At a time when so many regional arts organisations are hitting rock bottom – some recently losing their core government funding, while others bend to breaking point amid post-COVID cost increases – one regional arts organisation has a rare good news story to share.
For the past six years, WA’s peak body for regional arts, Regional Arts WA, has received a series of important philanthropic investments from the Minderoo Foundation – Minderoo being a cross sector philanthropic foundation which is also based in WA and which was co-founded by Andrew and Nicola Forrest in 2001.
To date, Minderoo’s investment in Regional Arts WA’s activities has totaled $1 million over six years.
But now, as Regional Arts WA prepares to deliver its new five year cultural and creativity investment framework – a bespoke regional arts investment plan it has dubbed Thrive! – Minderoo has come to the table again, but this time it has committed unprecedented funding support for the peak body’s new strategic direction.
Over the next three years, Minderoo Foundation will invest $3.3million to ensure Regional Arts WA can deliver this new Thrive! framework.
Thrive! was launched by Regional Arts WA late last year, and is essentially a long-view funding plan designed to support the activities of 20 of the not-for-profit regional arts organisations which the peak body works with across rural and remote WA.
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The new strategic framework has various tangents, but one of its core components is to establish a new Creative Collaboration Fund (CCF) which will act as a dedicated centralised funding pool, drawn from many diverse stakeholders, which will be used to help sustain and strengthen WA’s core group of regional arts organisations.
Without Minderoo’s landmark investment, Thrive! would not be possible, but it’s also obvious that Regional Arts WA must still secure additional funding partners to allow its new investment strategy to be properly realised.
Regional Arts WA: start of something bigger
According to Regional Arts WA’s CEO Pilar Kasat, ‘This [philanthropic partnership] is the beginning of something much bigger and an open invitation for others to help shape and strengthen the future impact of the regional arts sector,’ she said in a statement.
Similarly, Josephine Johnson, Regional Arts WA’s board chair stated that, ‘We encourage others, including the WA State Government, philanthropists and the corporate sector, to deepen their support for the regional arts sector.’
On Minderoo’s side, a statement from the Foundation’s CEO John Hartmann expressed the philanthropic body’s genuine enthusiasm to see Thrive! grow into a long-term funding structure that will finally enable the core group of 20 regional arts organisations to achieve proper operational sustainability – an outcome that eluded so many of them (and others around the country, especially the smaller end) for too long.
As Hartmann said, ‘This partnership is about strategically aligning resources and amplifying impact to give the regional arts sector and artists the long-term support they need to thrive.’
He continued, ‘Minderoo Foundation is backing [this] Thrive Framework to help build more vibrant and connected communities across regional Western Australia.’
As for the 20 regional arts organisations who are involved in Thrive!, a collective statement issued on their behalf reveals how vitally important this new philanthropic investment is in their continued work in and for their communities.
Their statement expressed that, ‘[We] know firsthand that the arts contribute to community vibrancy, local job creation, and wellbeing. [So], this funding ensures that we will strengthen our capacity of 20 organisations across the state and build long-term sustainability for creatives who are the cultural backbone of our communities.’
Together, these 20 WA regional arts organisations work across 44 Local Government Areas in WA where they generate a combined annual turnover of more than $19 million. They also collectively employ over 207 creative workers, 1,200 artists, and more than 2,000 volunteers each year.
Now, thanks to Minderoo’s new milestone philanthropic investment, it looks likely that the work of these small but mighty arts organisations – who have historically operated in such thinly stretched, under-funded conditions – will have the chance to survive. With any luck, they may even get the chance thrive over the long-term in a truly sustainable way which honours the tireless, yet all-too-often invisible, work they do.
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