“There’s an International Health Crisis. Why should I give money to the Arts?” With Charlotte Appleyard
Charlotte has spent 10 years as Director of Development & Business Innovation at the Royal Academy of Arts. In that time she has overseen 2 capital campaigns and built the RA Friends programme up to 100,000 members.
“We need to quantify the intangible; art inspires us to activism, inspires hope and feeds our soul but doesn't necessarily create profit in the way that an investor or philanthropist would look at it”
The RA is 252 years old and receives no government funding so is hugely reliant on membership, philanthropy, and corporate partnerships for 50% of its income. By being closed they are losing 1 million a month, so making the case for the arts now is critical to the survival of the organisation.
Charlotte is very conscious that art funding looks different everywhere, but there some key things that are the same for everyone, and Coronavirus has just magnified the truth in everything. It's made fundraising that bit harder. It's always been more difficult to raise money for the arts than medical charities, as in the hierarchy of needs we want people to be healthy and safe before we want them to be inspired. Those of us who work in the arts believe in its value innately, which is why we do what we do but
“curators and artists are often quite bad at explaining it, because they understand the value of art so fundamentally and don't understand why other people don’t, and that’s why I have to make a case’. She says ‘we need to quantify the intangible; art inspires us to activism, inspires hope and feeds our soul but doesn't necessarily create profit in the way that an investor or philanthropist would look at it, so you have to explain why art enriches our lives.”
The RA was quite a tantalising proposition to Charlotte when she joined, as it hadn't at that point re-invented itself. Its often quite verboten in the museum world to discuss brand values, but in order to make the case for funding, the RA had to say what they were and why they mattered. Making the case to the academicians and artists who run the RA was the first step and Charlotte did this by producing a short video which basically asked why the RA exists, using the example of big brands like Patagonia and Coca-Cola. This was anathema to the academy in some ways, but you understand exactly what they stand for and this is what ant and every arts organisation needs to be clear about. In the RA’s case it was about bringing the academicians and the RA school to the fore. 'In truth what we did was make the case for arts, as in a sense the RA represents the ecology of the whole art world’.
When the RA closed 6 weeks ago, the first 7 days was concentrated on closing, the next 7 on furloughing staff and then Charlotte and her team started asking people for money and that's all they've been doing for the last 5 weeks. Initially she was uneasy asking for money over email or on a zoom call, but if you go to your friends, your closest supporters, the relationships you have built up over years will stand you in good stead.
'“The truth is I wrote a 2 page paper - the most depressing case for support I have ever written- working on the basis that we will be closed for 6 months. Because we are based on footfall, the way the exhibition schedule is run means we likely won’t be operational in the way we were, until September. I outlined how we were cutting costs, making the most of the furlough scheme and tax holidays and then stating what was at stake and that was one of the hardest things - the detriment of cultural life in UK, the art school may have to close, a collection we can't restore.”
Quantifying and qualifying support for the arts has always been hard. If you are fundraising for an elephant charity its pretty clear that if you don’t get the money elephants will die, which isn't quite same as saying 'if you don't give me this money exhibitions won’t happen’. Also we must remember that corporate sponsors are much more transactional, and while its encouraging how many have committed to continued support, they are asking the question 'what role the arts and the RA specifically will play in societal healing and cultural leadership?'. It’s still a nascent area of thinking but living well, mental health are things for us all to think about particularly in terms of re-entry post lockdown, when arts and charitable organisations will be suffering.