Fool’s gold?

Arts organisations with fundraising experience who “show commitment to wanting to raise their game in this area” will soon be able to apply to a £30m Arts Council England fund for grants of between £120,000 and £240,000 to build their fundraising capability over a three-year period. The capacity building and match funding scheme, which is part of its £100m Catalyst scheme to boost private giving to the cultural sector, will open for applications on 1 November. Announcing the details of the scheme, ACE states: “This timescale recognises that changing the way organisations work and generating a continuous flow of new sources of funding will take time. We want to invest in organisations committed to making a step-change in their approach to fundraising so that they become more financially and organisationally resilient. Our aim is to help the arts sector to attract new money now and in the longer term to be invested in additional artistic output.”

Another option for organisations with solid experience of fundraising is to apply to the Catalyst endowments fund – a £55m scheme funded jointly by the DCMS, Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, which offers match funding for the purpose of building a new endowment fund, or increasing an existing one. Heritage applications to the fund open today but arts applications open on 1 November for requests for amounts between £500,000 and £5m.

Smaller arts organisations with little or no fundraising experience will have to wait until April Fool’s day for an eligible fund to support their efforts. From 1 April 2012 applications will be accepted to an open access grant scheme allocating grants of between £15,000 and £25,000 for organisations to “make themselves more attractive to donors; to identify and secure new donors; or to ensure that funders want to keep giving.” Examples given of the types of activity for which might grants might be given include “freeing up the leadership of an organisation to fundraise; improving the organisation's appeal and image to attract new funders; collaborating with other arts or heritage organisations to attract new funds; applying fundraising tools and techniques used by other types of organisations to attract funding; and using new technologies or techniques such as crowd-sourcing to help attract new funding” ACE has allocated £7m to this scheme. Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England said: “Increasing the amount of private giving to the arts remains a long term ambition but we hope these measures will start a significant shift in both the culture of asking and the culture of giving.