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The American Patrons of Tate office opened in New York in September 1999, in response to generous support from American collectors for the building of Tate Modern. Although our American charity was founded in 1988, it was not until the Tate Modern campaign that we began to receive a large number of major gifts from the United States, says Richard Hamilton. The successful opening of Tate Modern in May 2000 reinforced Tate?s appeal to American donors.

Starting with a clean slate, I expanded the number of American trustees to help me fundraise for a variety of projects, including acquisitions, scholarships and exhibitions. We implemented a three-tier membership scheme: Patrons ($1,000 a year for unrestricted gifts), Exhibition Patrons ($5,000 a year to support American-themed exhibitions) and an American Acquisitions Committee ($10,000 a year to acquire contemporary American art). In the past four years the office has raised on average $5m each year from a supporter base of 300 across America. Trying to understand why people are motivated to support a museum in London is always on my mind. The continual message from our trustees and donors is that they are only able to justify their support because Tate has an enormous commitment to the art of North and South America. Recent exhibitions of American artists such as Barnett Newman, Donald Judd and American Sublime have helped cement links between the UK and US, especially when the exhibitions travel to American institutions. Despite this, I am mindful of the diplomacy required when fundraising for an overseas institution when so many American museums continue to face enormous financial constraints of their own. Our supporters see their involvement with us as an important adjunct to their own art commitments. While their main focus will always be on their local or national museums, we want to offer them icing on the cake. With no US venue of our own, the office runs a special events programme for all donors, as a way to keep them involved, and we communicate news from London monthly, by both email and newsletter.

Having been at Tate for eight years before opening the New York office, my knowledge of Tate and its existing American supporter base helped immensely in establishing the American office. About once a month I meet with British fundraisers coming to New York with an eye to opening an American charity or office. Creating an American Friends group is increasingly popular among both large and small British organisations. I particularly caution smaller organisations against the costs associated with it. While Americans are amazingly philanthropic, unless you have the institutional commitment to involve people and to show them how much of a difference their support makes, then it will be difficult to succeed. You need to think very carefully unless you already have a committed support base and understand the culture associated with American giving.

Richard Hamilton is Development Director of the American Patrons of the Tate.
t: 001 212 713 8497;
w: http://www.tate.org;
e: richard.hamilton@tate.org.uk