Opening Doors for All: Funding Arts for the Future

Philanthropy Company: Jan 2024 Final

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Ian: Welcome to The Arts And Everything In Between Podcast, brought to you by Ticketsolve.

At The Arts and Everything In Between we chat with industry leaders and specialists about some of the big issues facing professionals working in arts, culture, heritage and live entertainment .

Priya Patel: In this episode, we speak to Liz Purchase from The Philanthropy Company, who shares her insights into the current funding picture in the UK, and how arts organizations can use diverse fundraising strategies to help build more sustainable organizations. Liz highlights the work Philanthropy Company has done to help organizations with capital projects, as well as looking at funding strategies that help meet outreach and audience development goals.

So, without further ado Here is the Arts and Everything in Between.

Welcome to the Arts and Everything in Between podcast. I’m your host, Priya Patel, and today [00:01:00] I am really delighted to welcome Liz Purchase to the podcast. Liz is a Senior Consultant for Arts and Heritage at the Philanthropy Company. Philanthropy Company is a fundraising consultancy dedicated to providing strategic advice, practical support, and expert training for charitable organizations, philanthropists, and corporate donors seeking to improve lives and transform futures.

Liz has extensive fundraising and development experience in the arts, heritage, and culture sectors, having worked closely with the development and senior management team. Teams of national organizations, including English Heritage, Historic England, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the National Churches Trust.

She has supported several high profile multi million pound capital projects and secured six and seven figure grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly HLF, Arts Council England, and Private Charitable Trust. So, today Liz is going to [00:02:00] take us through the arts funding picture and highlight some opportunities and strategies that arts, culture, and heritage organizations can use in their strategic plans for funding.

Um, so Liz, thank you so much for joining us today. This is a real pleasure and, uh, I mean, I can’t wait to get stuck into this.

Liz Purchase: Thank you. Um, it’s great to meet you. It’s great to have you today.

Priya Patel: So I wondered, Liz, if, um, you could kick off and just maybe give our listeners a little bit more about your background and

Liz Purchase: how you got started.

Yeah, sure. I actually went to art school a long time ago and studied painting and then realized that living in London, it’s quite expensive and I needed to get a job. So my, my journey was working in arts organizations, helping on the ground from. All kinds of office processes and events management. And then found myself working at the Royal Academy of Arts in the development office.

And from there, I developed my skills and experience in fundraising and have worked for various different [00:03:00] heritage organizations. And now, as a consultant with a philanthropy company, I continue to work. With a range of, uh, clients from large theatres and museums down to smaller charities that are working at a grassroots level with communities to provide opportunities in the arts and culture to benefit social groups and improve neighbourhoods.

The Philanthropy Company was set up by Caroline Underwood, our Chief Executive. One years ago, working on fundraising for landmark cultural and place making projects like the 2012 Olympics cultural legacy. And I was delighted to join philanthropy company about five years ago to work with arts and heritage clients.

We have quite a kind of wide range of clients, so I work with the, the Ron Bear School in London to Westway, which is a charity, supporting the community around the Westway flyover and around Notting Hill. [00:04:00] So quite different clients, but ultimately what I do is. Uh, work to secure funding so that organizations can continue to improve and develop their activities.

Priya Patel: Wow. Interesting. I’d love to hear more about what got you really interested in development.

Liz Purchase: The Royal Academy of Arts has got a really big, um, development department, um, and it’s probably grown significantly since I was there, um, 15 odd years ago. Um, they’re, they’re an independent organization and it might be a surprise to some people, but they don’t actually receive any government funding or statutory funding and ultimately meaning that they are dependent on fundraising to maintain their independence.

Starting to look under the bonnet of how that actually works became quite interesting because starting out from a different perspective as a kind of as a creative or somebody that went to art school and was interested in the hands on activity of making art, starting [00:05:00] to see it from the other side about how that works from a business perspective was quite interesting.

So the development department at the RA was a really great opportunity for me. It was a real kind of baptism of fire to see How it works and understand donor motivations and look at how the bigger picture of philanthropy supports things like the schools, the Royal Academy schools, the exhibition program.

So the famous summer show, how philanthropy supports their community outreach programs to the whole picture, really. And that’s where I started out. exploring a perspective of how you go about maintaining arts organizations and cultural organizations when there isn’t an obvious kind of direct means of government support.

That kind

Priya Patel: of, um, leads us into the first area that I wanted to talk to you about today, which was around how we have gotten to where we are now with funding for arts organizations. Can you give, um, our listeners a little bit more about the background and content? [00:06:00] Yeah,

Liz Purchase: absolutely. It’s quite an interesting broad picture because it goes through history, philanthropy and the arts.

It’s gone hand in hand for centuries, really. And just thinking back to the Victorian periods where you had the age of the big industrialists who were interested in supporting their local towns and this notion of civic pride, which was a big motivation for philanthropists during the 19th century to establish.

Museums or theatres, so we’ve moved through a period of, um, private philanthropy in the 19th century where you had, for example, uh, a learned society, a group of industrialists establishing the, what was then the Royal Manchester Institute of the Arts, um, which became the Manchester Art Gallery that we know and love today, to, um, a picture in the 20th century which, [00:07:00] uh, develops a kind of, Mixed picture relationship with.

Statutory and government funding as well as ongoing philanthropy from individuals. So the Second World War obviously had a big kind of change on how the importance of the arts was perceived in the country. And the government wanted to build back and create opportunities for people to come together through the arts and culture.

Out of that came the Arts Council, which has grown significantly since then in terms of its reach and funding programs, and it’s now a really key funder in the picture of what’s, what the opportunities are in the UK widely. It really, in some ways, is at the top of the tree in terms of The bigger funding picture, and it tends to be that other private funders, trusts and foundations, for example, follow suit in where they’re giving priorities are.

Priya Patel: And, of course, that makes sense, that Arts Council sort of sets the example in terms of priorities. I mean, [00:08:00] that could be an episode all on its own, I think. Um, but you gave us a great summary on the history of arts and culture of philanthropy and giving. So where are we now? I mean, specifically looking at the impact of the last three years.

Liz Purchase: Yeah. The last three years have obviously seen quite, quite a lot of disruption and COVID has really meant that the focus is on, has become on building back arts organizations have had to really. Think quickly and act nimbly. The funding picture during the early parts of the pandemic was, was mixed, but the government stepped in quite quickly with the cultural recovery fund to support organizations to get back on their feet.

And so that was a huge, hugely important aspects of, um, survival during the pandemic and, um, in the last kind of couple of years, um, the focus. It really is about moving forward from that, from initial kind of survival to [00:09:00] bringing back audiences, building back reserves and moving forward, re re establishing links with communities.

And yeah, it’s all about building back. And that’s where we’re seeing funders establishing opportunities for theaters, museums, orchestras. To think about how they really grow and move forward.

Priya Patel: Definitely. Yeah. I mean, we know anecdotally from the arts and cultural organizations that we work with that there was an incredible outpouring of support from the communities that they work within.

We also saw it more broadly in the numbers. Um, we released the ticket exchange tool in March 2020, which let Ticketsoft customers automate the impacts of closures and cancellations by giving audiences. Um, an easy way to donate the cost of their ticket rather than have it refunded or exchanged. And really interestingly, an overwhelming number of patrons did just that, and donated the money rather [00:10:00] than taking the refund.

Um, and I think, interestingly, a lot of tickets off customers still use this feature to encourage audiences to donate the cost of their tickets when they might sort of default to asking for a refund.

Liz Purchase: Absolutely. We saw a lot of support from donors with a passion and attachment to their local arts venues and institutions.

Priya Patel: Yeah, for sure. And it really shows how much arts and culture is valued. I think, um, many people, uh, you know, especially felt the sting of missing that sort of face to face engagement, obviously, um, during COVID, which for many organizations was, is always, has traditionally been supported by so many incredible volunteers.

Liz Purchase: The whole picture of volunteering in the UK is really healthy. And positive and really encouraging that in terms of the heritage sector, they in many ways are quite reliant on their army of volunteers across historic sites that are able to support [00:11:00] visitors. It’s often not always, but often retired people who are able to volunteer their time and experience and passion to, to really make sure that visitors.

are having an outstanding experience. And that’s something that we’re seeing, despite lockdowns, there was lots of online activity and volunteers were able to support arts and heritage organizations to keep contact, to keep in touch with people, creating online opportunities through all kinds of community efforts to, to make sure people.

Just kept in touch and maintained an interest in arts and heritage locally.

Priya Patel: Amazing. Wow. I mean, it really does show how much dedication they have. Um, and I wondered what you are seeing now then, sort of post COVID, in terms of funding challenges. I think there’s

Liz Purchase: always challenges in capital fundraising projects because there can be, it can be, there can be quite a bit of competition.

So we’ve seen in the last few years, which has been great capital [00:12:00] projects start up again. So during the pandemic, obviously. The curtains were drawn and no activity was going on in terms of developing capsule programs. Nobody was thinking about opening a new wing for their museum or taking a collection out on the road like the National Gallery are doing now as part of their 200th anniversary program.

Now that there’s a kind of renewed energy post pandemic and it’s all about building back and, and reaching out, there’s a bit of competition and it’s important for clients to look at. almost do a competitor analysis, and that’s something that we’re helping clients to do. We can, we can actually work with them to identify the biggest challenges and who their competitors are and how, how you could plan around that.

Priya Patel: Gosh, yeah. I mean, you hate to think of arts, culture, and heritage in terms of competition. But you’re so right. I mean, there are so many demands on visitors and audiences, attentions. Everyone is working with limited funds and everyone is looking to build back as quickly as possible. It really does force you to think [00:13:00] strategically, I guess.

Um, I know one thing that we’re working on with a lot of our customers in, and I know that it’s in the forefront of so many people’s minds who work in the sector is how to build More financial independence within their organizations. I think the COVID years sort of really brought that home, um, for a lot of us working in the arts.

Um, how do you see this, um, in terms of funding, sort of this building back financial independence, um, and sort of maximizing opportunities for building that kind of financial stability?

Liz Purchase: Yeah, absolutely. The funding picture is in the UK is, is mixed in the sense that. You have the large statutory or public funders like the Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage programs.

And it means that they can create a foundation for capital works. So building programs, opening new wings to a museum or a theater, building [00:14:00] a workshop, rehearsal space, or a community room attached to a theater or a museum. And in line with that, you also have trust and foundation opportunities. Those are the private charitable trusts established by philanthropists, by families, wealthy families, etc.

And then you have the area of individual giving, and that’s from the major donors, so high net worth individuals who have a particular Passion for the art form that they support, down to, um, individual giving a kind of a lower level, but just as, just as valuable in many ways where you have a large number of people giving a small amount to maybe a crowdfunding program or a challenge event.

So it’s a mixed picture, but all of that funding opportunity that’s out there means that organizations can remain. Independent and are not completely reliant on one source of funding. In terms of [00:15:00] maximizing opportunities and how you access funds, there’s a link back to your vision and strategy as an organization and how strong that is.

And. Maximizing funding opportunities is really about how you visualize your vision from the get go as an organization and being aware that to access the broadest reach of quality funding opportunities and how you plan your strategy will be woven into How you approach your audiences, how you develop your relationships with audiences.

So whether that’s how you plan your interpretation, if you’re a museum, or how you take workshops out into the community if you’re a theatre or orchestra to engage with different audiences.

Priya Patel: Engaging new and different audiences and reaching out to new communities, um, really [00:16:00] seems like one of the big, big goals for 2024 for a lot of organizations. Um, and certainly those sorts of outreach and engagement programs can definitely be lifted by good fundraising strategies. Yeah, I

Liz Purchase: think the vision of an organization can really benefit and be hugely positive by looking at what’s relevant locally.

how you can bring in your local community in imaginative ways. So Factory International Aviva Studios is a brilliant example of that, of a new arts venue and hub designed to engage new audiences and different communities. It follows the success of the Manchester International Festival. In bringing people from all walks of life together to, to participate, co create and enjoy culture.

So young, old, intergenerational projects, families, diverse communities, they all then have a stake in the success of a new arts hub and cultural projects. And this has [00:17:00] a positive impact to the local economy too. Philanthropy company work closely with Manchester City Council and Factory International on the initial scoping, prospecting and fundraising strategy of Aviva Studios.

Um, and we were delighted to see that it’s now open. And at the heart of the city’s cultural picture, uh, and talking of, of Manchester, Philanthropy Company were also delighted to help English National Opera this year in making their decision to move their second home to Manchester. So we help them to scope funding opportunities in the area, and a lot of those are focused on community development and how to engage new and more diverse audiences.

Another project, one that Philanthropy Company was also delighted to work on was an outreach project for Saffron Hall, which developed a fundraising approach for supporting Essex schools that lack music education provision. So Saffron Hall is an international standard performing arts venue. [00:18:00] Inside a secondary school, it’s quite unique and it’s really state of the art, a state of the art venue.

And attracts high profile stars like Courtney Pine, Jess Gilliam, orchestras from across Europe. But it’s based in a part of the country which is poorly served and underfunded in the arts. So we help them to secure a grant from a major UK foundation. So that they could develop their learning and enable young people in the area to experience the kind of music projects and orchestral experiences that they would normally not be able to participate in.

So as an outreach project, um, it really would benefit, um, Young people and children from all walks of life.

Priya Patel: Wow. That is really incredible. And, and what I’m really hearing, I mean, loud and clear, I think is how important it is to really explore funding [00:19:00] opportunities to help drive your organizational goals and mission.

Liz Purchase: It’s about understanding your vision in many ways as an organization and how you work towards that. So there may be an immediate kind of necessity to raise funds for a particular project, whether that’s a capital project, improving a part of the building which needs upgrading or installing digital equipment to help a school program and engagement program.

Or it could be something that’s related to curatorial. So it could be how you take your collection beyond the base of where you are. Like the National Gallery is now doing a program where they’re taking their collection out of London, across the whole of the UK to engage audiences. In terms of your strategy as an organization, it’s, it’s a big picture and it should relate to your mission, vision, and your organizational goals.

Uh, it’s all hands on deck in, in many ways from senior management team down [00:20:00] to making sure that the volunteers are on board with fundraising, making sure that if you have community program, the Audiences are going to benefit in the long term from your vision, whether that’s about seeing intergenerational projects where you get families from across the community coming together or improving your interpretations.

Priya Patel: And I wonder, sort of in line with what you’re talking about there, could you touch a little bit on Arts Council England’s strategy around this, sort of to help tie all of this together and, and really drive home what this means for

Liz Purchase: organizations? Basically, Let’s Create is the Arts Council strategy and funding principles are based around co creation and creative communities, uh, how people can directly engage.

with arts, um, and culture. So there’s some key points around ambition and quality that they look for when they’re making decisions when they get applications. It’s, there’s a strong focus on inclusivity and relevance [00:21:00] for communities and that touches on the diversity of arts organizations in modern Britain and how you actively engage with underserved groups or people that don’t traditionally engage with your arts organization and looking to appeal to a broader range of people in the community.

And they’re also looking for environmental responsibility and how, as a venue, you may want to adjust your facilities so that they’re in line with really important issues around environmental responsibility and having clear targets and programs. So they’re looking forward to support specific relevance.

Modern challenges, the total national portfolio giving is just under 500 million per year. And the national portfolio is all the big names. So you’d expect to see each city with a handful of national portfolio organizations in Manchester. For example, Manchester MPOs [00:22:00] include BOOM or the Grace of Manchester Arts Centre, the Lowry and Salford, Manchester Arts Gallery.

Museum, the Royal Jane Theatre, all the names that you’d expect to see, they’re probably going to be an Arts Council NPO. And yeah, like I say, NPO funding is, it’s just under 500 million a year and all the decisions that are made to where the funding goes are based around those Let’s Create principles through ambition, quality, inclusivity, relevance.

Dynamism and environmental responsibility to have a number of different funding parts, if you like, don’t look okay. It’s a kind of overall strategy. It’s 20, 20, 20, 30. The current open project grant, who at the back, the pen access for. Art libraries and museums and the arts council funds thousands of individual artists as well under that program.

They have also in the current open round [00:23:00] museum estate and development funds, the mend fund, libraries improvement funds. You have a current capital investment program and finally the music hub investment program. So there’s currently five rounds that we support clients to access those funds and anthropy companies.

So we’ll help you to articulate and create a bid, which is based around your strategy and funding your fundraising, your fundraising plan.

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Priya Patel: I’d love to know a little bit more about how philanthropy company works. What role do you play and how does the process work if an organization wanted to work with you?

Liz Purchase: Yeah, so when, when we sit down to, to work out how best to approach. A fundraising strategy for a client. We look at the whole picture where they have opportunities to apply for [00:25:00] public funding, whether they have a capital program that’s on the horizon, and they’re looking for a specific curatorial projects, or is it about some core funding that they need?

We’ll work with them to find the best way to move forward with a fundraising plan and how to articulate your case support to approach funders. When we look at the bigger picture, we’ll, we tend to advise a multi phase approach is good if it’s a larger project, but equally we can work quite nimbly, helicoptering and work over a shorter piece of time to identify funding and then roll up our sleeves and write bids, write applications.

There’s that whole world of prospecting, but it depends on what the organization is looking to achieve, but ultimately we can, because we’re such a kind of. a skilled and experienced team with lots of different disciplines. We can work quite quickly to find solutions and access funding for them. So one of the clients that we worked with in recent years at the philanthropy company is the Rombert [00:26:00] School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance.

And they’re based in Twickenham and they have connections with the Rombert company itself, that they’re, they’re an independent school that was established a hundred years ago. And we actually went into to support a capital project a few years ago to coincide with their 100th anniversary. And it meant building a completely new studio, um, which was a successful operation that opened the new Western studio earlier this year.

So that was really a great example of where we went in and worked through a sort of multi phase approach over about an 18 month period to look at right from the beginning, opening up the files, looking through all the historic data of what funders they’ve had in the past. Re engaging those funders, uh, looking for opportunities with trusts and foundations, whether or not there was Arts Council funding available.

And we were actually work in house with them. So lots of trips on the train down to Twickenham, sitting in the offices, watching fabulous lessons going on next [00:27:00] door with these incredible energetic students. It was really wonderful to be based in the Rhombus school while we were helping them to fundraise and ultimately succeeded and we were able to raise.

Around half of the initial target in the first year that we worked with them on the capsule campaign. And it was great to see this year, the final Western studio, the new Western studio opened and understand how that not just supports the students and the staff, but Improves the opportunities for engagement with local communities.

So they have a program of learning during the summer, which means that local kids can come in and experience ballet and contemporary dance. Maybe get a taste for it, get stuck in and have a go, whereas they might. Not had that opportunity typically. So it can be quite expensive for kids to go to, to dance classes, but the, the summer program in the new studio that we help them to fundraise means that there’s opportunities for local kids to go along and have a go and really get a taste of something that they might discover a [00:28:00] passion with.

They had a huge challenge between starting the program to raise capital funds for the, the hundredth anniversary where they actually. landed this year. So during the pandemic, obviously less opportunities to engage directly with funders, but that. Didn’t stop them from really continuing the strategy that we’d put in place in 2019.

So using the plan that we’d, we’d helped them to establish, continuing to look at the roadmap and engage with the trustee network that we’d helped them to put together, um, And yeah, to continue the re relationships with trust and foundations that they’d had over several years was really key, I think. And we’ve kickstarted that during 2019.

So they were able to then continue during the pandemic and, and through to the other side. And, and one, once we worked with a client, we continue the relationship and we’re always happy to come back into the fold and, and work with them to develop a new strategy or look at a new area of, of, um, what’s [00:29:00] required in, in terms of their vision.

We have long term clients that we’ve worked with over, over many years. So it’s always great to maintain those relationships and help them develop over a longer period of time.

Priya Patel: This has been such an interesting conversation, Liz. Thank you again so much. But before we close everything off, I wonder, do you have any sort of advice, ideas, strategies for senior leadership teams at arts organizations?

So, uh,

Liz Purchase: I guess, uh, The key takeaway for leadership teams of all arts and cultural organizations, whether it’s a theatre, a traveling orchestra, an established museum, is to think about widening participation. It’s so relevant to your own community and your own organization, but it’s also a hugely relevant aspect of funders criteria.

Funders are looking for evidence of how organizations are [00:30:00] developing, widening participation. And actually at the philanthropy company, we help clients to articulate that and to help them plan successfully around engaging with different communities. For the benefit of your organization, as well as for your local town and city.

I I’d say the phrase, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It’s quite poignant in fundraising. And there’s many examples where planning is a really key aspects of successful fundraising and taking an approach which brings in all your energies as an organization is about your passion about ultimately.

Of circulating what you love about your organization and how you develop that, how you grow it for new and different audiences. Fantastic.

Priya Patel: Fantastic. Incredible. And, and any other resources you’d like to share? On

Liz Purchase: our website. It’s an amazing podcast with our team. There’s a video that our chief [00:31:00] executive and founder, Caroline Underwood, where she talks about the importance of green philanthropy.

It’s also lots of articles and areas of interest if you’re looking at fundraising. Wow.

Priya Patel: This has really been incredible, Liz. Thank you so much. Um, again, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, maybe talk a little bit more about fundraising, some of the concerns or challenges that they might be having.

Liz Purchase: Yeah, absolutely happy to chat, even if it’s just a kind of no obligation chat about what their fundraising plans are. I’m happy to do that. Just, they can just drop me a line. It’s just Liz at philanthropycompany. com. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Oh, you’re welcome.

Priya Patel: You’re welcome

Priya Patel: what a great opportunity for a deep dive into fundraising and development with really a leader and expert in the field. I think what Liz really drove home for me is that while we all know that fundraising and development are of course critical to helping our organizations to build back, especially after the last [00:32:00] three years, um, looking at funding diversity more.

can really help, um, organizational missions and goals and help us get there. I think especially exciting is, um, where development can really move the dials in terms of outreach, inclusion, and arts accessibility in our communities.

That’s it from all of us here at The Arts and Everything in Between. A big thank you this week to Liz Purchase and Philanthropy Company for taking the time to speak with us and being very, very patient during the editing process.

Without professionals like Liz who are willing to share their insights and expertise, we would have no show. So thank you again. And if you have a topic you’d like us to cover or would like to come on to the show as a guest, definitely please get in touch. Email us at podcast at tickets sell. com. The arts and everything in between is brought to you by.

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Thank you again and see you next time on The [00:34:00] Arts and Everything in Between when we chat to Crescent Arts about failing fast.