Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 January 2013
122. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the extent to which he expects the arts to attract private sector or voluntary funding in the course of the current year; the way this might be used to incentivise development of the sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4807/13]
View answerLast May I announced the introduction of a new philanthropic initiative on a pilot basis for arts and culture organisations. The initiative - the Philanthropic Leverage Initiative - was designed to encourage philanthropic sponsorship and endowment of the arts from private sources. The initiative, established with funding of €230,000 for 2012, has provided an incentive to arts organisations to proactively seek new funding relationships with sponsors which deliver private sector financial support, thereby increasing overall funding available to the arts. The initiative was available across projects of varying scale, geography and art forms to not-for-profit organisations for arts programming projects. The organisations approved for funding under the initiative were required to procure matching philanthropic funds and complete their drawdown from my Department in 2012. Matched funding could not come from public funds or from any public sector organisation. It was anticipated that a multiple of 3.5 on the pilot initiative funds of €230,000 will result in philanthropic funding of some €800,000 being raised for the arts. The initiative proved very successful with a multiplier of 4.26 in philanthropic donations being leveraged for the arts. I am considering a similar scheme in 2013.
The Leverage Initiative was run in parallel with a second initiative - the Arts Council's RAISE: Building Fundraising Capacity pilot initiative. This initiative provides one-to-one professional support to eight selected organisations for two years through planning and implementing a tailored fundraising programme. This initiative will help those art organisations build and resource their capacity to attract philanthropic giving. In developing this complementary programme, the Arts Council has identified that it is vital for art groups to develop, agree and implement an effective fundraising strategy and to properly resource that fundraising function.
My Department has also provided support to Business to Arts (a not-for-profit organisation working to support resilience and transformation in the cultural sector through research, innovation and partnership) for a number of years and, in each of the last three years, this has been allocated to delivery of the New Stream Programme, which builds fundraising skills in the cultural sector in Ireland (The Bank of America Merrill Lynch investment in this project is €400k over three years).
In 2010 my Department also awarded a €20,000 grant under the Cultural Technology Grants Scheme to Business to Arts for the ‘Fund it’ initiative. Business to Arts initially matched this figure with private funding and since then has attracted additional foundation funds to this project. Fund it is a new all-island "crowdfunding" website for Ireland’s creative projects, giving everyone the power to help good ideas happen. 'Fund it' is designed to support greater individual giving to the creative sector; the approach serves to strengthen the bond between a creator and their audience which offers the potential for wider-ranging, long-term relationships. In late 2012 I also hosted a conference on philanthropy and the arts and a number of follow-on actions arose from that event.
