Creative Schools explored a variety of collaborative income generation approaches to better understand sources that can contribute towards long term sustainability of cultural education activities in east London.
Over the course of the programme a mixed financial model developed that pools resources and generates income through a range of sources.
- Income from traditional cultural education funders such as trusts and foundations decreased proportionally across the three years of programme activity in relation to other income generating activities including membership and events income.
- 116 different organisations ultimately contributed to a business model that enabled income generation and pooling of resources across a wide range of organisations.
- Making explicit an offer of match funding in exchange for a school’s investment in cultural education was successful in ‘opening the door’ and unlocking investment from schools. For every pound invested through by Creative Schools into creative projects, £2 was leveraged from school budgets.
- Further insights into financing a place-based model can be found in the Building a Collaborative Culture report and toolkit (Barbican/Guildhall School of Music & Drama, 2017)