Last week Arts Council England announced the 173 successful applicants to their £30 million Catalyst Arts: capacity building and match funding scheme.
Canterbury Festival is delighted to be one of them and will receive £187,000 over three years to help raise money to provide an exciting new festival venue as well as developing its programme and events.
Festival Director, Rosie Turner, said: ‘We are thrilled to have been successful in our bid to the Catalyst Fund and are extremely excited about the opportunities this opens up to us over the next three years. It is great to be recognised as worthy of this money and we look forward to bringing a whole new strand to the Festival next year!’
The Catalyst Arts scheme aims to make arts organisations more sustainable, resilient and innovative by increasing their fundraising potential and attracting new money to invest in additional artistic work. It acts as challenge funding to support additional arts activity.
The Festival will use funds in the first year to gear up resources and build their fundraising capacity to help provide the new Festival venue in 2013 and 2014.
Sally Abbott, Regional Director, Arts Council England, South East, said: ‘I’m absolutely delighted that 15 arts organisations across the south east will benefit from our new Catalyst Arts capacity building and match funding programme – from Canterbury Festival to Oxford’s Pegasus Theatre to Brighton-based disability-arts charity Carousel. All of the successful organisations will now be able to drive forward their existing fundraising efforts with renewed vigour, building on their financial resilience and ultimately creating further opportunities for people to experience great art.’
The Arts Council has made awards to organisations that are committed to making a step-change in their approach to fundraising by finding innovative ways to identify and make themselves more attractive to donors; and to make sure that donors want to keep on giving.
These awards will help the arts sector to attract new money now and in the longer term, which will be invested in additional artistic work.
Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England, said: 'It's marvelous to see the many innovative ways in which arts organisations have responded to this opportunity to maximise their fundraising potential. It is vital that the arts continue to be publically funded but, with the tough economic climate prevailing, it's also essential to strengthen all the various sources of income that help keep the arts in this country ambitious and excellent.'
Published on 02 June 2012 by Wayne Feltham
