Acquiring Start‐Up Funding for New Arts Organizations

• Date: 01 June 2015
• Author: Stephen B. Preece
• Published date: 01 June 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21131

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N M  L, vol. 25, no. 4, Summer 2015 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21131

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Correspondence to: Stephen B. Preece, School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario

N2L 3C5, Canada. E-mail: spreece@wlu.ca.

From the Field

Acquiring Start-Up Funding for New

Arts Organizations

Stephen B. Preece

Wilfrid Laurier University

This article addresses the challenge of assembling financial support for emergent arts organ-

izations. In addition to organizational logistics and the demands of making art, such

groups must garner financing from various sources, including governments/foundations,

private sector companies, individual donations, and earned revenues. Drawing on the

relevant literature, as well as insights from a case study of a recently formed arts organiza-

tion—the Grand River Jazz Society (GRJS)—a framework is created proposing the key

success factors and corresponding core competencies associated with each funding source.

Governments and foundations require addressing mission as a key success factor, and navi-

gating bureaucracy is an essential core competency in which early stage arts organizations

need to be successful. Businesses, in contrast, look for action as a key success factor, and it

is managerial core competencies that lead to sponsorship. Individuals respond to vision

and require relational core competencies for successful involvement. Finally, the key suc-

cess factor for earned revenue is a connection with audience members, necessitating core

competencies with a services mindset. The article interweaves the conceptual frame with

examples from the GRJS case study and also addresses the challenge of operating with a

portfolio of income sources. Finally, results from a survey of fifty-two arts start-ups in

Ontario, Canada, provides context from a wider group of such organizations with respect

to their early stage funding.

Keywords: arts/culture, philanthropy, fundraising, arts management

THE STUDY OF ARTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP HAS GAINED important traction in recent

years (Beckman 2007; Clapp 2010; Preece 2011), attracting interest from an eclectic mix of

stakeholders including arts conservatories (Wise 2010), social entrepreneurs (Brooks 2008),

and municipal planners (Hoyman and Christopher 2009), among others. Although the