Bank of Scotland is renewing its commitment to the Edinburgh International Festival with an investment of more than £500,000 over the next three years. In 2004, the Bank will continue to sponsor the Bank of Scotland’s Queen Hall Series and the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert, and will also support a major new production. The sponsorship deal includes a new education project, Bank of Scotland Connecting to Music, which aims to open up classical music to Scottish children and adults.
The company’s support for the festival earned it the arts sponsorship prize at this year’s Hollis Sponsorship Awards, held on March 30. The Unilever Series at Tate Modern, meanwhile, was highly commended by the Hollis judges. Others shortlisted include:
BNP Paribas’ Artist in Residence programme, organised with Arts & Business. The programme involved artist Nick Davis working with pupils from a local primary school to design a bronze sculpture;
Yamaha and Classic FM’s joint sponsored project, Go Back To School With Vision. The programme saw young musicians giving concerts and workshops to children aged eleven and twelve in schools around the UK.
Business investment in the arts in 2002/3 increased by 8% to £120m, while individual giving during the same period climbed to £256 million, the latest figures from Arts & Business reveal. The Business Investment in the Arts report highlights significant regional and sector differences. London, for example, still receives over half of total business investment, with 13 out of the 20 organisations receiving £1m or more from companies situated in the capital. Meanwhile, significant regional increases in investment were reported in the North East (200%), East of England (87%), West Midlands (31%) and Wales (24%). Dance, drama/theatre, music and photography achieved the greatest increases in investment, while opera, museums and galleries and visual arts reported an overall drop in the level of business funding they received. At £376m, private support for the arts represents about two-fifths of the £957.83m generated from the public purse. Contact Jonathan Tuchner, A&B, on &020 7940 6410 (http://www.aandb.org.uk)
Stone Love
American Express announced on March 11 a grant of $100,000 to the World Monuments Fund for the preservation of Piedras Negras in Guatemala, one of the most important archaeological sites of the Mayan culture. The grant is to be used to support conservation and stabilisation work at the site, as well as the development of an ongoing five-year management plan. It will also cover a limited survey of cultural resources in the Parque Nacional de la Sierra Lacandon. Contact Jeanne Collins, World Monuments Fund, on &00 1 646 486 7050 (http://www.wmf.org)
Eastern Eden
The East of England Development Agency is contributing £6m towards the creation of a new contemporary arts and culture space in Colchester. It is hoped that firstsite:newsite will kick-start regeneration in Colchester, the Haven Gateway and the wider county of Essex. The project is expected to generate £100m of investment over the next seven years. Half a million additional visitors to the Essex town are also predicted. Contact David Marlow, EEDA, on &01223 713900 (http://www.eeda.org.uk)
In brief
Deutsche Bank is supporting an exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.of 200 works from the Museum of Modern Art in New York between February 20 to September 19. Contact Deutsche Bank, on &020 7545 0343 (http://www.deutschebank.com)
Barclays is sponsoring the Playbox Theatre Company’s new integrated education support programme, starting with its 2004 Warwick Festival production of Don Quixote. Contact Moya Galal, Barclays, on &020 7699 4114 (http://www.barclays.co.uk)
Women & Theatre, a Birmingham-based arts group, received a £30,000 grant as winners of GlaxoSmithKline‘s annual IMPACT awards. Nine other charities were awarded £20,000 each. Contact Martin Sutton, GSK on &020 8047 5502 (http://www.gsk.com)
Hugo Boss, the Italian clothing manufacturer is sponsoring the Serpentine Gallery’s State of Play exhibition which ran until the end of March. Contact Hugo Boss on &020 7534 2700 (http://www.hugo.com)
Yellow Pages has sponsored the world record attempt for the largest mass reading of a poem to mark the bicentenary of Wordsworth’s Daffodils on March 19. 150,000 children participated in the reading to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care. Contact Jon Salmon, Yellow Pages, on &0118 950 6999 (http://www.yellgroup.com)
HSBC has signed a new three-year partnership with Trinity College of Music for a regeneration project on the Isle of Dogs. The £60,000 investment from the HSBC Education Trust will establish a programme to increase musical opportunities for residents on the island and explore the community’s cultural background and musical heritage. Contact Ann-Marie Evans, HSBC on &020 7991 0846 (http://www.hsbc.com)
Lloyds TSB Scotland is to sponsor the National Galleries of Scotland’s major summer exhibition The Age of Titian – Venetian Renaissance Art from Scottish Collections at the Royal Scottish Academy in August 2004. Contact Mary Walsh, Lloyds TSB on &020 7356 2121 (http://www.lloydstsb.com)
Comment: arts: the art of business sponsorship
May 01 2004
by Briefing staff
Despite economic difficulties in some sectors, corporate arts sponsorship was up last year. Arts & Business is making a play to get individuals to give more.
The results of the annual Arts & Business survey show another good year for the arts, with a real terms increase and with more than half of the 2020 organisations who participated in the study reporting some business investment. Despite the year-on-year increase, the longer term trend in corporate sponsorship is probably flat-lining. Contributions peaked in the millennium year at £150m, with a jump in capital projects from Lottery funds that needed matched resources. They’ve now dropped back to trend at around £100 million.
Actually, that’s good news for the arts world. Their worst fears – that the corporate focus on social responsibility would be at the expense of the arts – has not come to pass. Partly that’s because they have been creative in adapting to companies’ needs, for example, linking in with regeneration initiatives and finding opportunities for employees.
There’s a potential employee connection with the next big push by Arts & Business – to increase individual giving to the arts. Its Maecenas Initiative, launched in March, is named after the first century BC Roman who was patron to a literary circle including Horace and Virgil. In America today, the arts account for a bigger share of total charity donations than in the UK, approaching 6%, compared to less than 4% on this side of the Atlantic. One big difference is the tradition of personal philanthropy – big personal endowments by successful entrepreneurs. Another difference is the willingness of ordinary people to make modest personal donations, often using their employers’ matched funding schemes to double or treble the value.
That’s a practical option for a company that is reviewing its own arts sponsorships and considering a reduction: switch some of the funds to matching employees’ individual efforts and promote regular contributions though payroll giving where the take-up for arts’ beneficiaries is currently very poor.
COMMENTS