In 2021 ARTCRY reached its first birthday. We celebrated what we achieved, then we took a breath and now we are looking ahead to the challenge of year two…
When we set up ARTCRY we always felt what was needed was a rolling fund. It’s niche, it doesn’t need a huge amount of money, but it does need to be there, ready and waiting at a moment’s notice in order to support the politically responsive work we focus on. When we began to set up the fund the question has always been ‘where is the money coming from?’.
As many of you know (and donated to – thank you) we started with a crowdfunder which kicked us off. We have worked hard at fundraising in the past year with donations coming in from £5 up to just over £5,000. We have run low but so far, we have never run out which feels like an achievement in itself. However, a lot of the time we have also had no idea where the next bit of money is coming from which is the case now. To keep ARTCRY going we need to find a way to grow a core of multi-year financial support to make it feasible and sustainable as a volunteer run organisation.
So this is our ask – have you got ideas on how we can make this happen?
We’ve had donations from generous individuals, we’ve been supported by the Pollination Project and the Network for Social Change in one-off grants, the wonderful Anthony Gormley generously donated the proceeds from the sale of one of his pieces. We are thrilled to say Anish Kapoor is also donating the sale of a work to us. We’ve been held up by volunteers putting in hours of support.
If you have ideas, networks, experience in fundraising strategies, could be part of a funding circle yourself or a willingness to join the conversation we would love to hear from you as we take on the next stage challenge. Please email Kathryn on kathryn@artcry.co.uk to get in touch.
Last year we built it, tested it, and funded some frankly brilliant pieces of work. Now we need to make it last.
Images of all the work we have funded so far. You can read all about these pieces and the artists who made them in our NEWS section.
