What can be achieved when people and organisations collaborate for mutual benefit? Andrew Kelly considers the advantages of pooling resources.
The first job I had in the arts was working for Cultural Industries in Kirklees (CIK), a member-controlled organisation dedicated to promoting arts development in the towns of Huddersfield, Batley and Dewsbury. The concept was simple ? and cheap. A small number of staff helped arts groups apply for funding, provided training, and gave access to equipment. For a low annual fee, arts groups could produce publicity through desktop publishing, get cheap photocopying, low-cost meeting space and help. The result was a burgeoning of the arts in the district, and a golden age for culture in Huddersfield and the rest of the area. The media centre project that I ran certainly benefited from the help offered and the spirit of partnership created. Now CIK could not be held solely responsible for this brief local arts renaissance: a sympathetic council leadership with a few can-do members and officers was even more important. But it did show what could be achieved when people and organisations collaborate for mutual benefit.
Creative collaboration
We?ve moved a long way since then. Nowadays, most arts groups have their own computers and are adept at designing leaflets and brochures and do not need to look for outside help. But the principle of collaboration remains important. Indeed, it is possible to say that it is only those artists and organisations that collaborate that will be successful in the future.
Organisations and artists collaborate in many ways and for many different projects. The most formal is a joint venture company or partnership. Most collaborations are informal: the project, the network and the working party. People and organisations work together because they believe that they can achieve more together. The overall target may simply be a reduction in operational costs. More importantly, and this is where partnerships work best, is where the aim is to collaborate for creativity ? more minds and more debate creates new solutions and opportunities.
It is standard practice in the private sector to collaborate ? even with rivals. In the arts, we?re sometimes pretty good at it too. The growth of managed workspace for artists in some of our cities, for example, where studios are provided at low cost, with a contribution made to shared management costs, means that the search for space is effectively over, and the potential for collaboration greater. Bristol?s Legible City project, making movement around the city easier, whatever the information needs of the user, was the result of a formal partnership between Bristol City Council and Adshel, but more importantly came from collaboration between groups as diverse as environmental psychologists, graphic designers, artists and city planners.
Enduring principles
The aim of collaboration, in whatever form, is to pool, ally and link resources. But what is needed to achieve this? First, an overwhelming need or wish to work together. Everyone involved must accept that partners have their own objectives in addition to those of the partnership as a whole. A stakeholder focus is key. And the project has to be both action oriented in a programme of long-term development, and be ready to stop when the job is done.
Since CIK all my work has been about building partnerships in Bristol and the west ? between artists and organisations, public and private sectors, the creative company with the voluntary sector. Our job in the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership is to build the partnership and make it work whether it is joint working between Bristol City Council, the Bristol Chamber of Commerce and South West Arts, the partnerships established between the media industry and others for the film festivals in the city, or smaller projects. In that time we have brought in new funding, never paid for legal work, rarely paid for accountancy, and had our own ?time bank? of Swiss proportions with free help.
Limitations
Not all partnerships or collaborative ventures work. There is sometimes a naivety about what can be achieved; the right staff has to be in place to deliver or, where no paid staff is present, the spirit has to be right. There may be legal problems. And management is needed.
How far can collaboration go? We can work together well, although we are still in competition with one another for influence, funding and audiences. I worked on the Bristol stabilisation project between Bristol Old Vic, Arnolfini and Watershed in 1998. What was possible here was, at the least, joint marketing, box office, and other services. The application failed. In retrospect, though the aims were laudable it was a step too far at the time.
This is not to say that such initiatives have to fail: we could have made some of the proposals in the stabilisation application work, and our track record in other projects shows that collaboration is not only a contributor to success, but the key to it. The three Bristol organisations are now developing well, working with each other widely in the city and region.
An agency approach
Where there has been most gain in recent years has been the introduction of arts marketing agencies. Normally covering a city or region, these agencies offer advice and training, and organise joint projects so that the effectiveness of organisations in audience development is maximised.
Those that doubt this approach have only to look at the way that Bristol?s arts organisations have become more professional in their approach to arts marketing since South West Arts Marketing (SWAM) was established three years ago. We set up SWAM because there was a serious problem in Bristol?s organisations where marketing was dismissed completely sometimes, or seen as the responsibility of a junior officer. Thanks to SWAM, the profile of the individual arts organisation is better, the impact of the work is much wider, and audiences are growing. The partnerships and the spirit of collaboration created, have led to significant work being undertaken.
As a result of working collaboratively, Bristol?s arts organisations no longer have to pay expensive fees to consultants and there is confidence in the sector that will pay dividends in the future.
Partnerships for prosperity
The arts boards and local authorities (and cultural development partnerships) have a role to play here. In building the arts, small initiatives are as important as big projects. By investing in partnerships that can plan, promote networking and provide access to resources and advice, the arts can prosper. But it is the responsibility of arts organisations and artists to identify need and to lead the collaboration. Our job, as ever, is to help and support so that they can work.
Andrew Kelly is Director of the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership ? Bristol City Council, South West Arts and Bristol Chamber of Commerce and Initiative. He is also Director of Bristol 2008 and author of ?Managing Partnerships?. e: kelly.bcdp@o2.co.uk.