Watching Sir Captain Tom walk his garden during Covid, I recall thinking to myself – I know when we started fundraising for culture, but when did we start fundraising for the NHS?
As charities play an increasingly vital role in ensuring the functioning of our society our ideas as to what is and isn’t charitable have had to be reconsidered. These ideas are informed both by the Victorian concept of charity but also by the post-Second World War settlement which saw Nye Bevan and his wife, Jennie Lee, play founding roles in the NHS and Open University, with Jennie Lee also the first Minister for the Arts and writing the first (of only three to date) White Papers for the Arts.
The post war period saw culture established not only as a fundamental part of UK society but also as a human right with Article 27 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognising Access to Culture as a Human Right. However, the UK cultural sector has since struggled to make the case for the value it creates and as a result for investment from government and philanthropic sources, with cultural policy veering between the excellence agenda and the intrinsic value of culture in its own right, to a focus on the social benefit of culture, through to the pre-pandemic attempt to speak the language of power to power through a focus on the economic impact of the creative industries.
The Art House – Participants learn how to screen print in a Studio of Sanctuary workshop_Credit: Amy Charles Media
These efforts have had limited impact: in Northern Ireland there has been a more than 40 percent cut to Arts Council Northern Ireland over the last 10 years, including a 5 percent cut in 2023; Creative Scotland had a 10 percent cut in funding in autumn 2023 with funding for culture at one of the lowest rates per head in Europe; a 10 percent cut to Arts Council Wales funding in 2024 has compounded years of standstill funding to 34 percent in real terms since 2010; standstill funding from ACE representing a 25 percent real term decline in funding to regularly funded organisations since 2015/16 and in addition there has been an almost £500m decline in support from the largest funder of culture in England, local authorities, since 2010 /11.
‘Culture and philanthropy are not luxuries, creating empathy and an understanding of others they are twin pillars of a healthy society and a life well-lived.’
Contributed income to culture had been growing and in particular through individual philanthropy with the 2022 Arts Council England Private Investment in Culture Report indicating that there was around £799m of support for culture, as opposed to £545m in 2019. However, the December 2023 UK Giving Report showed that giving to culture declined from 2 percent of all philanthropy to less than 1 percent, the lowest level for more than a decade.
The result is that the cultural sector is standing on a precipice. Last month, the Cultural Philanthropy Foundation, which I Chair, reviewed the 2022/23 accounts filed by the 100 cultural organisations receiving the most annual funding from Arts Council England (the data not being available for cultural organisations in the other nations in the same way).
The reality was stark: 73 of the 100 for whom accounts were available making a loss, and the average loss standing at over £300,000 despite the fact that these are the organisations which also have the greatest access to philanthropic support with 89 percent of contributed funding going to the 50 largest organisations[1].
There are a range of factors influencing this situation. Though the Covid Cultural Recovery Fund made grants to small and mid-scale organisations, larger cultural organisations were forced to instead take on debt through government loans to survive. By focusing programming commercially, audiences have gradually rebuilt to pre-pandemic levels, but with large and expensive buildings to heat and the cost-of-living crisis bringing pressures to staffing and resource, the situation in this landscape of rapidly declining funding is now critical.
The fact that any particular cultural organisation has existed in the past doesn’t of course mean that it has the right to continue to exist if it doesn’t play an important role. However, what is clear is that as with much of civil society, at a time when growing new organisations is so challenging, we risk losing much of our cultural infrastructure forever and this loss will be most marked in areas of deprivation. Culture and philanthropy are not luxuries, creating empathy and an understanding of others they are twin pillars of a healthy society and a life well-lived. We cannot stand back and let this destruction of our cultural sector take place, we must raise a shared voice to make the case for the value and impact the sector creates.
The 8 Types of Impact of Culture and Heritage© is a tool I designed in 2020 to establish a shared framework to communicate the value of the sector. In that year, the Cultural Philanthropy Foundation was running its annual Achates Philanthropy Prize, the only prize that celebrates first-time cultural giving in the UK.
We were reluctant to pitch organisations against one another as in previous editions and so we commissioned freelancers in each of the 5 Arts Council England regions of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to research and share 20 case studies as to how the culture sector was supporting its communities during Covid-19 and how communities were responding. We were hoping these case studies would offer an illustration of symbiotic philanthropic relationships alongside a wealth of material to celebrate and raise awareness of the impact of the sector during the pandemic.
What we found was revealing. Our research team found wonderful projects and remarkable organisations across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but almost all were in need of a framework to articulate and capture the value of their work.
Many of the projects involved a commission for a freelancer, often a lead artist, which was important, but it was clear that the project created value in a range of other ways in addition to creative and economic impact, but it wasn’t possible to capture and share their impact more widely.
‘The reality was stark: 73 of the 100 for whom accounts were available making a loss, and the average loss standing at over £300,000 despite the fact that these are the organisations which also have the greatest access to philanthropic support with 89 percent of contributed funding going to the 50 largest organisations.’
Determined to understand them better, I reviewed each case study one by one to try and identify the range of ways in which I thought they were likely to have created value and impact. And whilst I couldn’t prove this for these projects specifically, slowly I created the framework which has become The 8 Types of Impact of Culture and Heritage© which in turn gave us the framework for Culture Makes…
Culture Makes… is a UK-wide campaign that sets out a bold new vision for the value and impact of culture and heritage in society and as a human right which urgently needs investment, employing the 8 Types of Impact© that culture makes within its communities across the nation as a unified voice for the sector to build understanding. The campaign launched on 1 May in partnership with more than 100 cultural organisations and will run throughout 2024.
The 8 Types of Impact of Culture and Heritage are:
- Creative Impact
The intrinsic benefit of the experience of engaging with culture and heritage. All cultural and heritage organisations create this type of impact.
- Economic Impact
Economic Impact is the other type of impact that all cultural and heritage organisations create, if they pay or employ anyone.
- Social Benefit
The benefit to the individual in society, specifically outside of educational settings.
- Innovation
We are using the term in line with the Arts Council England definition of technological innovation. This type of impact is about pushing technological innovation forwards.
- Educational Benefit
This is the benefit to individuals in formal educational settings and of course, benefit to teachers and academics as well.
- Physical Health
Physical Health is not only an important type of impact, it shows us that not all types of impact are suited to all types of culture and heritage.
- Community Building
Community Building refers to communities of geography (in the UK and internationally) and communities of interest.
- Mental Health and Wellbeing
Mental Health and Wellbeing impacts range from general well-being through to benefit created with and for people with long term mental health conditions.
No one organisation creates all 8 types of impact, it’s as a sector that we create them all. And it’s important to note that whilst Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are not in themselves a type of impact they are at the heart of the benefits of each. We have established the aim of adding environmental benefit as a type of impact within two years, as most organisations are currently focused on mitigating their negative impact.
By joining together and raising a unified voice in a common language, we hope to shift awareness of the value and impact of culture at this key time. Join us: become a Culture Makes… Campaign Advocate or if you are a UK culture or heritage organisation then sign up as a Campaign Partner: https://www.culturalphilanthropyfoundation.co.uk
Caroline McCormick is the Chair of The Cultural Philanthropy Foundation and Director of Achates.
[1] Arts Council England, Private Investment in Culture Survey, 2022
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