UK Experiences Reduced Spending on the Arts

Farah Nayeri writing for Bloomberg has a rather sobering report on past and future spending for the arts from foundations and corporations.  According to the article, art tracking group Arts & Business, a nonprofit organization that links the arts with non-governmental donors, has seen a downturn in UK art funding  for the year ended March, 2009 and perhaps more importantly expects the lower level of funding in the UK to continue over the next two years.  Arts & Business reports the fiscal year ending March 2009 saw reductions in UK art spending by 6% from the previous year, down a total of over $250 million.

One of the hardest hit groups were museums in the UK, showing a 37% decline in giving. Here in the US there have been many reports, some posted on the AW Blog, about the decline in giving to museums and historic societies.  This could get worse if the US economy does not improve, and may also be impacted by changes in charitable donations laws which could impact many organizations and individuals ability and desire to give.

Nayeri states

the charity published a survey showing that spending by U.K.-based companies in the year ended March 31, 2009, fell 6 percent to 157.3 million pounds ($254 million).

Investment by businesses, individuals, and trusts and foundations together dropped 7 percent to 655 million pounds. Arts & Business is a nonprofit body that links the arts with non-governmental donors.

“We’re looking at bad figures for next year and the year after,” Tweedy said in a telephone interview. “The smaller arts organizations are suffering the most.”

After U.K. elections that are set to take place by June, arts subsidies are bound to be cut, Tweedy said. Philanthropists “are going to be the ones increasing the funding in the next eight to 10 years, not the government,” he said.

In the year ended March 31, 2008, a record total of 686.7 million pounds was given to U.K. arts organizations by companies, individuals, and trusts and foundations, up 12 percent on the previous year.

In the just-ended year individuals alone gave 363 million pounds -- more than twice what businesses gave, and a decline of 7 percent from last year. Trusts and foundations contributed 134.5 million pounds to arts and culture, also down 7 percent.

Museums suffered the biggest drop in giving, with a 37 percent decline to 80.8 million pounds.

To read the full article, click HERE.