The Conservatoire, Blackheath's multi-arts centre, was on the brink of closure in 2012, until it adopted a social business model.
The Conservatoire in Blackheath was facing closure in 2012. It had provided training in music and arts to Londoners for over 140 years, with Gary Oldman and Kate Bush among its prestigious alumni. Then crippling debt forced London's oldest multi-arts institution to rethink its mission and business model. The Conservatoire is now poised not only to make a profit but to dramatically increase the scale of its social impact – aiming to engage with 10,000 children across Greenwich and Lewisham by 2017. At a time when many arts organisations are struggling to make ends meet, has the Conservatoire found a solution?
"The model was, and essentially still is, to sell music and art classes to predominantly local people but it had never been looked at as a business, and there were no financial systems," says Conservatoire chief executive Sydney Thornbury. "Language like retention, acquisition or conversion was never used."
Thornbury was appointed in 2012 with several entrepreneurial ventures already behind her, and she immediately saw that the Conservatoire was lacking a 21st century identity. Thornbury says: "I tried to open out the place and do things with humour; redesigning the look of the place, putting in a waiting room and a floral turfed piano... Keep reading on The Guardian
The Conservatoire in Blackheath was facing closure in 2012. It had provided training in music and arts to Londoners for over 140 years, with Gary Oldman and Kate Bush among its prestigious alumni. Then crippling debt forced London's oldest multi-arts institution to rethink its mission and business model. The Conservatoire is now poised not only to make a profit but to dramatically increase the scale of its social impact – aiming to engage with 10,000 children across Greenwich and Lewisham by 2017. At a time when many arts organisations are struggling to make ends meet, has the Conservatoire found a solution?
"The model was, and essentially still is, to sell music and art classes to predominantly local people but it had never been looked at as a business, and there were no financial systems," says Conservatoire chief executive Sydney Thornbury. "Language like retention, acquisition or conversion was never used."
Thornbury was appointed in 2012 with several entrepreneurial ventures already behind her, and she immediately saw that the Conservatoire was lacking a 21st century identity. Thornbury says: "I tried to open out the place and do things with humour; redesigning the look of the place, putting in a waiting room and a floral turfed piano... Keep reading on The Guardian