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The Arts Council yesterday announced the 62 successful applications to the £7 million Catalyst Arts: building fundraising capacity scheme. All funds from the overall Catalyst Arts scheme have now been allocated.

The 218 organisations which make up the 62 consortia applications feature a wide range of arts organisations including a consortia of: music hubs led by Bolton Music Services in the North West; theatres led by Tamasha Theatre Company Ltd in London; combined arts organisations led by the UK Centre for Carnival Arts across the East, South East, South West and London.

Boosting philanthropy

This £7 million fund is part of the £110 million Catalyst fund to boost philanthropy by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and has been developed to reflect what the Arts Council has learned from the other strands of the scheme.

The building fundraising capacity scheme is designed to help organisations with little or no experience of fundraising to:

• build capacity to address both shared and individual fundraising development needs of consortia members
• identify and develop effective fundraising methods that have a long-term impact on the business plan of each organisation

Consortia were able to apply to the fund for grants of between £60,000 and £150,000 for activity over two years. The scheme was open to applications exclusively from consortia so that learning and skills can reach more organisations.

Exceeding expectations

The successful applicants to the Catalyst Arts: endowments and capacity building and match funding schemes were announced in 2012.

A number of these organisations are already on their way to securing their full match funding including:

• Turner Contemporary in Margate has raised more than half of its Catalyst Arts: endowments target of £2 million with a donation of $800,000 (£530,000) from Goldman Sachs Gives, at the recommendation of Margate born Peter Selman. This donation has been matched with a £530,000 grant payment. It now has until the summer of 2015 to raise the remaining £470,000 to match its Catalyst Arts endowment grant.
• Major donations and pledges, including those from Dame Margaret Barbour and Sir Peter Vardy, have helped Sage Gateshead secure over £1m to date for their 10th Birthday Appeal, securing an additional £500,000 in match funding.
• Circus Space was awarded £134,541 through Catalyst Arts: capacity building and match funding and has so far secured a major gift from Aileen Getty of $1m over the next three years.

Find out more about Catalyst Arts

Read a case study about Catalyst funding recipient Circus Space

Read a case study about Catalyst funding recipient Booktrust