Sustaining Arts Organisations

Resources to administer grants

• Dwindling volunteer base
• Lack of data bases of community resources
• Lack of coordination of local/regional events
• Paucity of facilities for traveling product
• Short-term, one-off projects
   

Weak alliances between arts and cultural tourism, sport and environmental groups are identified as an issue that we can all begin to address. Community organisations can be vulnerable entities due to the complex environment in which they operate.

The arts and other sectors constantly face new increased competition, dwindling resources in the funding arena and changing political environments at all levels of government – local, state/territory and federal. The changing political environment leads to new funding strategies and often, in turn, the necessity for new arguments to access support.

The concept of sustainability in the context of the arts is the subject of a paper by Cathy Hunt and Phyllida Shaw, A Sustainable Arts Sector: What Will It Take? commissioned by Currency Press for its Platform Papers Series (2008: No. 15).  The paper argues that sustainability in the arts is about much more than money.

Questions concerning the quality of artistic work and services, the efficiency of an organisation’s operating systems, and the breadth and depth of its audience base are as important as the more familiar ones about how to achieve a diverse and healthy funding base. (Hunt & Shaw 2008)

So what can you do, as a community based organisation, to ensure that the organisation and its activities not only survive, but thrive?

Facing challenges and taking action
There is a raft of actions you can take to help ensure that your organisation will continue to exist including: succession planning, documenting progress, collaborating across community and being both strategic and visionary in developing creative industries.