Reading Arts Council England’s latest Equality, Diversity and Inclusion data report 2020-21, it appears ACE sees diversity primarily as the number of people who either work for or visit arts institutions like the Royal Opera House. ACE’s diversity strategy of investing in a portfolio of mainly White-led institutions and then, under threat of sanction, requiring …
Arts Council England made a clear commitment to increase funding to Black-led organisations. Its new levelling up priority puts that commitment at risk. In this article, I question how it plans to square the circle and deliver both. Levelling up must not lead to levelling down on diversity.
Not every business owner in the UK is in the same position today. If you’re a white entrepreneur your access to finance is varied and includes venture capital, equity and debt. If you’re Black*, you’re much more likely to have to borrow from family or friends and you won’t have anything like the same chance …
Why we need to build mature partnerships between Black-led organisations and funders. There are written rules when applying for arts funding: set criteria which outline the funder’s priorities, the activities it supports, who is eligible to apply and the amount of any potential grant. In theory, these criteria determine what does or doesn’t get funded. …
The fight for racially equitable funding in the arts and creative industries is what drove me to set up Create Equity. Here I argue the need for Black and White leaders to work together to make it happen.
I was optimistic about the possibility for change to the stark and urgent problem of only 2.4% of regular arts funding going to BAME* organisations when the BAME population is 14%. But as I plan to launch Create Equity’s campaign for arts funders to pledge to distribute their funding equitably within the next ten years, …
1. The challenge Setting up projects which develop BAME creative businesses – through which the founders can potentially generate significant financial reward – has been at the heart of my life’s work. To date I have supported thousands of artists and entrepreneurs, the four most successful of whom have an estimated combined net worth of …
Article published on Arts Professional Huge energy has been expended by Arts Council England (ACE) on distributing the £1.7 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF). There is a clear need for this distribution of funds at pace: the money has provided life support to many large institutions that would have struggled to survive lockdown measures without …
A decade to change what should have changed decades ago I have been in discussion with Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Nesta and the British Film Institute (BFI) amongst others about Create Equity’s campaign to get the sector funding equitably (in proportion to the BAME population) by 2031. Based on today’s …