A PROTEST AGAINST BRITAIN’S NEW ARTS-FUNDING MODEL
Fierce cuts in the cultural sector and plans for a “US-style culture of philanthropy” would be central to a future Tory government’s arts policy, Britain’s shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said in January. As the government gears up to implement cuts, The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins looks at the consequences. Higgins writes, “Lottery money will—by 2012 at the latest, say the Tories—be redirected to its original good causes, bringing in sixty-four million dollars a year. At the same time extra income is to come through private sources, and they look to the US’s philanthropic culture as an example. Arts organizations are to be encouraged to raise endowments. A system whereby the wealthy may give objects to museums in lieu of tax is to be brought in. Gift aid is to be improved.”
But Higgins protests, “The US has a philanthropic tradition, embedded in its culture. We do not; nor can it be created in the span of a parliament.” She continues by looking at a problem of “culture and ethos,” writing, “The rich require a return on their donations—most often, power. This is not automatically a bad thing: there are enlightened, hands-off donors. But look at the US, and we see boards of trustees composed almost entirely of the wealthy, wielding extraordinary and not always positive potency. British national museums, by contrast, are tightly bound up with a progressive vision of civic culture and the people’s shared stewardship. This is an ethos lacking in the US, where, in part as a consequence, the arts are fighting to justify their charitable status, with critics wondering why organizations apparently catering solely to the white middle class should be eligible for generous tax breaks.”
Concludes Higgins, “The US example is more eloquent on the perils than the advantages of a culture of private giving.”
