The unsuccessful navigation of ethical arts fundraising: evaluating the partnership between the Great Exhibition of the North 2018 and BAE Systems

A paper written in relation to the Local and Global Challenges unit for MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise. I have no affiliation with any of the organisations mentioned.

Diversifying funding streams is a key topic as arts and cultural organisations must rely less on government subsidies, seeking sponsorship from corporate organisations and other investors, with the government encouraging a culture of philanthropy (Trowell, 2013). There is also a continuous debate about which of these funding sources leads to risk taking, with the social demands of income often classified as: private funding having a commercial orientation; public funding encouraging innovative cultural programming depending on political agenda, and potentially only that received on a national level, rather than local where criteria may be different (Castaner, 2014, p272). This report will assess the ethical issues around the private funding with a commercial orientation, using the Great Exhibition of the North as a case study.

The overwhelming reason that corporate businesses sponsor arts initiatives is to improve their image (Lidstrom, 2004) and therefore, arts organisations may want to consider if they want to be associated with that image. It can be argued that the blurring of art and advertising means critical space has lost its meaning, with critical gestures becoming neutral due to corporate capitalism (Mouffe, 2013). When a cultural initiative is sponsored by a corporation, what can truly be critiqued? The image of the corporate business and arts organisation can also become blurred, and organisations find then themselves associated with the brand. Sometimes, this can result in artistic responses that generate critical conversation, such as the relationship between Tate and BP (Blockadia Britain, 2018) but it can also lead to bad PR for the art due to ‘dirty’ money (Trowell, 2013).

In 2002, the Charity Commission advised “Charities should consider establishing an ethical policy, which clearly sets out the charity’s values. This will form part of their wider fundraising strategy and it can be used to ensure that trustees, staff and any potential commercial partners share a common understanding of the charity’s ethical values”. The Arts Marketing Association’s Culture Hive published a document advising how to generate these ethical guidelines. The document states that organisation should consider: fundraising and marketing; influencing and advocacy; images; procurement and investment; and ownership and awareness (Winchester, 2015).

In October 2016, Newcastle Gateshead was announced as the host of the Great Exhibition of the North (GEN), to be delivered in Summer 2018 (DCMS, October 2016) 1. The partnership bid for a £5 million Government contribution was led by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, BALTIC, Sage Gateshead and the North East Culture Partnership. With a reported exhibition cost of £12.5 million (Steel, 2018), additional financial support to the £5m governmental contribution was essential. Newcastle City Council couldn’t be seen (or afford) to financially support the exhibition significantly, as the authority had recently reduced investment in a key cultural venue, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (Watson, 2018), due to the strain of local government cuts 2.

The partnership investment in GEN has been led by the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, who already generate over £1 million of their annual funding from the private sector, to lead national and international marketing for the area and festival and events that “secure positive profile, attract visitors, deliver economic impact and build local pride” (NGI, 2018). With an expected £184m economic boost to the region (NGI, 2017) it is obvious to see why corporate partners may be interested in investing in GEN, associating their name with a high-profile event. Although exact sponsorship package costs are unknown for GEN, the general NGI partnership packages range from £431 as a Category E Bronze Partner, to £11,878 as a Gold Partner in 2019 (NGI, 2018), so it is expected that the top tier Premium Partners for GEN had a significantly higher investment package.

In February 2018, BAE Systems were ‘proud’ to announce their Premium Partnership with The Great Exhibition of the North (BAE Systems, 2018). Artists and the media quickly responded to the announcement of support from the UK’s largest defence, aerospace and security company, with a headline from Arts Professional reading “BAE Systems, accused of “profiteering from the deaths of innocent children” in Yemen, is one of the Exhibition’s three ‘Premier Partners’” (Romer, 2018). Where some would suggest “wherever the money comes from…if it goes to the art it becomes good money” (Trowell, 2013, p8), this was not the response to the BAE sponsorship of GEN.

It can be argued that art should be critical, resistance from within capitalist and governmental systems and there are fine interstices to navigate between the ethical demands of the artist, institution and public (Critchley, 2010), but in the case of GEN, the BAE partnership was too far, with artists withdrawing from the exhibition and associated organisations such as Arts Council, Baltic and Sage Gateshead all distancing themselves from the relationship with BAE (Steel, 2018). On the 7th March 2018, less than a month after the announcement that they were a Premier Partner for GEN, BAE Systems published a short statement withdrawing their involvement in the exhibition (BAE Systems, March 2018).

It has been reported that businesses have supported GEN to the value of approximately £8 million 3 (Hill, 2018), £3 million more than anticipated, despite BAE no longer sponsoring the event. Hill (2018) reports in Chronicle Live that Greggs, “the North’s favourite bakery”, are supporting the event as they were established in the North East almost 80 years ago and “felt only right to do so” 4. There was no ‘uproar’ about Greggs, despite their recent job cuts and controversial advent calendar where a publicity image showing a nativity scene had a sausage roll in the place of Jesus (Hawken, 2017)! Although this is clearly less controversial than the nature of BAE’s business, it does demonstrate that most corporations has been involved in ethical discussion around their actions.

The key outcome of this is exploring how the Great Exhibition of the North could have avoided this tainted beginning and high profile negative backlash to their partnership approach.

In response to the debate generated by the relationship between GEN and BAE, Arts Professional published a survey and then findings exploring ‘Ethics in arts sponsorship’. The survey received 586 responses from those working in arts and cultural organisations. The results show an overwhelming consensus that organisations need to be more careful about where their sponsorship comes from “This is down to each particular arts organisation and what its ethical code is, along with the perceived ethical codes of its audience” with over 85% of respondents agreeing that arts organisations should take into consideration the activities of potential sponsors. Surprisingly, only 27% of respondents were aware of any organisational policy that guides ethical decisions in relation to sponsorship (Richens, 2018).

As advised by the Charity Commission (2002) and the resources from AMA Culture Hive (Winchester, 2015), having these ethical guidelines in place can help to resolve issues such as this incident between GEN and BAE before a sponsorship agreement was in place. The ‘mistake’ perhaps happened due to the nature of the new organisation (although managed by the established NGI) of GEN, without their own ethical guidelines in place. In a funding environment where organisations are expected to adopt a culture of philanthropy, it is continually important that they ask themselves, do we (and our audiences/artists) care where this money is coming from?

Notes

  1. The competition to host GEN opened in April 2016, encouraging towns and cities across the North to bid to host a two-month exhibition in Summer 2018, celebrating the best of art, culture and design (DCMS, April 2016). The guidance document for bidding venues states that “Government has committed £5m of funding towards the Great Exhibition of the North. However, we expect the winning venue to increase the total budget available for the Exhibition by making use of local resources and budgets, and building partnerships with both public and private funders.” (DCMS, 2016, p4). The requirement for bidding venues puts a strong focus on creating a credible fundraising plan with both realistic cost estimates and funding aspirations.
  2. Newcastle City Council stated that the Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM) will balance the budget by “developing its generated and contributed income streams” (Watson, 2018, p5) increasing long-term resilience and sustainability, in addition to general cost saving measures. The Integrated Impact Assessment of this budget reduction also notes that “TWAM was instrumental in bringing the Great Exhibition of the North to Newcastle and this is likely to generate substantive amounts of tourism activity in 2018” in addition to TWAM using the GEN as an opportunity to apply for funding and diversify income that links to the exhibition.
  3. The article later states “£8 million of funding from private and public sector backers, on top of the £5 million the Government allocated for the event” so it is unclear whether this funding is all from ‘businesses’ or includes public funding.
  4. Although there has been little comment on the connection between the sponsorship and work exhibited, an attraction as part of the Great Exhibition of the North is a mural featuring a Greggs steak bake (Pidd, 2018)

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