What do grant giving bodies think about devolution?
Culture Commons has published a new Insight Paper laying out a variety of perspectives from some of the UK’s largest Grant Giving Bodies shared at a special roundtable as part of a major open policy development programme exploring cultural devolution.
Trusts, Foundations and philanthropists - Grant Giving Bodies - play a significant role in the UK's creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem. At a time when pressure on budgets are up and investments in the ecosystem are down, they are often stepping in to plug widening gaps in provision.
Many are already thinking deeply about how devolution and distributed decision-making processes might impact on them and the organisations they support.
For some, this looks like increasingly strategic conversations with local and combined authorities about co-investments. For others, it's investing in programmes that support innovative citizen-led decision making at the local level. For others still, getting a better understanding of where cultural infrastructures are distributed across the country to inform investments is a potential new area of interest.
Culture Commons new Insight Paper, being published today, lays out what some of the UK’s major Grant Giving Bodies had to say about cultural devolution and the risks and opportunities they foresee.
Trevor MacFarlane, Director of Culture Commons, said:
“We're very lucky to have been able to bring these major contributors to our sectors to the table in this way. The Grant Giving Bodies we spoke to told us that they don't simply want to become 'funders of last resort' for under resourced local authorities or sub-sectors - they want to act as co-investors in places and programmes and feel confident that their contributions are adding real value. It is abundantly clear that Grant Giving Bodies stand ready to help shape the way cultural devolution rolls out across the four UK nations from here.”
This roundtable was co-convened by Culture Commons and our partners at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch) and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
