Finding the Common Threads

Centre for Creative Communities

In recent years the Centre for Creative Communities has focussed its attention to exploring what roles there are for creativity and more specifically the arts in processes of social change.

Just over a year ago CCC turned its attention to Finding the Common Threads to look more directly at ways that funders, resource providers and policy makers in London are viewing the role of the arts in social change. We wanted to deepen our understanding of how this type of work is regarded.

In pursuit of this goal, we have carried out interviews and conversations with numerous funders and policy makers, as well as advisory networks and arts practitioners. Below are some of the preliminary findings.

What did we learn on funders?

A general observation is that this is a complex, and it must be said, not altogether comfortable area for most funders. For the most part social change is at one end of the hallway and the arts at the other - quite different - sphere of activity.

There are funders for whom cross over activities are quite natural. These funders articulate their priorities around values like citizenship, older people or innovation. They are less likely to exclude arts organisations working for social change as possible grantees.

There are differences based on types of funders though we recognise the risk of generalising:

Private funders (trusts, foundations and corporations) are quite individual but tend to be somewhat risk averse. By and large however, a large percentage of corporate funders still see support for the arts as a sponsorship activity quite separate from corporate social responsibility activities. Foundations with a strong interest in social change are willing for the arts to be used so long as they pay attention to the bottom line needs of the social intervention.

Public funders (vast topic)Some arts work is included in the big government programmes addressing deprivation in localities. The task of mainstreaming some of the learning from these programmes is only just beginning (e.g. Musical Futures - www.musicalfutures.org.uk) and the implications are not yet fully understood.

Local Authorities - though they vary enormously - are a really interesting story – especially since the advent, in England, of Every Child Matters (http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/) and the Children’s Services Act, which argues for a holistic approach to children’s services that could, potentially, include arts provision alongside health, education and social services. However, it seems that within the relatively new community strategies and action plans, culture generally, and the arts in particular, struggle to find a place. Even though there are many fairly natural entry points for the arts in local councils, arts work connected to social change is often ‘initiative funded’ leaving it external to core programming.

And then we have the arts funders.

The Arts Council itself is hugely aware of the issue of artists working in other settings. The Chief Executive recently wrote a paper that argues that ACE needs to be broader in its reach and more connected to other parts of the public realm.

I want to touch on a few of the issues about funding this work that came to the surface in the interviews CCC carried out during the second phase of the study:

Choosing proposals that will be fit for purpose can be problematic. For funders who do not have the arts as their traditional focus, it can be difficult to know what will deliver what they want. The issue is how do funders judge whether applicants have the necessary basket of skills and knowledge needed to address the complex challenges set out. For that matter: how is the same work evaluated once it has been completed?

Another issue that is sort of a dark horse is research and development for the field. Many funders simply felt that collaborators from different disciplines in social change and arts projects simply lacked training or planning time to work well together.

By the end of this round of interviews several questions came to the fore as being the most pressing and I would like to leave you with them:

What is the status of this kind of work within larger funding organisations? Is there a way to make it less accidental or incidental? What would it take to make the use of the arts more mainstream in social change? This is important work that attracts funding at officer level but can be more problematic at board level – how seriously are they taking it?

Whose job it is to campaign to raise the status of the field to agencies such as the Learning and Skills Council, such as the vast majority of Corporate Social Responsibility programmes and many others for whom this is simply not a topic?

Do funders think they have a role in helping to develop this sector?

Are funders interested in forming partnerships with each other particularly around shared interests? What mechanisms might help this happen? Is there an economy of scale to be reached through shared assessment and resourcing?

Thank you.

These questions were used as the starting point for the conversation that ensued on the day. A report on the proceedings, as well as background papers for the study and other resources will be available on this website in due course.

CCC, March 2006

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