Catalyst Funding

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Holburne Museum Awarded Catalyst Endowment Funding

Bath’s Holburne Museum is delighted to be one of only thirty four arts and heritage organisations to have successfully bid for a £1million share from a pot of £56million to support endowments.

The Catalyst Endowments programme is a joint initiative between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Designed to bring new money into the cultural sector, (the successful projects are expected to attract an additional £106 million from private and corporate donors as a result of the scheme) the programme offers match-funding to help arts and heritage organisations become more sustainable and resilient by building a new endowment fund or developing an existing one, in order to increase their annual income.

Alexander Sturgis, Director of the Holburne notes, ‘We are thrilled to have been awarded a grant of £1million towards our endowment through the Catalyst scheme which we will receive if we successfully raise £1million ourselves.

We see this award as a great vote of confidence in what the Holburne has achieved and the work we are doing. The main challenge for our museum, which currently receives no government or council core funding, is to secure reliable streams of regular funding to support our activity, allow us to plan for the future with confidence and give us resilience in the face of financial uncertainty.

An endowment is a vital way of achieving this and we hope and believe that Catalyst will encourage others to help us unlock this wonderful award to allow us to build on our successes for future generations.’

The Holburne will enhance its existing endowment with support from the Catalyst fund which will support our ongoing work to extend and enrich public engagement through fresh interpretation and display as well as through inventive and imaginative learning, exhibition and events programmes.

The Museum will work on this campaign over the next four years to 2016 which marks the 100th anniversary of the Holburne in its current home, The Sydney Hotel, at the entrance to Sydney Gardens. This will provide a compelling focus for a fresh fundraising drive and in particular will optimise the celebratory nature of 2016 for the Museum.

Notes to editors

For further media information and images please contact:
Katie Jenkins, the Holburne Museum
Tel 01225 388547 Email k.jenkins@bath.ac.uk

The Holburne Museum houses an important art collection formed by Sir William Holburne in the nineteenth-century, which includes paintings, silver, sculpture, furniture and porcelain of national and international significance. Artists in the collection include Gainsborough, Guardi, Stubbs, Ramsay and Zoffany. The Museum reopened in May 2011 after ambitious renovations and a new extension by Eric Parry Architects. The Holburne has fast gained a reputation as one of a number of outstanding regional museums in the UK.

The Holburne Museum, Great Pulteney Street, Bath BA2 4DB
Open daily, free admission 10am to 5pm (11am to 5pm Sundays and Bank Holidays)
Tel: 01225 388569 email: holburne@bath.ac.uk   www.holburne.org

Arts Council England has awarded 18 organisations a total of £30.5 million through Catalyst: Endowments.  The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £25.5 million to support 16 organisations.
The money is for endowments to be managed by the organisations for a minimum of 25 years.
Catalyst investment is additional funding which acts as challenge funding to support additional arts activity.  It is not a core funding scheme.

Catalyst: Endowments is part of a wider programme designed to enable arts and heritage organisations to diversify their income streams, attract significantly more funding by increasing their fundraising potential and help them to develop and explore innovative new approaches to securing private giving.
The £100 million Catalyst fund will be invested through:
o Catalyst: Endowments: a £55 million scheme jointly funded by Department for Culture Media and Sport, Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
o Catalyst Arts: a £30 million Arts Council capacity building and match funding scheme
o Catalyst Arts and Catalyst Heritage fundraising capacity building programme:  a £7 million Arts Council fundraising capacity building small grant scheme; and a £5 million HLF investment in capacity building, including a small grant scheme
o The Arts Council will also invest £3 million in a programme of learning and knowledge sharing.

1. Arts Council England recently announced the 173 successful applicants to its £30 million Catalyst Arts capacity building and match funding scheme.  The Catalyst Arts scheme aims to make arts organisations more sustainable, resilient and innovative by increasing their fundraising potential and attracting new money to invest in additional artistic work. The Arts Council press release is available at: https://press.artscouncil.org.uk/Press-Releases/Arts-Council-England-announces-successful-Catalyst-applicants-64e.aspx

2. The Catalyst: Endowments programme was launched in July 2011.  More information is available at: https://www.culture.gov.uk/news/media_releases/8266.aspx

3. Other members of the panel, chaired by Michael Portillo, were:
Dame Liz Forgan, Chair, Arts Council England; Dame Jenny Abramsky, Chair, Heritage Lottery Fund; Veronica Wadley, member of National Council for Arts Council England and Chair, London Regional Arts Council; Hilary Lade, Trustee, Heritage Lottery Fund; David Verey CBE, Chairman of the Trustees of the Art Fund and DCMS lead non-executive director; John Studzinski CBE, investor, philanthropist and senior director at private equity firm Blackstone; and Roger De Haan CBE, philanthropist and creator of Saga group of companies.

4. The Heritage Lottery Fund has today announced a further £2 million of Catalyst Endowments, to Linen Hall Library (£1 million) in Northern Ireland and the Abbotsford Trust (£1 million) in Scotland. More information is available at: https://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/news.aspx?pagenum=1 .

5. The Heritage Lottery Fund will run a second round of Catalyst Endowments in the autumn, with awards to be announced in spring 2013.  More information about HLF’s fundraising capacity building grants will be launched soon.

6. The Arts Council champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people’s lives. The Arts Council supports a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. Great art and culture inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. Between 2011 and 2015, the Arts Council will invest £1.4 billion of public money from government and an estimated £1 billion from the National Lottery to help create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country. www.artscouncil.org.uk

Published on: 20/06/2012

The Holburne Museum