Many grant-giving trusts and foundations will have “real concerns about their assets” in the light of the current financial situation, according to David Emerson, the Chief Executive of the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF). However, with most such organisations having endowments invested for the long term, he added that “the current situation is a blip, albeit a rather large one”, and most will rebuild their assets over 5–15 years. Emerson warned that arts organisations will find that pressure on trusts and foundations is greater than normal, with higher numbers of applications being made. The ACF plans to survey its membership shortly to assess the situation in more detail. Policies to increase private giving to the arts remain unaffected in both Labour and Conservative circles, despite the recession. A spokesperson for the DCMS told AP that the current plans to promote philanthropy “will continue to evolve over the coming months, taking into account wider economic factors and views from stakeholders across and beyond the cultural sector”, and added that it is a long-term strategy “which will endure beyond fluctuations in the economy”, but that the DCMS will “continue to monitor closely the impact of current events on the cultural sector”. Shadow Arts Minister, Ed Vaizey, confirmed that Tory policy is also unaffected: “There will always be downturns that affect private funding, but the changes we make will be for the long-term,” he told AP. However, economic pressure has increased uncertainty among UK charity leaders about the future of their sector, as the National Council for Voluntary Organisations’s quarterly ‘Charity Confidence Survey’ reveals. Of 210 charity leaders surveyed, 73% think that conditions are bound to worsen for the sector over the next 12 months, and the proportion who are confident in the future of their own organisation has almost halved to 23% since February 2008. Only 12% of respondents had faith that government policies would improve the operating environment for their organisation, while 47% felt this would worsen.
