Will philanthropists save the arts?

It’s an important question, posed in a recent Guardian article, which grabbed my attention as I’m regularly approached by organisations looking for help to raise income against funding they have lost. The answer is particularly important in light of cuts from 4% in Scotland, 4.6% in Wales and a staggering 30% in England.

Donors are enthusiastic and engaged but they have always been adamant that they should be part of a mix of different types of funding. Indeed, Vivien Duffield, a major arts donor, was even quoted in the article as saying that donors want their funding to be ‘the icing on the cake’ rather than the cake itself.

So how are arts organisations going to meet the significant gap brought about by recent cuts? There are definitely worrying times ahead and some organisations will inevitably fail. Even those who continue to have an element of government funding as well as in-house fundraising resources will struggle – but it’s even worse for those who have little or no current donors that they can call upon to help them out. How can they hope to achieve their ambitions?

• Maybe organisations should access local funding – rather than the big, well-known sources of funding that every charity will be trying to access – looking to local audiences, companies, individuals and partners? After all, while a smaller organisation may not have significant donors presumably they have strong local support in the form of audiences who may help lend a voice to campaigns for support.

• Perhaps new technology and social media can help organisations to be more creative and work smarter to reach new audiences through crowdfunding, Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness and generate support?

• Or maybe the answer is not to cut back but to be even more ambitious, seeking more funding to become more robust and, therefore, more sustainable in the future by creating a new fundraising team or developing new programmes that will increase earned income.

Already creative, adaptable and used to working smart on few resources, the arts are well placed to rise to the challenge. To be honest, I’m not sure that there’s an alternative.

Do you think there are still opportunities for the arts to raise more philanthropic income and sponsorship? Or do you think that philanthropists will lend their support to more ‘cause related’ charities, leaving the arts out in the cold?