Hon Christopher Finlayson
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage
4 July 2012 Media Statement



Initiative to boost arts philanthropy welcomed

A new initiative by Creative New Zealand to boost the ability of cultural organisations to attract private investment was welcomed today by Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Christopher Finlayson.

“I am pleased to see Creative New Zealand invest $1.05 million up to mid-2015 in its Creative Giving programme,” Mr Finlayson said. “It will provide tailored, one-to-one advice to cultural organisations that will help them attract more private investment over and above government funding.”

The capability-building programme is the result of adopting a key recommendation of the Cultural Philanthropy Taskforce, which was appointed by Mr Finlayson in 2009, and identified ways to encourage more private sector support for the arts in New Zealand.

“This government has made it a priority to encourage increased private sector giving in addition to, not instead of, existing levels of public support for the arts and cultural organisations,” he said.

“It is particularly pleasing to see the Creative Giving programme includes a limited matched funding component. This will motivate and reward cultural organisations by matching new business partnerships or new donations.”

Establishing a fundraising capability building initiative for the cultural sector based on successful models overseas was one of several Taskforce recommendations to the Minister (in its December 2010 report Growing the Pie).

The taskforce also recommended rewarding organisations that increased their levels of private funding with matched funding.

The Taskforce was chaired by Peter Biggs, former chair of Creative New Zealand, who is now on the Cultural Giving programme’s reference group (along with another former Taskforce member, philanthropist Dayle Mace).

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage is responsible for the government’s work to increase cultural giving. The Ministry is collaborating on this work with Creative New Zealand, the Arts Foundation and Philanthropy New Zealand.

Creative New Zealand is a crown entity and makes decisions at arms’ length from central government.

The Arts Foundation recently announced it will launch an online crowd funding platform, Boosted, in September to generate new streams of philanthropic funding for cultural projects, and also to encourage a new generation of donors.

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage is also surveying over 2000 cultural organisations to assess the impact of payroll giving and amended tax rebate levels.

Previous research on the levels of giving and sponsorship for the cultural sector revealed that on average government contributed 80% of funding, and private individuals only 3%.

“This updated research will help track how well cultural organisations are doing and where there might still be room for improvement,” Mr Finlayson said.

More information on the Creative Giving programme can be found on the Creative New Zealand website

http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/en/arts-development-and-resources/creative-giving

© Scoop Media