£56m for arts and heritage groups to build endowment funds
Howard Lake | 21 June 2012 | News
The government has announced that 34 arts and heritage organisations in England will receive £56 million in match funding with which to build endowment funds to sustain them. The money is designed to attract other funding into the sector, amounting to as much as £106 million, according to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The Catalyst: Endowments programme, announced in July 2011, has been developed by the DCMS, Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The organisations benefiting from the first round of funding will use the grants of between £500,000 and £5 million to attract money from private philanthropic sources. The money is for endowments to be managed by the organisations for a minimum of 25 years.
Recipients include The Halle Concerts Society, The Victoria and Albert Museum, St Martin-in-the-Fields, The Bowes Museum, and Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt said: “Long term financial stability is an essential part of a successful cultural sector. With these grants, and the additional money they are bringing in, I’m delighted that we’ve been able to get a significant number of organisations on the road to long-lasting and sustainable endowments which will continue to support their work for years to come.”
Hannah Terrey, Head of Policy at the Charities Aid Foundation, said: “In these tough times it is good news that the Government is working with donors to support the great cultural life of the nation. Matching donations is a highly effective way of encouraging people to give and Ministers are right to look at ways to build a culture of philanthropy to help support the causes we all care about.”
There will be a second round of the Catalyst: endowments programme for heritage organisations throughout the UK at the end of 2012, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The application deadline will be announced later this year.
www.catalyst-artsandheritage.org.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.