What are the key challenges facing arts and culture?
Digital projects are playing an increasingly important role – be it through sharing information, improving operational efficiency, connecting interested parties, or promoting specific arts and culture initiatives.
In the UK, however, funding for arts and culture organisations has diminished considerably. Since 2017, funding from national bodies dropped by 16%, making the case for alternative funding channels ever more important.
Despite the benefits the sector brings to society, it remains under pressure, with overall financial support in the UK significantly lower than in other European countries. We know many organisations are under-resourced, and teams are stretched beyond capacity.
With a wide portfolio of arts and culture clients, we conducted an internal survey to understand the key challenges arts and culture organisations are facing.
66% of respondents said being more commercial and focusing more on revenue and return on investment is the most pressing issue.
Other challenges highlighted were understanding audiences, getting to grips with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and enhancing personalisation.
Making advancements in any of these areas needs capital to make relevant investments in technology, training or staff acquisition. Having access to funding channels is therefore vitally important.
What funding options are there for arts and culture organisations?
There are a number of credible funding opportunities in the UK, including initiatives from Bloomberg, Arts Council England, The Space and Figurative. We explore each of these in further detail below.
Bloomberg’s Digital Accelerator Programme
If you work in arts and culture and are not familiar with Bloomberg’s Digital Accelerator, now is the time to become acquainted.
Officially known as the Bloomberg Philanthropies Digital Accelerator, this programme exists ‘to strengthen non-profit cultural organisations through strategic investments in their digital infrastructure.’
Bloomberg’s commitment to financially supporting arts and cultural organisations is based on a belief that the sector can improve the creative landscape and quality of life in cities globally, including here in the UK.
Several leading arts and culture organisations across the UK have already harnessed the Bloomberg Digital Accelerator programme, such as The Courtauld, The British Museum, Young Vic and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to name a few.
Arts Council
Arts Council England has a range of funds open at any one time, with different funds suitable for organisations in certain sub-sectors of the arts and culture industry. One example is the National Lottery Project Grants, which supports arts, library and museum projects, as well as artists, community and cultural projects.
Other Arts Council England funds include the Cultural Development Fund, which aims to support levelling up through cultural investment, and the Museum Estate and Development Fund, which is targeted at non-national accredited museums and local authorities in England.
The Space
The Space is an Arts Council Investment Principle Support Organisation that provides a dedicated programme of digital skills development.
The Space funds and commissions new digital work, as well as providing training, mentoring, action research and strategic consultancy.
Figurative
Figurative is an independent not-for-profit organisation with a commitment to supporting cultural and creative organisations to help benefit wider society. At the time of writing (November 2024), Figurative is accepting applications for funding from its £18 million social impact investment fund.
Top tip - If you would like to view additional funding opportunities and stay on top of deadlines, we recommend taking a look at the Grants Online website. This has a ‘grants search’ functionality which allows you to quickly find the funding opportunities most relevant to your organisation.
Best-practice for funding applications
With organisations more stretched than ever, we know the funding application process is incredibly competitive. Here is our best-practice advice to help you put in a strong application.
Where to start?
As a first step, create a clear long-term vision and align this to a solid digital strategy.
“Fully understand the problem you are trying to solve,” one freelance consultant with many years of arts and culture experience told us. “It’s vital to articulate the problem as a starting point for any funding request. Once that's understood, you can think about solutions, and the impact those solutions are going to have.”
This consultant advised organisations to avoid creating ‘shopping lists’ full of issues they want to resolve and instead focus on creating clearly defined ‘problem statements’ that connect back to the strategic priorities of your organisation.
“A problem statement focuses on what the problem is, and who will benefit from finding a solution to said problem. Whether that is internal teams or external audiences, it is vital to clarify who you are trying to help. It’s all about providing a level of clarity for any funder. An example might be needing to rebuild a website because you have done user testing that confirms users drop off because of a poor UX experience at certain points of their journey. This level of clarity is what funders typically want to see.”
In an ideal world, once your vision and strategy are established, funding channels can then be researched and approached. However, the funding itself and the extent of this affects the overall strategic vision that arts and culture organisations adopt.
Regardless, setting the direction of travel and identifying funding channels relevant to your objectives gives you the best chance of achieving the best results.
Another expert at a leading arts and culture organisation explained;
“It’s nice to choose a fun project that you want to do, as that enthusiasm tends to come through in the application. Taking a holistic view and aligning your project with the rest of your organisation’s priorities is important.
I advise making sure you spend a lot of time on your funding application and aim to get the right people looking at it and involved in it. Of course, make sure it is feasible and that your project aligns with the kind of projects your desired funders actually fund. If possible, speak to organisations who have successfully achieved funding from this source in the past, and look to gain any insights they may have.”
Who can help?
When it comes to supporting your project and funding goals, getting the right partners in place early on can be beneficial. This might be a digital agency or another partner who can support you both strategically and logistically in securing funding. Together you can calculate ongoing costs and potential return-on-investment once the initial funding for your digital projects has concluded.
It can be tempting to think in a project-by-project way. However, adopting a consistent focus on securing funding and thinking longer-term can be advantageous. This can future proof your organisation and help you move with new technologies.
One of the industry experts we spoke to emphasised the value of speaking with the funders directly to get insights that will support your application. They shared;
“Don’t hesitate to ask funders questions on anything you are unsure about, as it’s better to ask questions than get something wrong with your application. Going through any worthwhile process will inevitably lead to questions arising, so asking these questions shows the funders you're on it. It's also worth noting that changes during the application process can happen, and funders can accommodate this sometimes. But naturally, any changes need to be run past them.”
What to include?
Being able to present and communicate your digital strategy and overall strategic thinking is key. Today, we see this increasingly moving towards more agile principles and becoming less specific. A good way of capturing this is by adopting a measurement model, and aligning this with your organisation’s digital roadmap.
Data is an area to be mindful of when applying for funding. Having a focus on how data can be harnessed in a strategic, compliant and secure way to inform future decision-making is fundamental. Different organisations are at different points in their journey of harnessing data. Some have data at the core of their plans, while others are looking to catch up.
In essence, the more central data is to an ongoing strategy in the current digital climate, the better. Being able to embed data and data-related thinking into a digital strategy is key to success for organisations across all sectors and is something funders will be looking for in applications.
Top tip from an industry expert who secured funding for their organisation -
“Look at the key strands, mission statement and goals of the funding organisation. If you are unfortunately unsuccessful, funders will typically give you good feedback and will let you know if they think you should apply again in the future. And the process of creating an application gives you the chance to create a robust plan regardless, even if ultimately you don't get the funding. This can then be harnessed to allow your vision to come to fruition either way.”
Top tip from an arts and culture consultant -
“Building a new website is great, but what will things look like in years 2-5? How are you going to continue to support and fund it? Funders want to see a long-term picture as well. You are building something that is ongoing, and the funders want you to understand that. Sometimes companies go back to funders looking for funding for next steps down the line, and this can often be welcomed if the first project has been a success.”
Factoring in digital risk is also vital to this forward-looking approach. When digital risk is removed across key stages of the project, you can increase the chances of making your project a success. In his blog, Chief Client Officer at Un.titled Brian Healy shares various strategies to remove digital risk.
Common pitfalls to avoid
If you are making multiple applications, there can be a temptation to recycle content to save time but actually this lessens your chances of success. Ensuring you curate your application for the specific funder, check the methodology is clear, avoid grammatical and spelling errors and include a wider context around your organisation’s achievements will sharpen your application and reduce the chances of it being cast to one side.
One major pitfall addressed by industry experts was wasting efforts due to not checking if the area of your project is right for the funding programme. They advised applicants to ask questions as funders can have a specific focus or theme each year that they are particularly looking to invest in.
Though there can be a level of anxiety among organisations around ambition, the freelance consultant in arts and heritage we spoke to advised not being afraid of ambition or targets.
Funders have targets and there can be anxiety from applicants around hitting these. This makes measuring the success of a digital project important – be it through metrics, KPIs or in another way. When it comes to ambition though, I advise aiming for something, and if you hit it, great! But if you don’t, that’s ok too. That won’t destroy a relationship with a funder. In honesty, if you are a digitally mature organisation, there will be some targets you are not always going to reach. But things don’t end with hitting a target. The journey itself is important because it sets you on a path that can inform future decisions and funding applications. Funders understand this and can work within this dynamic.
Another pitfall highlighted by industry experts was not having clear owners of the project.
“Have one or two people in charge of the project and the application, and ensure they have full authority. It’s ok to get opinions from others, but too many opinions can cause problems. It’s important to strike that balance between wanting people involved but not too many, as this can make things messy.”
Lastly, the freelance arts and culture consultant we spoke to highlighted a need for alignment with your team. Digital people, those sourcing the funding and your dev team for example all need to understand the digital ambition and have the right knowledge when speaking to funders to strengthen relationships. Any disconnect will weaken an application.
Future-proof your organisation through funding
Creating an application that outlines short term and long-term objectives, working with relevant partners, and presenting data-driven strategic thinking in a clear and precise way can give arts and culture organisations the best chance of securing the funding they need.
Across your application journey and beyond, Un.titled can work with you as a dedicated digital partner to set and clarify your digital goals and the most resource-efficient ways to achieve them. To kickstart your funding journey and achieve your ambitions, get in touch with our team.
