Corporate Sponsorship for the Arts

Is corporate sponsorship for the arts dead? This was one of the great questions raised in conversations at the Culture Business Conference. At a time, as I have oft remarked, when arts organisations are having to speak to so many priorities, how can you also add the interests of for-profit entities that want cheaper-than-an-advertising-campaign exposure and engagement at the cost of a smattering of in-kind or minimal cash donation? For anyone in the SME arts sector, you might wonder if corporate sponsorship for the arts was ever really live. Why? Because in my experience, it is very difficult to align the interests of sponsors and arts institutions that are so resource strapped (which is why you are trying to get sponsorship) that you are caught in a subsistence business model 'death roll' trying to fulfill sponsor expectations. And like the project-specific funding of yore whereby you could not embed infrastructure costs into funding applications, you usually ended up in a functional deficit (or as your canny Scottish grandma might say, 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'). There are endless amounts of cutesy advice you will find on the interwebs, like 'encourage your staff and volunteers to wear sponsor merchandise' but you're an arts organisation not a billboard. So, perhaps the news of the death of corporate sponsorship is slightly exaggerated. But it might need life support. And greater incentivisation from governments.