Whether you’re setting up a crowdsourcing campaign for your latest artistic project, wondering how organisations foster a relationship with generous corporations or what it looks like to be involved in philanthropy from a giving and receiving perspective, the many ways of giving in the arts explored in our latest podcast.
Anita Clayton has been a volunteer at Perth Festival since 2012 and has done everything from stuffing envelopes to clearing space for a high-flying aerial performance. She told our Performing Arts Editor Richard Watts that giving her time to an arts organisation suits her personality.
‘I like the buzz of being part of it. I tend to be a bit of an organiser. So you know, if there’s a group of us, I often take charge and say “we’ll do it this way”. So it satisfies my organisational desires.’
Clayton said becoming a volunteer has made her feel directly involved in the arts without having a background in performance.
‘It wasn’t until retirement that I really had time to give more time to the things that interest me. And I can’t act and I can’t really sing other than in a community choir, but I love theatre and I love being involved in some way.’
Often volunteers’ time is not recognised as much as it could be according to Volunteering Australia’s Interim CEO Mark Pearce. He believes people who donate their time should receive more respect.
‘They’re not particularly well acknowledged. And that oftentimes at an organisational level because of the fact that the time is freely given. Just because there’s no compensation per se doesn’t mean that the contribution itself is not an invaluable resource,’ Pearce said.
While volunteering is just one way you can donate to the arts, being involved in philanthropy and giving to a crowdsourcing campaign is another way.
Arts for All: The ArtsHubbub also looks at making the arts more accessible
Fiona Menzies is the CEO of Creative Partnerships Australia, an organisations that helps bring the arts, donors and business together. She says knowing how much money to ask for is a question everyone struggles to answer.
‘My advice is always ask for more than you think they’ll give because the worst thing that can happen is they’ll say, “I can’t give you that much, but I can give you a bit less.” And what you never want to do is ask for something and they give it to you so easily. You think, “Oh, maybe I could have asked for more.”‘
When it comes to asking for money, Alan Crabbe, the co-founder of crowdsourcing platform Pozible says transparency is important. People are more likely to give to a cause when they can get to know the story of the people running the campaign.
‘I think people will resonate with people that are authentic, and to be authentic you need to provide that degree of insight so that people can trust and get to know you, and that creates that engagement,’ he advised listeners.
He said you can get others to know more about your and your cause through promotion on social media, but one of the most important ways to do this is through creating a campaign video.
Founder of Playbox Theatre and Former Chair of the Sidney Myer Fund Carrillo Gantner has been on both the giving and receiving sides of philanthropy. He agrees that the backstory of why a person wants funding and their close involvement with the cause is an important argument for funding.
‘People who give money like to be close to the cause so that if you’re asked to support a very specific bit of programming, whether it’s a commissioning of a new writer, you want to know the specific writer, what they’ve done before, what’s the subject matter, they’re going to write about,’ Gantner said. ‘You don’t just want to give a grant to the theatre company, and they’ll decide what to do with it, whether to spend it on the Christmas party or you know, the next general season, or maybe part of their education programme.’
FULL TRANSCRIPT
[Theme music]
George Dunford: Welcome to the ArtsHubbub, a monthly look inside Australian arts… and artists. I’m your host George Dunford.
This month we look at giving – in all its forms. We usually think of philanthropy as large amounts of money, often from a corporation or an individual, but for this edition of The ArtsHubbub we look at some of the other ways people give to the arts.
You could be donating your time like Anita Clayton, who’s been volunteering at Perth Festival since 2012.
Anita Clayton: Well, when I first retired I volunteered for all sorts of different organisations trying to find out what, what was really a fit. And some things I’ve kept up but other things I dropped. And then I realised that the festival needed volunteers and I can’t act and I can’t really sing other than in a community choir, but I love theatre and I love being involved, you know, in some way.
George Dunford: Without volunteers, the Australian arts sector would grind to a halt – so this month we also speak with Volunteering Australia’s Interim CEO Mark Pearce, who tells us more about why people volunteer, and how arts organisations can better assist their volunteer workforce.
For the Nudge we look at giving and receiving – how you might create relationships where people can support your art. Fiona Menzies, CEO of Creative Partnerships Australia, highlights some trends in Australian philanthropy, including debunking a few myths about who doesn’t give.
Pozible founder Alan Crabbe shares his experiences of crowdfunding, and how giving a little can add up to a lot. And former Chair of the Sidney Myer Fund Carillo Gantner talks about where philanthropic organisations are most interested in donating.
Anita Clayton: So that whole area was absolutely deep in feathers. But people didn’t want to go home. You know, the kids were rolling in the feathers, people were staying and talking to the people who were around them. And it was just a lovely atmosphere. And for months afterwards, you’d walk back towards the train station. And between the rails on the bridge, the horseshoe bridge, you’d find feathers stuck in the cobwebs, you know, little reminders all over the place. And people apparently got the train down to Mandurah after the performance and you know, feathers went all the way to all the places the train went to, so there were feathers travelling in all directions [laughs].
George Dunford: That’s Anita Clayton, reflecting on her experience of volunteering at the Perth Festival for the first time in 2012. That year, the festival opened with the French aerial act Place des Anges, whose performers scattered more than two tonnes of feathers across the Perth CBD.
Anita Clayton: Why, that was great fun. I mean, we had people standing around in the areas where the high wire angels were going to come down and land so that they didn’t land on the audience. So we had to keep spaces clear around them.
George Dunford: Anita is one of 6 million Australians who register their time to volunteer every year.
Anita Clayton: I mean, I’m always been involved in all sorts of things. And I’ve even, before I retired, I volunteered for other things. During the Grim Reaper campaign, I used to go to the Media Centre after work and do the hotline. I mean, with a nursing background that sort of fitted. So yes, I’ve always volunteered in some capacity. But it wasn’t until retirement that I really had time to give more time to the things that interest me. And I can’t act and I can’t really sing other than in a community choir, but I love theatre and I love being involved in some way.
George Dunford: She especially enjoys volunteering at Perth Festival.
Anita Clayton: That suits me really well, because it only covers a couple of months of the year. And then I can do other things. I like a bit of variety. But by volunteering with them, they’ve shared their volunteer list. So I now get to do some assistance with front of house in the university theatres. And they also shared their lists with the art gallery because I did some festival sessions at the Art Gallery. So now I’m on a volunteer list at the Art Gallery as well. So I’ve got lots of options there. I can fit in what suits me.
Mark Pearce: So I think that people’s motivation around volunteering comes from, well, a vast array of, of historical circumstances – it comes from their personal attributes, it comes from family, it comes from business. But ultimately, when you strip away a lot of those, those points of of origination, it comes from a point of wanting to make a contribution, make a contribution to a cause, to a, an organisation, to the betterment of society, perhaps?
George Dunford: Mark Pearce is the Interim CEO of Volunteering Australia, the national peak body for volunteering. He’s all too aware of the arts sector’s reliance on volunteer labour.
Mark Pearce: One in seven Australians contribute their time freely towards art organisations. You take one in seven people from your workforce out of the workforce, and see what happens to it. We define volunteering as time willingly given for the common good without financial gain. Just because it’s freely given doesn’t mean it’s free as such. It has a cost, a commitment from an organisation’s perspective. But gee the results that come from it are really manifest in terms of that which can be achieved from a highly engaged, highly passionate workforce.
George Dunford: Anita is certainly passionate about the arts – but what does she get out of volunteering for Perth Festival?
Anita Crawford: I like the buzz of being part of it. I tend to be a bit of an organiser. So you know, if there’s a group of us, I often take charge and say “we’ll do it this way”. So it satisfies my organisational desires. And I just like being part of it all…I started last year’s festival with taking plastic labels off recycled plastic bottles, so that they could be sent to the schools to be turned into lamps or lanterns for the festival. And I do things like stuffing envelopes, but I’ve also helped with front of house…So you don’t enjoy the show in the same way. But it’s quite fun just to be in there anyway and see it sort of almost from the other side.
George Dunford: Mark believes that generally, Australians don’t do enough to celebrate the service of volunteers.
Mark Pearce: It’s part of the fabric of the community. It’s a sense of identity. It’s a connection to place. Without volunteers, communities tend to stop. Without volunteers, organisations grind to a halt. They’re not particularly well acknowledged. And that that’s oftentimes at an organisational level because of the fact that the time is freely given. Just because there’s no compensation per se doesn’t mean that the contribution itself is not an invaluable resource. There should be greater acknowledgement of volunteers, of their efforts, and in particular, all that volunteers have done to contribute to Australian society. You just have to look over the past 6-7-8 months or so and say, Wow, we’ve had bushfires, we’re into COVID. Those people who’ve been at the fighting front of both of those major disasters in Australia have been volunteers.
George Dunford: Treating volunteers with the same respect as paid staff is an important first step.
Mark Pearce: So when we think about volunteers, and when we define volunteers, we think about them in the context of an unpaid workforce. An organisation’s responsibility towards its volunteers is in many ways similar to its or to its responsibilities towards the paid workforce. That sits around it’s a risk management framework. It sits around its Workplace Health and Safety provisions. It sits about, around its adherence to the Fair Work Act, for example. All of those things which are critical pieces of infrastructure, legislative, regulatory infrastructure, and even organisational procedures and policies that are applied towards the paid workforce should also be applied towards the unpaid workforce, towards the volunteer workforce.
George Dunford: Organisations sometimes perceive volunteering as a bit of a one-way relationship but volunteers often have their own reasons for getting involved. We asked Anita what she’d say to encourage other people to volunteer in the arts.
Anita Crawford: It’s fun. They don’t know what they’re missing. They should have a go. And I mean, if you’re a volunteer, you can always say, “This is not what I want to do”. It’s not as if you’re a paid person who has a responsibility to be there.
George Dunford: As well as being a volunteer, Anita is a Friend of the Festival and she’s even continued her support by arranging a bequest for Perth Festival in her will.
Anita Crawford: There are people who donate large amounts of money now, whereas mine’s a bequest, because I don’t know how how long I’m going to live and how long the money will last for and I still want to be able to buy tickets. But what’s left when I go, that’s fine. They can do what they like with it. But in the meantime, I’ve got time.
George Dunford: Clearly, Anita loves the arts. It’s a personal conviction that drives her to be involved, because she sees culture as having a social role.
Anita Crawford: And I think the arts are important. particularly at the moment, there’s so much problems with mental health these days, because people worry about what’s going on in the world and you know, where it’s all going in the end. And I guess, I mean, we’d just got through the Second World War when I was growing up, and people looked at things quite differently. They were much more optimistic because everything looked as though it was going to work better than it had been for years before. But I think the arts give you a perspective on what’s going on. And even with basic things like relationships, they sometimes – particularly dramatic art and theatre – you look at things from other people’s points of view. It shows you how other people live. And I think all those things help, help people with everyday life.
Sabine Brix: Creative Partnerships Australia fosters a culture of private giving. Bringing the arts, donors and business together, CPA creates a more ambitious and sustainable cultural sector for the benefit of all Australians. To learn how CPA can assist you, or your organisation, subscribe at creativepartnershipsaustralia.org.au
[Music fades out]
George Dunford: Now for the Nudge, our monthly look at improving your arts practice.This month we look at ways of asking for support… how can you approach an organisation and what do funders look for when they give.
Founder of Playbox Theatre and Former Chair of the Sidney Myer Fund Carrillo Gantner has been on both the giving and receiving sides of philanthropy.
Carrillo Gantner: People like people who give money like to be close to the cause. So that, you know, if you’re asked for, to support a very specific bit of programming, whether it’s a commissioning of a new writer, you want to know the specific writer, what they’ve done before, what’s the subject matter, they’re going to write about. You don’t just want to give a grant to the theatre company, and they’ll decide what to do with it, whether to spend it on the Christmas party or you know, the next general season or, or maybe part of their education programme.
George Dunford: So if you’re looking for a supporter you need them to have an interest in your art and give them something specific to commit to. Carrillo sees giving as about just working with good people.
Carrillo Gantner: For me it means people whose work I like who I think are in themselves good people. I mean, there’s some wonderful artists who are very difficult, nasty people. And that’s fine. That’s just who they are. If you’re an artistic director of a company, you, you accept their behaviours because you know that their art is outstanding. But as a philanthropist or someone giving to, to them, you don’t have to, you you want to be with people whose company you like and whose work you admire.
George Dunford: On a smaller scale crowdfunding works through finding your audience, which may start with family and friends. Alan Crabbe, co-founder of Pozible and Birchal, developed these platforms based on the idea that people really just want to connect with artists.
Alan Crabbe: I think people, people will resonate with people that are authentic, and to be authentic. You need to I suppose provide that degree of insight so that people can trust and get to know you. And that creates that engagement. And then I think after that once they’ve got to know you, they trust you.
George Dunford: This idea is the basis of the rewards that crowdfunding offer their backers – having dinner with a maker has a big appeal for individual backers, but it’s also important for philanthropy and corporate giving.
For a crowdfunding campaign, marketing to individuals is crucial, but the most successful campaigns work out ways to communicate well up front. But they also rely on getting interest early.
Alan Crabbe: …one of the other key successful, success factors for crowdfunding is, is creating early traction for a campaign because crowdfunding is very transparent, and that’s the sometimes the value, but it’s also the curse as well that if you don’t get off to a good start, if you don’t get momentum, if you’re perceived as not doing particularly well with a campaign, it can actually damage you or damage your brand.
George Dunford: One of the ways to ensure a campaign goes smoothly is by carefully considering how you set your target.
Fiona Menzies: …and my advice is always ask for more than you think they’ll give because the worst thing that can happen is they’ll say, “I can’t give you that much, but I can give you a bit less.” And what you never want to do is ask for something and they give it to you so easily. You think, oh, maybe I could have asked for more.
George Dunford: Fiona Menzies, CEO of Creative Partnerships Australia has seen a lot of organisations successfully build up relationships with corporations. She echoes the advice that you should get to know your supporter and she thinks there’s a lot to be gained from looking more deeply into an organisation.
Fiona Menzies: The best way I can describe it is you need to be helping them solve one of their own problems. So it could be as simple as they want to get to a particular demographic. And that’s a demographic that you already hold so that you can expose them through a partnership to that demographic.
George Dunford: Of course it may not just be cash that an organisation can give, with research indicating that money represents only 10% of corporate giving. Without volunteers like Anita Clayton, the arts wouldn’t be able to survive. So, many corporations are looking at volunteering and other alternatives forms of giving.
Fiona Menzies : what everybody wants is to be given cash, and then they decide what they do with it. But I do think Millennials are much more likely to want to give their time
GD: Any relationship with a corporation needs to be genuine and Fiona encourages arts organisations to think about their own values and have honest conversations with potential partners.
Fiona Menzies: But I think it is a bit of a trap that not for profits in all sectors, not just the arts fall into, is that there’s somehow a junior partner in these partnerships. And I think there’s no reason why not for profits and arts organisations can’t actually initiate more suggestions themselves. So don’t wait for the business to suggest it. You suggest it to the business.
GD: And it doesn’t mean that the arts should be a silent partner and help a corporation ‘brandwash’ when then they do something that damages both partners. For example, the destruction of Aboriginal rock shelters in Western Australia by Rio Tinto would be something that Fiona would raise with a funder.
[Background music]
Fiona Menzies: One thing I like to keep in mind always is, and not withstanding that that Rio Tinto episode was disgraceful – but I also like to think that corporations are made up of individuals. And many of those individuals within those companies have very good intentions.
Take that as an opportunity to say, “Can we meet with you and talk to you about the response that we’ve had to the fact that you’re our sponsor? We’ve got staff who are deeply upset, we’ve got subscribers or audience members who are deeply upset. And, you know, we want you to know that this is the feeling of the community.” And that kind of conversation, opening up that conversation is much more likely to help them change their behaviour and sort of writing them off completely.
George Dunford: The other aspect of the conversation with a corporate funder is working out who’s going to make the decision. While in the past there might have been a corporate affairs area or be a decision made by an owner, increasingly Fiona has noticed that it’s marketing departments make the giving decision.
Fiona Menzies: And so the marketing people are in charge of the sponsorship spend and they are literally measuring it up and what they think that the return they’ll get from it will be against other kinds of marketing spends. So you know, can we put a whole lot of ads on Google and what will be the result of that? Or can we sponsor this company and what will be the result of that? That’s the conversation they’re having internally.
George Dunford: Once you’ve got a relationship with a funder, it can be as much about maintaining that relationship and keeping the conversation going, even when you might have… hmmmm, not such good news.
[Background music]
Carrillo Gantner: …there was a case recently where we gave money to commission a work. It wasn’t done for perfectly legitimate reasons, because not all commissions of music or plays or poetry or anything, not all of them hit gold. Often they don’t. But what you’re doing with a commission is sort of buying the artist time. But it was six years ago that the ground was made and they’d fail to report the fact that it hadn’t gone anywhere. They hadn’t ever paid it out. But they came back asking for more money. So you, you, you tend to say ‘Hang on a sec, hang on a sec. Let’s, let’s, you know, where were you?’ That suggests poor governance of the fundraising process.
[Music fades]
George Dunford: When the relationship is going well, it is easiest to communicate – to invite a funder to a performance or a reading. But these moments will build up trust with a funder and when you really need their help you can call on them as a valued member of your community.
Fiona Menzies: You can’t call on anyone who you only ever call on a rainy day. If you don’t have those good, solid, ongoing relationships with people, they’re not going to help you out when you’re in trouble. And so I think the same sort of concept applies that you’ve got to maintain those relationships for the duration of the sponsorship, you can’t just take the money and then say, ‘See ya!’. You’ve got to actually keep those relationships up.
George Dunford: Increasingly governments are asking more of private philanthropy and Carrillo is realistic about the role private giving can play.
Carrillo Gantner: Well, governments want it to do more. In fact, as they pull out of all sorts of areas of funding, they say I’ll go and ask philanthropy while philanthropy is growing in Australia, certainly it can’t cope with the the extent of the demands that are put on it, either naturally or because government has withdrawn from a certain area.
George Dunford: Private giving can’t support all of the arts but it does influence government funding. The Asia Pacific Triennial, the re-build of La Mama Theatre and the establishment of the National Institute of Circus Arts were all funded by private philanthropy first which was then, followed up by government funding.
Carrillo Gantner: An American friend, the guy, Steven Heintz, who’s director of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, he once to described to me that that that philanthropy is like acupuncture. You know, you can’t save the whole body necessarily but you, by, by putting the needle right in, on the point of pain, you can actually influence the whole nervous system.
George Dunford: At ArtsHub we’ve been supporting Australian art for 20 years. Our team of writers and journalists keep the arts community informed and connected, a vital role in these challenging times. Right now we need your help to continue being the go-to news source for the arts sector. You can join or give a membership to a friend at support.artshub.com.au
[Credits]
George Dunford: Thanks for listening to the Arts Hubbub, we’ll be back next month. We talked a lot about different ways of giving in this episode so don’t underestimate how much a review would support this podcast – you can contribute your words on Apple podcasts.
Our guests this month were: Anita Clayton, Fiona Menzies, Carrillo Gantner, Alan Crabbe and Mark Pearce.
The ArtsHubbub is produced by Michelle Macklem, Sabine Brix, Richard Watts and George Dunford.
Our theme music is ‘Chasing Waterfalls’ by Tim Shiel. Music in this episode also by The Other Stars.
And our coverage of COVID-19 is STILL free outside of the paywall so you can stay connected during this time at artshub.com.au
This podcast was produced on the lands of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Kulin Elders, past, present and Emerging. Sovereignty has never been ceded.
