Programme Combination of talk and group work Practical examples A performance

1. Talking to strangers:Building relationships to support the artsJulia RowntreeFestLab Academy, MunichJanuary 2011jrown@dircon.co.uk

2. Programme • Combination of talk and group work • Practical examples • A performance

3. Motivations • Obstacles • Principles of good conversation • Practical examples: • commercial sponsorship; • building a community of supporters; • co-learning. • Your turn: Will we support you?

4. Not about secret rules or a rigid methodology, • More about principles and values. • Learning by trial and error. • Different in every place for every person/    organisation subject to events and external    environment. • An imaginative, social and adaptive process.

5. LIFT from 1986-2006Responsible for relationships with business and sectors other than public funding. Also worked freelance for the Place Theatre and other contemporary arts organisations. Now working on international clay and ceramic education project.

6. Introductions: What’s your ‘elevator pitch’? How do you describe what you do in less than 10 seconds?

7. What motivates/ or might motivate individuals to support what you do?

8. • sense of belonging • their friends are doing it • sense of meaning • making a difference • giving courage to a younger generation • love of artform • their children/partner is/are interested • civic pride • sense of responsibility • to see what will happen • admiration • sense of making history • alter ego • fun

9. Many obstacles…. real and imagined

10. • bad economic situation • don’t know anyone rich • the timing doesn’t work - too soon, too far in the future • it’s not happening in the right location • the artistic programme keeps changing • “we just need the money!” • too desperate! • too shy…

11. Money is important but ideas and ways to engage people are more important still. The aim is to get people to support you not from ‘pity or piety, but from admiration’. You only need a few supporters to make a big difference.

12. Conversation Principles of good conversation

13. • establishing common ground • not just talking about what you want • finding a way to connect people to things that    interest them • exploring possibilities in the external world • making people feel good about themselves • making sure everyone has their say. • making out no-one hogs the limelight. • fixing arrangements

14. Widening support involves talking to strangers

15. Before approaching strangers, know who your friends are. Supporters need to know what they’re plugging into. First step is to engage allies and champions, formally and informally. Board members and development council. Lift’s legal status - a charity limited by guarantee.

16. Board: Legal status, practical expertise, figurehead chair with passion for arts and sense of public life. Development council: no legal status, meets occasionally as council, way to call on one-to-one advice. People from different working backgrounds gives access to and understanding of other worlds.

17. Rich and powerful in society inevitably involves business…

18. Why did LIFT engage with business? • Expense of international visits • Public subsidy at standstill • Only way to diversify income • and keep ticket prices accessible

19. Relations with business based on directly commercial motivations • Reaching new markets - logo on publicity • Senior level networking - receptions • Image - press and broadcast media coverage • Entertainment - Tickets to performances • Client/employee entertainment • Corporate Social Responsibility • Product sampling by influential people

20. Know your audiences To extend your own markets but also to describe to potential supporters. LIFT audience more like a rock and pop audience than average theatre-going audience. “Early adopters”, risk-takers and “taste-makers” in marketing jargon.

21. Many different businesses Many different dilemmas Many different activities some more ‘sponsorable’ than others

22. How much? Costs of sponsorship: £5,000 - £50,000 No real market! Commercial sponsorship in 2001 approx 17% of overall budget of £1.5million.

23. Process of engaging with businesses • Research: Who are they? Precise information about individuals and companies. • Building allies and champions • Building internal solidarity and entrepreneurial outlook. • Contact: Getting past the switchboard • Engaging individuals - always a second, personal, reason.

24. Talking to strangers and making friends •   Research, research, research •   Walk in other worlds • Have courage •   Enlist champions •   Devise proposals/negotiate deal • Follow up, send thank yous • Build a community • Keep in touch with individuals even if they    move jobs.

25. But business and arts exist in a bigger picture Compelled to change the conversation and address civic issues

26. London’s local government abolished by Margaret Thatcher 1986 By 1991, the effects were felt by many.

27. Lift’s motivations for lateral thinking • Low morale • Need for a new conversation • Need to build different forms of support • Need for celebration rather than complaint

28. Taking a ‘helicopter view’, we had: An ability to bring people together across levels of power, working role and experience. The power to shape the conversation in a spirit of curiosity and celebration.

29. Our idea was to raise morale in the capital. To celebrate London and engage others in an understanding of exceptional projects happening in different walks of life.

30. LIFTING LONDON CONFERENCE 1991 Setting the stage for stories of success: • Housing • Education • Culture • Business

31. Deliberate move to convene a cross-sector conversation: • civic organisations • business (Financial Times) • public sector • education • the arts • NGOs

32. What we learned • Interdependency between sectors but need for neutral     space: i.e. a space for public collaboration beyond the     market and the state to imagine creative responses to     issues of common concern. • A cultural commons made through a shared project. • Role of the arts - imagination, celebration, reflection, critique. • Starts by taking a lead without formal authority. • The power of invitation and ability to change it.

33. Sponsorship still an almost impossible job! • Competing with other demands for funding. • Fitting with corporate plans - too short, too long. • Recession. • Uncertainties of Lift programme.

34. Only approach through creating communities of support

35. Individual giving schemes

36. Call on the art for inspiration Be a Brick, buy a BlockReal concrete blocks with different designs stencilled in red, dark blue and royal blue £10 for peasants£100 for bourgeoisie£1000 for Aristocrats

37. Project champions: Melvyn Bragg, television - peasant Stuart Lipton - developer - bourgeoisie Richard Rogers - architect - bourgeoisie Lord Palumbo - Aristocrat Stuart Lipton’s address book: Architects, builders, individuals etc £8000

38. Remove the risk - sponsor the choice of the audience! The Place Portfolio - London’s centre for contemporary dance.

39. Project champion, Tony Elliot, Time Out director. A party to show choreographers’ work. Guests asked to donate £50 in future work of choreographers. 100 donations at £50 = £5000. Framlington, Financial company, matches that investment with £5000. Public Arts fund matches that with £5,000. New work performed in autumn. Guests invited to return.

40. Crowdfunding: http://www.wefund.co.uk/ http://www.thebiggive.org.uk/about/

41. Factory of Dreams Cash support from: Eurostar (business) Brixton challenge (Economic regeneration) Charitable donations (X 3 foundations) CENTEC (employment support) Support in kindfrom: Central London Buses Raised status of the project with supporters by bringing business group to learn from the project in the school

42. Another challenge……. How we understood that business has a lot to learn from the arts Even that we might have something to learn together

43. Baring’s Bank crashesBT sponsorship of Lift’s Education Programme ends Ascendancy of market values A new form of relationship with business?

44. Lift’s motivations for changing the game • All-pervading commercial values undermining our    sense of theatre’s sacred role. • Desire to critique commercial values. • Feelings of powerlessness. • Boredom with being a supplicant. • Need for celebration rather than complaint.

45. Set out to discover what business might have to LEARN from the arts Aim to change a commercial relationship to one of co-learning First steps in what became The Lift Business Arts Forum

46. Project champions: Brian Eno Prominent people in business Financial Times

47. Open question: does business have anything to learn from the arts?

48. Lift Business Arts Forum 1995 Introductory evening at Financial Times Business people, public sector, students and artists in small groups with facilitator Small groups attend together at least 4 events in Festival programme Organising question: What did you see? What would you do differently in your work as a result?

49. Motivations for business participation in Lift Forum • Sensing strategic change via contemporary performance - Insight into creative and innovation management - Personal and leadership development • Openness, challenging assumptions, cultural sensitivity, the big questions - Lack of job status • Connection to people you would otherwise never meet

50. Attitudinal changes sought in large organisations Privatisation of state industries • vision and an ability to take responsibility. • an ability to draw on a full range of skills and potential. • an ability to overcome fear and prejudice. • an awareness of different cultures and value systems. • managing diversity, fostering skills and potential in     others. • an ability to grasp and articulate complex relationships. • an ability to regard chaos and ambiguity as positive and    creative. • openness and trust. • learning individuals in learning organisations. • a continuous search for excellence.