Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced an £80 million scheme to boost philanthropy to the arts in December 2010. This was further boosted by a £20 million investment from Heritage Lottery Fund on 4 July 2011. The scheme is made up of a number of different initiatives:

Catalyst Arts

Catalyst Arts, announced on 29 June 2011 is a £40 million fund to help build the long-term resilience of arts organisations by increasing their fundraising potential. will be invested in three different ways:

• £30 million of Lottery funds will be invested in an integrated match-funding and capacity building scheme to increase arts organisations’ ability to fundraise.  This fund will offer tailored awards covering a three-year period and will be open to individual organisations or those working together that have some experience of fundraising.  This investment is designed to allow organisations to prepare in the first year, and then explore innovative ways of using match-funding to generate and secure new private giving.
  
  It is anticipated that the £30 million fund will enable arts organisations to generate around £25 million of new money from private giving by 2015.

• £7 million of Lottery funds will be invested in a one-off grant scheme to support arts organisations with less experience to build their fundraising capacity. Awards ranging from £15,000 - £25,000 will provide individual organisations, or those working together, with the tools and skills to begin to raise, or increase, their private income.

• a further £3 million of Lottery funds will be invested in making available practical advice on how to secure new sources of funding.  Part of this money will also be used to share the knowledge gained from Catalyst Arts with the wider sector.

Further details of the criteria and how to apply to Catalyst Arts will be available in September.

Catalyst Endowments

Catalyst Endowments, announced on 4 July 2010, is a £55 million scheme to help arts and heritage organisations secure their long-term financial stability by building endowment funds. Arts Council England has committed £10 million to the joint funding initiative with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Heritage Lottery Fund.

Organisations will be able to bid for grants of up to £5 million to support endowment fundraising from the Catalyst Endowments fund, which will be available to match funds raised from private donors.  Bids will be reviewed by an independent advisory panel with around 50 organisations expected to benefit from the grants which will start at £500,000.

The bigger picture

These schemes represent some of the measures we are putting in place to help create a more sustainable, resilient and innovative arts sector – one of the five goals set out in Achieving Great Art for Everyone, our 10-year framework for the arts.

Further initiatives which will form part of the £100 million scheme to boost private giving to the arts will be announced shortly.