Major £8.2m donation to cultural organisations in the UK

Donation by The Clore Duffield Foundation

But why won’t the government match the funds?

By Charlotte Burns | THE ART NEWSPAPER Web only

Published online 24 Mar 11 

National Theatre, exterior of the Dorfman Theatre and the Clore Learning Centre as it will look after redevelopment Photo: Haworth Tompkins Architects London. 

A £8.2m donation by leading philanthropist Dame Vivien Duffield will benefit 11 cultural organisations in the UK. The money will go towards the development of new creative learning spaces for young people at institutions including Tate Britain and Kensington Palace. “Now more than ever, I believe that culture should be at the heart of our children’s learning,” said Duffield.

Tate Britain will receive the largest chunk of the donation, with £2.5m going towards two new educational spaces, named after her Clore Duffield Foundation, as part of a £45m renovation project designed by architect Caruso St John. Kensington Palace, currently undergoing a £12m redevelopment that is scheduled to open in time for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, is being granted £500,000 towards a new Clore Learning Centre. Other London institutions benefitting from the donation include the National Theatre, which will receive £2.5m, and the Donmar Warehouse, which will get £500,000,

Seven of the grants go to institutions outside the capital. New Clore Learning Studios are being created at Turner Contemporary in Margate, Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge and at Manchester’s Whitworth gallery, which will each receive £250,000. Bath’s Holburne Museum and Cornwall’s Porthcurno Telegraph Museum are being granted £125,000. The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon will receive £1m for a learning centre, while the Museum of Liverpool will receive £200,000 towards a new children’s gallery called “Little Liverpool”.

The donation coincides nicely with the UK government’s budget announcement yesterday when Chancellor George Osbourne unveiled several measures aimed at creating an incentive for would-be philanthropists to give more to culture. The government has committed to consult on donations of important works or historical objects in return for a tax reduction. “This is potentially good news for museums and galleries up and down the country. Similar schemes abroad have not only encouraged owners to donate art to the nation, but have helped foster ongoing relationships between donors and institutions,” said Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar.

The government also aims to simplify private-giving practices by cutting red tape around Gift Aid. In addition, it plans to reduce inheritance tax on estates leaving 10% or more to charity.

These measures build on the £80m fund-matching scheme unveiled last December as part of Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s ten-point plan to encourage private giving to the arts. He pledged to match private donations with public funds and predicted that the scheme would “unlock at least £160m for cultural organisations over the next four years”.

Around £30m of Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) funds are pencilled for investment in the philanthropy initiative over a four-year period, alongside £50m of National Lottery funding from the Arts Council England over five years, according to a press release issued by the government last December.

Despite Hunt’s statement that he is “extremely grateful” for the “stunningly generous package of funding”, it looks unlikely that Duffield, whom Hunt calls a “role model for philanthropists”, will receive fund-matching on her donation. While Hunt said 2011 would be the “year of corporate philanthropy”, it appears he was referring to the fiscal, rather than the calendar, year. “The £80m match funding scheme has not yet come on stream. We are currently looking at the best way to run [it]” said a DCMS spokeswoman, adding that the initial announcement noted that money would be available from the financial year 2011-2012.

Asked whether it might be possible to match donations retrospectively, a spokeswoman for the Arts Council said: “We are still discussing whether it would be possible.” She added: “However, it is unlikely that it will be matched as the scheme is being designed to encourage new donations, rather than reward past ones.”

The Clore Duffield Foundation, which Dame Vivien chairs, has distributed £50.6m in grants to charitable causes since 2000.