V&A, British Museum and Science Museum Group join other cultural institutions supporting Sadler’s Wells co-CEOs’ call for continued business partnerships.
Museums including the V&A, British Museum and Science Museum Group have joined cultural institutions in backing a defence of corporate partnerships.
Sir Alistair Spalding and Britannia Morton, co-CEOs of London theatre Sadler’s Wells, make the case in an statement published in the Financial Times.
It argues that working with businesses is essential for cultural organisations to operate effectively within existing economic structures.
The letter is published one year after investment firm Baillie Gifford withdrew from arts sponsorship following activist campaigns over claims by campaign group Fossil Free Books that it had links to fossil fuel firms and Israel.
The open letter has received backing from the museums alongside theatres and festivals including the National Theatre, National Gallery, Royal Ballet & Opera, Donmar Warehouse, Southbank Centre, The Old Vic, and Edinburgh International Festivals.
“Partnering with businesses ensures our work goes further and has a greater impact. It adds more value and enables growth, ambition and risk taking,” the letter states.
“As culture secretary Lisa Nandy argued in her Jennie Lee Lecture, such relentless negativity has the potential for “killing off” arts and culture in the UK. Across the arts and culture sector, it is perhaps not well understood that working in partnership with businesses is a proactive choice. Corporate sponsorship can never provide a replacement for public funding.
The statement also addresses the relationship between cultural organisations and their corporate partners, noting that businesses “are made up of real people, engaged in real communities, who understand and believe in the power of the arts to bring joy, aspiration and change to our lives.”
It says museums, theatres, festivals and artists “need to operate within the economic structures in which society operates.”
The statement concludes that cultural organisations “must find a way to show that cultural organisations contribute to a better world, and partnership with business and philanthropy is an admirable and valuable part of that mission.”
Supporting organisations also include the Donmar Warehouse, Science Museum Group, Southbank Centre, The Old Vic, and Edinburgh International Festivals.
