£8.2m gift will support new facilities for arts education

The National Theatre, Tate Britain, and the Royal Shakespeare Company are to receive the lion’s share of a £8.2m windfall from a major arts philanthropist. The grants to eleven cultural organisations from the Clore Duffield Foundation are targeted at projects to open up new creative learning spaces for children and young people. As part of the National Theatre’s £70m planned redevelopment, its first learning centre will benefit from £2.5m from the Foundation for developments that include a backstage walkway to give the public access to the production workshops. Tate Britain will benefit from the same amount for an art-making activities space and a dedicated school’s entrance and reception, as part of their £45m building project. The Royal Shakespeare Company is to receive a further £500,000, on top of a capital grant for a learning centre, to fund a Theatre Craft Apprenticeship Scheme and its work with children, young people and teachers. Other organisations in London to gain are the Donmar Warehouse which receives half a million pounds to convert the top floor of a disused warehouse into an education and rehearsal space; and as well as providing for a learning centre at Hampton Court, the Foundation is to give £500,000 for three flexible learning spaces based on Kensington Palace’s stories and dress collection. Outside the capital Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, the Turner Contemporary, Margate and the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester are each to receive £250,000 to create Clore Learning Studios. The new Museum of Liverpool, opening in July, is to get £200,000 for a dedicated area for the under 5s including an interactive water exhibit and a multi-sensory area for babies, and the Holburne Museum, Bath and Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, Cornwall will receive £125,000 each to create a learning space. Dame Vivien Duffield, Chair of the Foundation, said that “children and young people deserve the very best opportunities to benefit from the transforming power of our world-class cultural organisations.” The £8.2m brings the total amount of money given to charitable causes by the Clore Duffield Foundation to nearly £60m since 2000. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the “stunningly generous” gift adding that Dame Vivien Duffield was a “role model for philanthropists.” The charity has a particular focus on cultural education and leadership training, also supporting the Clore Leadership Programme for the cultural sector. It has funded a five-year £1m programme for poetry and literature initiatives for children and young people across the UK and is a founding supporter of the Cultural Learning Alliance, a collective voice working to ensure that all children and young people have access to culture.