Rolled out by Creative Australia last month, AusArt Day was an attempt to boost philanthropic donations to as many Australian arts companies as were willing to participate.
The inaugural campaign attracted 323 arts participants – a mix of organisations and individual artists – and raised a total of $2.26 million from 4,768 individual donors.
At first glance, this is not a bad result for a first-time event. Each AusArt Day participant would attract around $7000 if funds were divided equally – but this is not how the campaign panned out.
AusArt Day 2025 – quick links
The pressure on arts organisations to net philanthropic support
Especially since the Brandis-era Federal Government arts funding cuts of the mid-2010s, the subject of arts philanthropy has been a trending topic in the Australian arts sector.
Faced with rising costs and reduced government funding, many arts boards and CEOS – especially at the small to medium end – have been encouraged to diversify revenue streams to sure-up their companies’ financial sustainability. This has often meant increased scrutiny on philanthropic giving strategies and growing donor-sourced income.
But the reality for many is that attracting (and maintaining) reliable, long-term philanthropic donors can be a very difficult task.
Typically, to achieve good results, companies must first make sizeable up-front investments in highly-skilled staff who can build strong relationships with people who have a genuine passion for their artform and large enough wallets to make donations on a regular basis.
Read: Nearly $3 million donated by three philanthropists for performing arts history
Alternatively, companies can also use crowdfunding platforms to encourage micro-donations around a particular arts project in need of support.
Either way, the road to philanthropic giving success can be a hard one to walk alone. This is no doubt why Creative Australia launched its first ever fundraising campaign initiative, AusArt Day.
Each participating company or artist was responsible for running its own AusArt Day campaign, and therefore each participant achieved wildly different results.
Some companies raised tens of thousands of dollars while others, barely anything at all. So who ran the most successful campaigns? And what factors made the most difference?
AusArt Day 2025: the winners and losers
Creative Australia provided ArtsHub with a list of 44 AusArt Day participants (of a total 323 participants) said to have achieved ‘remarkable success throughout the campaign’.
Among them is Blakdance which raised a total of $33,334 – exceeding its campaign target of $30,000.
Guildhouse, South Australia’s peak body for visual art, craft and design, also did well, surpassing its $20,000 target and raising $23,637.
Other success stories provided by Creative Australia include Belvoir St Theatre, Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Green Music Australia, River City Voices, the Slingsby theatre company, Perth Symphony Orchestra, The ELLA Foundation and Restless Dance Theatre, the last of which raised $19,068 of its goal of $50,000.
At the other end of the scale, the Australian Design Centre, an organisation in desperate need of funding since losing its NSW Government funding earlier this year, reportedly raised a total of $85. ADC has since announced its imminent closure.
Read: Australian Design Centre’s closure confirmed, leaves NSW without craft and design platform
Others who fell short of their goals include West Australian music initiative Regional Sounds who set out to raise $20,000 but attracted only $1750.
Independent writer and composer Jocelyn Moen ran an AusArt Day campaign for their musical production Omen with a target of $15,000 but reached only $2750.
Participants with less ambitious AusArt Day targets also failed to attract significant donations. Brisbane-based emerging opera company Springboard Opera, for example, only set out to raise $5000 and reached just $940.
Which AusArt Day campaign strategies worked best?
Some money raised is always better than none, but for companies that invested major time and effort in their AusArt Day fundraising campaigns, it’s also true that they should have made more money in donations than they spent in campaigning in order to make the exercise worthwhile.
While some AusArt Day participants ended their campaigns in this ‘losing’ position, there are always valuable learnings to gain from taking part – especially for first-time fundraising campaigners.
THEATRE 180’s Executive Director Rebecca Davis says she was happy with her company’s AusArt Day fundraising results, but notes a key factor was the presence of existing strong relationships with an established donor circle.
These existing donors are people who are already heavily invested in the theatre company’s activities and values.
‘We approached AusArt Day as something extra we could do to let our audience base know they could donate to us during this special time of collective giving to the arts,’ Davis tells ArtsHub.
‘We were certainly not relying on this campaign for any of our core philanthropic donations,’ she adds.
As Davis describes it, THEATRE 180’s well-established philanthropic giving program – which includes holding a major annual fundraising event, as well as an opt-in micro-donation prompt each time a THEATRE 180 ticket is purchased online – has allowed it to build its philanthropic donations to a significant level over time.
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‘We have a group of very supportive donors who have been making contributions to us for a long time,’ Davis says.
‘In addition to that, the micro-donation prompt we have as part of our Humanitix online ticketing system continues to be a surprisingly effective strategy to raise money.’
When unpacking THEATRE 180’s AusArt Day campaign strategy, success came through a series of gentle asks, made mostly to an existing donor circle by way of a social media campaign, effectively reminding fans they could donate.
‘[AusArt Day] gave our existing donors an added reason to make an extra donation and that was probably the most successful thing about our campaign,’ Davis tells ArtsHub.
‘We did raise a bit of money from some new donors, but mostly our donations came from our existing base.’
Leveraging existing donors one key to success
It was a similar story of leveraging existing relationships for WA-based emerging arts company Encounter Theatre. As Artistic Director & CEO Jay Emmanuel tells ArtsHub, the young company has benefited hugely from its participation in the initiative in ways that extend beyond financial returns – though raising donations was the company’s primary reason for taking part.
‘We were lucky enough to be selected as one of nine arts organisations for the Plus1 matched funding program,’ Emmanuel explains.
‘I think what got us over the line with our Plus1 application was that we could show we had already secured a $10,000 philanthropic donation from another foundation [from Arts Impact WA], so we could show proof that we were already serious about our campaign and had some momentum behind us,’ he adds.
Emmanuel believes that if his company had started its AusArt Day campaign from a point of zero, rather than $10,000, it would not have achieved such successful results.
‘I’m happy to say that we are now very close to reaching our campaign target of $50,000,’ Emmanuel says. ‘This is a target we need to reach by 5 December to secure the matched funding from Creative Australia. We are still very actively campaigning to achieve our overall target, but being part of AusArt Day has allowed us to raise a significant amount towards our overall goal.’
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The CEO says his small team of artists and administrators have worked closely together throughout the AusArt Day experience, including creating a short video that was used as key asset in the theatre company’s campaign.
‘It sounds cheesy but I feel like we really put the fun in fundraising during our campaign,’ Emmanuel laughs.
‘We have genuinely had a great time with it. We’ve worked incredibly hard over the past month or so – and we have more hard work to do because ours is effectively a six-week campaign – but it’s been worth it.
‘We’ve activated our existing fan base, achieved record engagement on our socials, and raised a large part of the money we need to reach our milestone goal, which, if we can get there, will be a game-changer for the company.’
Lessons for future whole-of-sector fundraising
Thinking about how government-backed fundraising efforts could be improved for future success, Emmanuel says he believes the large number of organisations involved this time might have posed a challenge for some to be noticed by new donors – especially donors outside of the arts.
‘We found a lot of our donations came from our arts peers and loyal donors, which was great to see,’ Emmanuel says. ‘But there is a challenge there around how to connect with new donors outside of our arts networks.’
For Emmanuel there is more work to do around making whole-of-sector fundraising initiatives easy and attractive propositions for first-time donors who don’t already know a lot about the companies involved.
‘We need to be able to stand out in some way while not being in direct competition with our peers. Because it’s important we [arts companies] can support each other to uplift the whole sector, not compete for the same people’s attention,’ he says.
The CEO believes that while the $5000 kick-start incentive grants offered by Creative Australia to some organisations to participate in AusArt Day provided an important boost, the task of delivering successful campaigns and continuing to engage with donors and communities requires ongoing and substantial investment.
‘Remember that it takes money to raise money, and while this is especially difficult for the smaller companies like ours to manage, it’s part of our long-term plan. We’re investing in the systems, people, and relationships that make sustainable fundraising and lasting impact possible.’
