Business investment is a crucial element in developing our cultural organisations, a key part of the arts funding matrix alongside consistent government support. In 1976, when Arts & Business was founded, business investment in the arts in the UK was worth around £500,000 per year. Last year, the figure reached over £150 million. Over this twenty-five year period, businesses have increasingly looked towards the arts for the tangible benefits they get in return for their investment.
Raising the business profile
Against a background of easier payroll giving and tax relief on donations, including gifts of shares, the business benefits of sponsorship are many and various. Attaching their name and identity to art bonds a sponsor more closely to a source of creativity and artistic integrity and raises their profile with shareholders, clients and other target audiences. The Orange Prize for Fiction and the Orange Bafta Awards both generate positive publicity and increased brand-awareness for the mobile telecommunications operator. Other big business names which have built their profile through arts sponsorship in the UK include BP Amoco, Ford, UBS Warburg and Ernst & Young, who, in 1999, sponsored Britain’s most popular arts exhibition ever: Monet in the 20th century at the Royal Academy. This sponsorship was a highly effective and cost-effective method of profile-building on a huge scale. Nick Land, chairman of Ernst & Young comments on the success of their corporate entertaining: ‘we invited board members from Britain’s largest companies to the opening dinner – busy people who are hard to catch. Every single one accepted.’ Ernst & Young evaluates its sponsorship meticulously, employing MORI to conduct exit polls of visitors to its corporate events. Its research has shown that 69% named Ernst & Young- sponsored arts events as the ones they’d most enjoyed over the past three years.
Developing communities
Some businesses are looking to the arts to help respond to the complex problems of contemporary society. The arts are active community tools, developing ‘social capital’ and building bridges between different sectors and communities, enriching society practically, economically and spiritually. Arts & Business’s report, Re-creating communities: business, the arts and regeneration, sponsored by BT and written by Phyllida Shaw, highlights the role of business partnerships with the arts in regenerating communities. This report is to be followed up by a similar publication on business, the arts and social inclusion, sponsored by Marks & Spencer, to be published in Spring 2001.
Camelot is one business exploiting the impact of arts on social inclusion. The lottery operator, with such a pivotal role in enhancing the nation’s cultural and social prospects, has a special interest in using the arts to fulfil its corporate social responsibility programme. In 1996, the company became founding sponsors of TS2K – Talent & Skills 2000 – by providing financial and strategic support to enable them to carry out their aim of helping young people from under-represented groups develop careers in the creative industries. Over four years, Camelot’s support has enabled TS2K to grow substantially and increase its range of work with schemes such as the launch of its Talent & Skills Employment Agency. In 1999, Camelot gave TS2K a commission to design and publish the company’s social & ethical audit report on the internet. This was designed to help the company’s application for renewing the lottery license, whilst providing a tangible example of the company’s investment in developing culturally diverse talent.
Developing employees through the arts
The government’s recent emphasis on volunteering reiterates the current trend in giving something back to the community in which one prospers. Arts & Business runs the Arthur Andersen Skills Bank to help business people volunteer their skills to work with arts organisations on specific, objective- driven projects. The emphasis is on skills transfer and mutual benefit – while the arts receive a valuable injection of professional advice, business volunteers benefit from working in a stimulating new environment.
One of the most important trends in arts sponsorship is the practice of physically bringing the arts into the workplace. Why are so many more companies of all sizes doing this? Because the arts can act as a key to unlock the one quality that even the most successful business can never get enough of, the one quality they need to thrive and prosper: creativity.
The arts draw out and nurture creativity by bringing new experiences, skills and techniques to the workplace. A key player in this field is Lever Fabergé, a subsidiary of Unilever, formed from the merging of Lever Brothers and Elida Fabergé. Launched in April 2000, Project Catalyst uses the arts to facilitate the merging process, while meeting Unilever’s strategy to create an enterprise culture. Catalyst widens the sources of inspiration, information and creativity for employees, through working with artists and arts organisations. In its first four months it has reached 45% of employees, from the chairman to the latest recruits, through six major initiatives which run simultaneously.
The six initiatives put creative and communication skills at the top of the training agenda, encouraging employees not only to focus on the skills they need now but also those in the future. They involve using the arts, ranging from creative writing with the poet in residence, to theatre-skills with actor-trainers. Workshops and coaching sessions improve influencing, strategic planning, team-building, confidence, risk-taking and communication skills. Some employees are undertaking short placements in the arts, enabling business and the arts to work in new ways together to achieve business solutions creatively. The company has also formed a new collection of 75 works of art. Many of the pictures were chosen by the staff, who have also written the descriptions that hang alongside the works. The collection not only enhances the physical working environment but through discussion and analysis of the work, has had a significant impact on employees’ critical skills.
Project Catalyst raises the agenda of creativity throughout the organisation, and the inclusive, varied nature of the project means all employees can find something of relevance to their working lives. The internal training opportunities and external development of skills through volunteering aims to maximise employees’ potential, which in turn attracts new and more varied recruits to the company. Project Catalyst received an investment from Arts & Business, through its New Partners programme. New Partners offers extra funding to help partnerships like these get off the ground. As James Hill, former chairman of Lever Brothers, says: ‘we thought we could get a competitive edge through an inspiring creativity programme, that would lift us a step above our competitors. We don’t see a limit to how far this can go, provided we continue to see the benefits that we are already seeing.’
Commitment is the key
Many companies are developing a relationship with the arts, but the key quality that marks the successful sponsorships is commitment by all parties. Put in that extra commitment, and the rewards you reap can be phenomenal and can resonate far beyond individual projects, individual departments and even organisations. A company that has made a commitment at every level to working practically with the arts is unlikely to abandon the arts on the day after the opera-loving chairman retires. It is more likely to find that it cannot afford NOT to sustain its partnerships _with them. The rewards will be worth it.
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