Do prizes work?

Next time you open a can of tuna, you might like to note that modern food canning technology was the result of a public competition run by Napoleon. It’s an early example of a prize rewarding innovation - the military leader offered 12,000 francs to the creator of the best solution to better feed his army – and one that we’re still enjoying the benefits of today. 

In the past 50 years, prizes have proliferated, in some industries perhaps to the point of saturation – the UK has more than 45 prizes for children’s literature alone. And established recognition prizes like the Nobel Peace Prize have household name status. But what do prizes actually do?

“In the first instance it’s about the recognition,” says Sydney Thornbury, CEO of The Art House in Wakefield who won the 2022 Calouste Gulbenkian Award for Civic Arts Organisations, “the celebration of the hard work that everyone has put in. That recognition is hugely galvanising, from front of house staff, right up to board level”.

Cultural sector receives just 2% of UK philanthropic donations

The psychological lift winning a prize brings cannot be underestimated. But the financial boost for an industry facing ever more straightened budgets, as grants from ACE and local authorities decrease, can be a game-changer, as Thornbury affirms: “The Gulbenkian Award is £100,000 to the chosen organisation. That influx of income changes things – it demonstrates that we’re an organisation that can manage that level of investment, which has huge positive impacts on our capacity to go out and raise more funds. Suddenly you’re able to have conversations with people, where the door wouldn’t have been open before”.

The prestige of being named a winning organisation, coupled with the prize money, can have a transformative effect on an organisation. We live in the sixth most philanthropic nation in the world, but the cultural sector only receives around 2% of all philanthropic giving in the UK. So six years ago we created the Achates Philanthropy Prize (the brainchild of Cultural Philanthropy Foundation founder and Chair, Caroline McCormick) to celebrate and encourage first-time supporters of cultural organisations.

The Ministry of Stories told us that winning the Achates Philanthropy Prize in 2018 enabled them to create a new staff role and grow a new strand of their programme. Winning the prize multiplied the return of the original investment, leading their supporters to advocate for further funding, the tangible impact of which is that 3,641 school children in East London took part in this new strand of their work last year, with almost twice more projected in 2022. 

Partnerships with remarkable synergy

Recognition through prizes encourages innovation over a sustained period and what’s heartening about sitting on a judging panel is that you see trends building year on year. Previous winners of our Corporate Award, Candoco Dance Company, partnering with ASOS in 2019, exemplified how the right partnership can further purpose and create legacy and impact on both sides. 

This year, in an even more challenging landscape, with corporate support in decline, our shortlist reveals six more partnerships with remarkable synergy and a shared focus on inclusion of individuals and communities that have been previously underserved.

Examples include VICE which has supported Roundhouse’s Rising programme helping diverse creative talent of the future to progress careers in off-stage music roles; Sandman Hotels which has sponsored two Scottish Ballet dancers and benefitted from holistic knowledge sharing and training between the two industries; and 42 Management and Production, a talent agency which fully funded the remount of a popular production by care-experienced young people from The Big House theatre company. 

Rise in individual giving

While it may be challenging to secure corporate support in the current climate, individual giving has grown increasing by 6% from 2019 to 2021, according to the ACE Private Investment in Culture Survey 2022.

Over the past six years we’ve seen a trend towards more sophisticated and considered private investment, notably around tackling issues of access and diversity in the sector. On the shortlist for this year’s Individual Philanthropy Prize are Sam and Rose Berwick, Spread the Word donors who have committed a major gift to fund the creation of an Early Career Bursary programme for London writers on a low income.  

Indeed, there are a growing number of high-profile prizes, such as the Alfred Fagon Award and the Women’s Prize Trust – also shortlisted for this year’s Individual Award - which are striving to catalyse the advances made in global awareness of inequality and transform the cultural sector.

A transformation in attitudes and practices

The line-up of judges is crucial too. Naturally, high-profile names give a welcome boost to the public profile of a prize, but their role is far greater than that. In the case of the Achates Prize, with its mission to democratise culture, bringing together expert representatives from across the cultural sector and wider society to discuss the merits of the nominations is a deliberate thought leadership exercise. 

This year’s Achates Philanthropy Prize judging panel included experts from the fields of law and mental health. The diversity of opinion challenges us to interrogate our thinking about what we value and what practices should be encouraged and – importantly – to collaborate in a way that is rare for an industry where competition is often insidiously framed as a marker of growth. 

This transformation of attitudes and practices is perhaps the greatest value of long-running prizes. The way ahead is not clear for the cultural sector, but our hope is that the good practice championed through the Achates Prize creates a step change in how we understand stakeholdership in culture – that it vastly increases the number of people supporting cultural organisations, creating a more equitable and sustainable sector. Which would suggest that the true value of prizes, their lasting legacy, like Napoleon's contribution to modern pantries, only reveals itself fully over time. 

Paul Owens is Co-Founder of BOP and Trustee of the Cultural Philanthropy Foundation (whose programmes include the Achates Philanthropy Prize).
www.bop.co.uk/ | www.culturalphilanthropyfoundation.co.uk/
@BOP_Consulting | @AchatesPrize

The winners of this year’s Achates Philanthropy Prize will be announced at an Awards Ceremony at Birmingham Symphony Hall on Wednesday 9 November at 6.30pm. Register to watch.