Musical Theatre: " Performing Arts Business"

This week our assignment was to describe a range of different methods of funding and financing performing arts events arts. Also we had to explain the different private and public methods of funding and financing performing arts events. And the last thing which we had to do was to critically comment on various private and public methods of funding and financing performing arts events.

*Deadline for this assignment is 15th March 2016.

Scenario for this assignment is that we are a journalist for the Guardian Newspaper and you have been asked to write a report on the current state of the funding of the arts in Britain.

Here I'm pasting my work:

                                                   Arts funding

 

First of all, I would like to explain the meaning of funding. Funding is the act of providing financial resources, usually in the form of money, or other values such as effort or time, to finance a need, program, and project, usually by an organisation or government. The different methods of funding are:

1)Government Grants

Government could allocate funds themselves or through government agencies to projects that benefit the public sector such as students or researchers and even organisations. At least two external peer-reviewers and internal research award committee review each application. The research awards committee would meet together to discuss the first stage shortlisted applications, and then a further shortlist and ranking is made for the chosen applications. Projects are funded and applicants are informed.

2)Crowd funding

Crowd founding exists in mainly two types, reward-based crowd funding and equity-based crowd funding. In the former, small firms could pre-sell a product or service to start a business whereas latter, backers buy certain amount of shares of a firm in exchange of money. As for reward-based crowd funding, project creators would set a funding target and deadline. Anyone who is interested can raise an interest of investment on the projects. Projects must reach its targeted amount in order for it to be carried out. Once the projects ended with enough funds, the project creators will have to make sure that they fulfil their promises by the intended timeline and delivery their products or services.

3)Raised from investors

To raise capital, you require money from investors who are interested in the investments. You have to present those investors with high-return projects, meaning that the money invested will be paid back with extra return on top of the sum. By displaying high-level potentials of the projects, investors would be more attracted to put their money into those projects. After certain amount of time, usually in a year’s time, rewards of the investment will be shared with investors. This makes investors happy and they may continue to invest further. If returns do not meet the intended level, this could reduce the willingness of investors to invest their money into the funds. In addition, the amounts of financial incentives are highly weighted factors to keep the funding at a desirable level.

Public funding:

Now I would like to explain what is public funding and what are the public advantages and disadvantages. Public funding is money that is generated by the government to provide goods and services to the general public.

Advantage: Public
·  Purpose set by legislation ·  Focus on functions usually impacting significant groups in society such as performing arts. ·  Have the most money and more likely to award large grants/contracts. ·  More likely to pay all project cost and/or cover indirect costs. ·  Easier to find information about and to stay current on project needs/interests. ·  Application processes and deadlines are public information and very firm. ·  Use prescribed formats for proposals many use "common" application forms. ·  Possibilities of renewal known up front. ·  Plentiful staff resources most projects have specific contact person. ·  More likely to have resources for technical assistance. ·  Funds available to wider array of organizations (for-profit and non-profit). ·  Accountable to elected officials if administrative staff don't follow the rules.
Disadvantage: Public
Are much more bureaucratic. Lengthy proposal requirements and complex application, administration and compliance procedures. Often require institutional cost-sharing and matching.  Reviewers tend to favour established applicants. Sometimes difficult to sell new ideas and high-risk approaches. Cost to applicants much higher expensive application and compliance procedures. Changing political trends affect security of some programs availability of funds can change rapidly. Private funding Now I would like to explain what is private funding and what are the public advantages and disadvantages. Private funds available in the private sector without government involvement, support or guarantee.   Advantage:   Private ·  More likely to focus on emerging issues, new needs, populations not yet recognized as "special interests." ·  Often willing to pool resources with other funders. ·  Wide range in size of available grants -- some can make very large awards, others are strictly for small local projects. ·  More willing source of start-up or experimental funds. ·  Full length, complex proposals not always necessary. ·  Can be much more flexible in responding to unique needs and circumstances. ·  Able to avoid bureaucratic requirements for administering grants. ·  Can often provide alternative forms of assistance, i.e., software/hardware donations, materials, expertise, etc. ·  Fewer applicants in most cases. ·  Can generally be much more informal and willing to help with the proposal process.   Disadvantage: Private ·  Average grant size usually much smaller. ·  Priorities can change very rapidly, continuation support can be difficult to predict. ·  Applicants have limited influence on the decision making process. ·  Information on policies and procedures must generally be researched, can be time consuming. ·  Less likely to cover all project costs and most do not cover indirect costs. ·  Limited staff  fewer opportunities for personal contact and/or site visits. ·  May not be clear about reasons for rejection hard to improve for 2nd attempt. Comparing and contrast the two different methods of funding, I believe that private funding is the better option out of the two. Although the funds may not come in huge lumps and there will be an expected additional profit to the investments from the private investors. The private funding allows almost an immediate injection of money to kick off the project, whereas with, public funding it could take some time before the transaction. Most big organisations in Performing Arts get their funding from private investors as it’s a quicker and bigger injection of money that is necessary for the project to work although big organisations mix both private and public methods of funding.     For a new choreographer/artist I would strongly advise the public funding at start as he/ she is not well known and hasn’t got the contacts and history with private investors. The public sector will be more likely to give money to the choreographer/artist in the beginning although he will have to prove his eligibility to the government or organisation before getting the fund. Later on in their performing arts career, the choreographer may refer to private sector because of the immediate money as well as team work with big time investors meaning it will create contacts for the choreographer/artist for the future. *information based from: www.wikipedia.com www.literacy.kent.edu www.onlineprograms.lcu.edu