Fundraising from private sources

In addition to financial support from foundations, private fundraising practises appear for example in forms of sponsorship, partnership, co-branding, collaborations, co-creations, donations and increasingly also through social media in various forms of sales, crowdfunding, and possibilities for personal investments (Jung, 2015; T.-M. Karjalainen, personal communication, September 21, 2020). The previous charitable approach towards private arts funding, which indicated arts organisations as passive beneficiaries, has been replaced with a win-win situation, where arts organisations are acting more like business partners. Companies are sponsoring arts organisations for commercial purposes, using the associated image of the arts, organisation or event as a marketing tool, and providing financial or in- kind support as return. (Olkkonen & Tuominen, 2006; Cobbs, 2011; Lewandowska, 2015; Rahtu, 2017)

Donations are described as “philanthropic transactions between a donor and a receiver, where the donor neither demands nor receives any predetermined economically measurable benefit” (Radbourne & Watkins, 2015, p. 17), or as a voluntary contribution without special advantage for the contributor or one’s family (Buijze, 2020). Meaning in this study, the donor has no wish to interfere the artistic

37 process or the end product, giving is a voluntary philanthropic action and does not lead to tangible benefits.

Membership schemes, on the other hand, provide in return of the membership fee external benefits in forms of for example reduced ticket prices, access to early booking or to open rehearsals, privileged occasions, and newsletter updates. Besides fundraising, this is also a part of arts organisations’ audience development work:

members are encouraged to become committed, regular participants of the organisation’s events and to join in the membership community, which offers enjoyable social network. (Varbanova, 2013; Pitts et al., 2020) Kaiser and Brett (2013, pp. 79–84) emphasise the importance of these dedicated customers or members and call them “the family of supporters”: they create the backbone for an arts organisation’s well-being, and their loyalty needs to be acknowledged by offering unique experiences through an interesting membership programme not to mention time for devoted customer service. Typically, annual membership rates vary from basic fees and benefits to larger sums offering ‘premium’ advantages for premium members or donators (Americans for the arts, n.d.; Läntinen tanssin aluekeskus, n.d.-a).

The rapid development of digitalization has opened opportunities for fundraising through online sales and crowdfunding. Arts organisations may sell their products, such as tickets to live performances or online recordings, additional merchandised items related to the organisation or services including studio or revenue rentals.

Social media attracts especially younger audiences with its easy, everywhere accessible platforms. (Varbanova, 2013; Massi et al., 2020) Arts organisations may as well offer well-being services, workshops, institutional visits, and for businesses tailored packages covering not only tickets to the performance, but also side-services and marketing visibility (Kuopio tanssii ja soi, n.d.-b; Läntinen tanssin aluekeskus, n.d.-b).

Via crowdfunding arts organisations usually attempt to fund a start-up project or an event by collecting small contributions of money from a large number of individuals, audience or general public (crowd) inside a certain timeframe. Reward- based crowdfunding provides donors with a tangible return, such as an end product,

38 service or experience. (Cheng et al., 2020; Bernadino et al., 2021; Rijanto 2021) Online crowdfunding platforms are for example Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and Finnish Mesenaatti.me (Pitts et al., 2020; Mesenaatti.me, n.d.-a).

According to Rijanto (2021), the amount raised during the first week of the crowdfunding campaign correlated in the success of fulfilling the whole fundraising target. Other success factors involved regular online communication with updates from the artists, video presentations of the progress of the project and possibility to communicate with other ‘like-minded’ participators (Koch & Siering, 2015; Pitts et al., 2020). Another study adds that for young arts organisations, success in a crowdfunding project invites further funding from other sources in the near future, and failure acts as an opposite signal for additional funding (Kostas et al., 2020).

Sponsorship is seen as a business-sector support for arts, where the arts organisations are considered more as business partners: the sponsored organisation receives assistance, financial or in kind, and as a return for its investment, the sponsor receives some kind of promotional, commercial or public relations benefits.

The sponsoring company may use sponsorship as a marketing tool for increasing sales or awareness, for building corporate image or community relations, or for promoting the brand and advertising. In advanced sponsorship, bilateral relationships grow into interorganisational relations: other sponsors of the same supported organisation create a network of sponsors, which form a network of relationships of possible business partners. (Cobbs, 2011; Varbanova, 2013;

Lewandowska, 2015; Lund & Greyser, 2015; Massi et al., 2020)

On higher level sponsorship may grow into a fruitful partnership of mutual learning between two organisations. Partnerships are regarded as advanced strategic relationships that imply combining resources, sharing costs, values and knowledge, developing competency and finding more innovative ways of working.

Partnerships come in various interactive forms including for example co-creation, collaboration and co-branding. In co-creation the business partner joins the creative process during the conceptual and implementation stage, whilst in collaboration both arts and business partners engage in a common project and agree on activities at large. (Austin, 2000; Lund & Greyser, 2015; Lewandowska, 2015)

39 Co-branding is explained as a marketing arrangement between separate brands of two or more partners, which are acting in co-operation for a single new project, product or service, to reach their common or individual goals for instance to improve sales, image building or social networking (Erevelles et al., 2008; Shen et al., 2017).

In so called creative partnerships inventive skills are transferred from arts into other sectors, such as business, education or science, to generate interactive collaborations. These artistic inventions and arts-based learning methods, learning through arts in business, may contribute not only to the company’s reputation or recruitment but also to its productivity. Unlike sponsorship, collaborations with arts and arts-based learning methods seem to have an impact on business organisation’s creativity at large: on creative thinking, problem-solving, improvisational skills, interpersonal relations and communication, leadership, management, engagement of the employees and appreciation of values.

Simultaneously the arts organisations expand their audience and learn from their business partners. (Chong, 2010; Berthoin & Strauss, 2013; Lewandowska, 2015)