MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: Arts & Business

Since December 2008, the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) held a series of seminars across the UK, seeking input from a wide range of artists and arts organisations, members and non-members, in order to develop an Arts Manifesto for the next General Election.

The seminars looked back at previous election and arts manifestos, reflected on what progress has been made, and considered where further steps needed to be taken to achieve crucial goals for the arts world.

The final version of the manifesto was launched at the NCA's Future Britain: Arts leading the way conference which took place at Tate Britain on 15 June 2009.

Verity Haines, National Arts Director at Arts & Business, comments:

"We welcome the NCA's Arts Manifesto for the next General Election. It is an important addition to the debate as to why the arts matter both to our society and to our economy and it underlines why government funding of culture represents a vital, value-for-money investment in all our futures.

Arts & Business would urge the NCA, along with all the other key players in this debate, to recognise the crucial role that the private sector, both businesses and individuals, are already playing in this.

The corporate sector have done a huge amount to help ensure a healthy, vibrant and successful cultural sector, both through the financial partnerships they have developed with the arts and through the skills and expertise that they have brought to the table to help the arts prosper.

It is often argued that we need to develop cultural philanthropy from individuals in this country, but this seems to ignore the fact that individuals are already providing over £341m a year in direct financial support of culture - an astonishing figure. And this doesn't include their impact as ticket buyers, café visitors and gift shoppers. We believe that there is room for growth in this, but that depends on the cultural sector meeting the challenge of developing and managing their donor relationships ever more effectively.

We share the NCA's beliefs in the important role that culture plays in this country. So too, does the private sector. Our challenge now is to ensure that these shared beliefs result in a cultural sector that is even more keenly woven into the social and economic fabric of this country.

It is the private sector that will recover first from this recession. Businesses will be looking to cultural solutions; individuals will be looking to support dynamic artists and cultural bodies. The private sector holds the cards for many in the cultural sector. That is why Arts & Business is issuing a private policy for the arts and that is why any manifesto for the arts must have a much sharper eye on what the private sector can bring and what it wants."