arts organisations above a certain size will have some experience, but the degree of this, and their capacity to fundraise on a regular basis in a sustainable way, varies widely. The £30m fund is designed to help organisations who know the basics, but need to build their skills and capacity for fundraising, to enable them to make a step change in their fundraising capabilities.” The grants will be split into two: organisations will be expected to spend the first year capacity-building and preparing, before using the remaining two years of funds to explore “ways of using match-funding to generate and secure new private giving”. ACE anticipates that this £30m will enable arts organisations to generate around £25m of new money from private giving by 2015, and organisations will be expected to share their findings – good and bad – with others as a condition of the funding. The exact details of how much organisations will be expected to raise in order to receive the match-funding are yet to be finalised.

The second tranche of funding is £7m to be invested in a one-off grant scheme to support arts organisations with less experience to build their fundraising capacity. These awards will range from £15,000-£25,000, with the aim of providing organisations with the skills they need to begin to raise, or increase, their private income. ACE told AP that “The £7m fund is aimed at organisations – probably smaller – which have little or no fundraising track record. That may be because they are too small or new to have anyone on their team with the necessary skills, or time to undertake fundraising activities.” The last strand, of £3m, will be invested in making practical advice on how to secure new sources of funding available, including sharing the knowledge gained from Catalyst Arts with the wider sector. Further initiatives which will form part of the DCMS’s £80m scheme to boost private giving to the arts, of which this is part, will be announced in the autumn.

Alan Davey, Chief Executive of ACE said: “We wanted [this scheme] to be different from match-funding that has gone before. We said we wanted it to enhance – and not simply replace – existing gifts, and that it should work for arts organisations of all shapes and sizes, even those who have little experience of fundraising.” ACE told AP that Catalyst’s awards will consequently “be tailored to individual organisations allowing them to be creative in the way they use the match funding to generate new private giving and build long-term resilience.”

ACE has yet to finalise the application criteria and procedure, although further details will be available shortly. The spokesperson said: “there won’t be a prescriptive formula for who fits into what fund or, indeed, precisely what actions they choose to take to increase their levels of private giving. We anticipate that these things will be determined by conversations with the Arts Council, centring on the needs, ideas and ambitions of the organisation itself.”