A confused report on philanthropy from the DCMS has been published: but the real question what lies in wait for the arts with the chancellor's autumn statement
A new report has been published by DCMS on how to remove barriers to legacy giving (called, not unnaturally, Removing Barriers To Legacy Giving![ext]()
). It has been produced by Legacy10![ext]()
, a campaigning charity set up by Roland Rudd![ext]()
, the City PR man and pal of Jeremy Hunt, to raise awareness of a change in tax arrangements that came into force this April: that anyone who leaves 10% of their estate to charity will be rewarded by a 10% cut in inheritance tax.
The report is one of a trio on philanthropy commissioned by Hunt; that their publication (and recommendations) have not been co-ordinated, and that this first report has been published quickly, makes me half-speculate that the DCMS may have felt it necessary to push out something on philanthropy in the wake of Nicholas Hytner's critical remarks![ext]()
on this part of government policy. On the other hand, maybe I've just watched too many episodes of The Thick of It.
It is accompanied by a statement from culture secretary Maria Miller who, not for the first time, adopts a hectoring tone in saying that the arts "πeed to get better at asking for this kind of support"– I am not precisely sure what this whip-cracking is supposed to achieve, since most organisations are already doing their best to increase philanthropy, with limited infrastructure, in the midst of a skills deficit in this area, against the backdrop of dipping public funding, and amid an economic crisis.
What of the report itself? It is a hotch-potch. Bizarrely, it fails to define its major term. What is philanthropy supposed to consist of? Are those who join Friends' schemes, or the National Trust, engaged in acts of philanthropy? Is philanthropy supposed to relate to donations from individuals only, or support from trusts or the corporate sector? Who knows, but, rather worryingly, the 10th recommendation of the report is that "the Arts Council should not be permitted to release grants to any organisation unless they have demonstrated a clear strategy for legacy fundraising." Really? Don't fund anyone unless they are going after legacies? As the report itself admits, 80% of the populace have not in fact even heard of the tax change. Is going after legacies the right solution for every single arts organisation in England? I doubt it.
Other recommendations are equally quixotic and strange. Secure a commitment, demands the report, from tax advisers to tell their clients about the benefits of legacy giving. How on earth would the DCMS go about doing/enforcing that? "A new award should be created by the Government recognising the contribution of individuals who have shown exceptional innovation in the field of legacy giving." Really? Another award? Does anyone really care? (This would be for fundraisers, not for people who had made exceptionally clever wills, by the way.) On the credit side, the report recommends creating support for fundraisers via an iTunesU course. That sort of thing – helping to grow expertise on fundraising – could be really useful if done well.
This seems to me to be a bit of a sideshow. A much more urgent question relates to the George Osborne's autumn statement on 5 December – and the strong possibility of cuts to all government departments. If such cuts do come (5% is a figure being bandied about), the question for Miller will be whether all parts of her portfolio should suffer equally. On current showing, nearly everything seems to be further up her list than the arts (see super-fast broadband roll-out). But it's her responsibility to understand that however much good philanthropy can do in the long term, in the short term it is not a solution to reduced public funding. If she doesn't want to do real damage, now is the time to keep faith with the Tory promise that the arts will not be made to suffer disproportionately. Reported by guardian.co.uk 11 hours ago.
A new report has been published by DCMS on how to remove barriers to legacy giving (called, not unnaturally, Removing Barriers To Legacy Giving
). It has been produced by Legacy10, a campaigning charity set up by Roland Rudd, the City PR man and pal of Jeremy Hunt, to raise awareness of a change in tax arrangements that came into force this April: that anyone who leaves 10% of their estate to charity will be rewarded by a 10% cut in inheritance tax.The report is one of a trio on philanthropy commissioned by Hunt; that their publication (and recommendations) have not been co-ordinated, and that this first report has been published quickly, makes me half-speculate that the DCMS may have felt it necessary to push out something on philanthropy in the wake of Nicholas Hytner's critical remarks
on this part of government policy. On the other hand, maybe I've just watched too many episodes of The Thick of It.It is accompanied by a statement from culture secretary Maria Miller who, not for the first time, adopts a hectoring tone in saying that the arts "πeed to get better at asking for this kind of support"– I am not precisely sure what this whip-cracking is supposed to achieve, since most organisations are already doing their best to increase philanthropy, with limited infrastructure, in the midst of a skills deficit in this area, against the backdrop of dipping public funding, and amid an economic crisis.
What of the report itself? It is a hotch-potch. Bizarrely, it fails to define its major term. What is philanthropy supposed to consist of? Are those who join Friends' schemes, or the National Trust, engaged in acts of philanthropy? Is philanthropy supposed to relate to donations from individuals only, or support from trusts or the corporate sector? Who knows, but, rather worryingly, the 10th recommendation of the report is that "the Arts Council should not be permitted to release grants to any organisation unless they have demonstrated a clear strategy for legacy fundraising." Really? Don't fund anyone unless they are going after legacies? As the report itself admits, 80% of the populace have not in fact even heard of the tax change. Is going after legacies the right solution for every single arts organisation in England? I doubt it.
Other recommendations are equally quixotic and strange. Secure a commitment, demands the report, from tax advisers to tell their clients about the benefits of legacy giving. How on earth would the DCMS go about doing/enforcing that? "A new award should be created by the Government recognising the contribution of individuals who have shown exceptional innovation in the field of legacy giving." Really? Another award? Does anyone really care? (This would be for fundraisers, not for people who had made exceptionally clever wills, by the way.) On the credit side, the report recommends creating support for fundraisers via an iTunesU course. That sort of thing – helping to grow expertise on fundraising – could be really useful if done well.
This seems to me to be a bit of a sideshow. A much more urgent question relates to the George Osborne's autumn statement on 5 December – and the strong possibility of cuts to all government departments. If such cuts do come (5% is a figure being bandied about), the question for Miller will be whether all parts of her portfolio should suffer equally. On current showing, nearly everything seems to be further up her list than the arts (see super-fast broadband roll-out). But it's her responsibility to understand that however much good philanthropy can do in the long term, in the short term it is not a solution to reduced public funding. If she doesn't want to do real damage, now is the time to keep faith with the Tory promise that the arts will not be made to suffer disproportionately. Reported by guardian.co.uk 11 hours ago.