At a time when arts fundraising strategies are high on the arts sector’s agenda, it’s a shame to see one of the nation’s most promising arts philanthropy platforms call time on its money-raising efforts.
Launched four years ago, Perth-based Arts Impact WA has distributed no less than $800,000 to a host of small and independent arts projects over that time, but the group has recently decided this year will be its last.
As Arts Impact WA founder and Committee Chair Paul Chamberlain explains, after the innovative philanthropic fund started with an impressive amount of donor energy and interest in 2021, since then, the WA sector has not enjoyed the growth in donor enthusiasm it has needed to justify continuing beyond its initial four year trial period.
Arts Impact WA winds up – quick links
Difficult decision after successful first four years
Based on the globally-recognised Impact100 philanthropic model of giving, Arts Impact WA’s fundraising strategy centred on inviting a large number of donors to give as little as $1000 each to a collective fund. That afforded donors automatic voting rights in a process where artists pitched their projects in a bid to win the $100,000 ‘prize’ donation to fund their work.
In its first four years, Arts Impact WA’s donor circle awarded six $100,000 major arts project grants, as well as 14 smaller grants of $10,000 to $20,000, to WA artists through this innovative ‘shortlist and pitch’ system.
Among projects to receive $100,000 grants were Freeze Frame Opera’s production of The Little Prince in 2023; Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson and Stuart Hodgetts’ visual art project Revivification, presented at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2025; and STRUT Dance’s Perth Moves program, a community dance project that is now a staple Perth Festival event.
But as Paul Chamberlain tells ArtsHub, the greatest challenge he encountered as he prepared to steer the giving circle into its second three-year phase was in maintaining the commitments from the fund’s initial donor circle and growing that core circle beyond its founding members.
‘When we went back to our founding supporters to say, “Would you like to come on board again for our next phase?” around two thirds of them said they were keen to continue,’ Chamberlain says.
‘But our hope was to attract more donors beyond those original supporters, who would sign-up to make annual $1000 tax deductible commitments.
‘Sadly, we never got those people. And without those new donors who could step up to that $1000 level of donation, it became untenable for us to continue.’
Big impacts of seemingly small arts donations
As many independent artists who participated in Creative Australia’s inaugural AusArt Day initiative will attest, raising money from the ground up without a large profile or existing philanthropic support is a tough thing to do.
Read: AusArt Day, first ever government-backed giving day for the arts: was it a success?
What made a platform like Arts Impact WA a vital mechanism within this arts ecology was its capacity to allow smaller arts organisations and independent artists to be more easily recognised by people who are in a position to financially support their work.
This assistance is especially important for artists who continue to report diminishing levels of government support for their work, in an environment where government money is being stretched more thinly than ever.
When Arts Impact WA burst onto the scene in 2021, it was therefore welcomed by local artists as a hopeful sign of growing community passion for their work.
But four years on – and after six major independent arts projects have been shared with audiences and contributed enormous value to local communities – this seemingly small but high-impact component of the arts ecology has now disappeared.
It’s a loss that will be especially sharply felt by those at the smaller end of the sector.
As Freeze Frame Opera’s Director Harriet Marshall described to ArtsHub after winning an $100,000 Arts Impact WA grant in 2023, as a small company who hasn’t yet been successful in securing four year State Government organisational funding, it was a struggle to keep the company alive, let alone plan projects of scale.
Read: 2026 season announcements: our rolling guide to the performing arts
‘But what Arts Impact WA has allowed us to achieve is just brilliant because it made us realise that there is actually great support in the community for our opera company and what we are doing,’ she said at the time.
Marshall added: ‘Although the application process [was] as rigorous and involved as any other grant application, there [were] learning opportunities and networking events that happen along the way, which is different from other applications, and [made] the process very satisfying.’
Can we foster a stronger arts philanthropy culture to assist smaller players?
Reflecting on the high-impact achievements of the group over the past four years, its founder Paul Chamberlain admits he is disappointed that a more robust culture of philanthropic giving in the arts has not yet emerged.
This is especially pertinent in WA, where despite the state’s standout triple-A credit rating, there has been no obvious growth in local arts philanthropy in recent years.
As Chamberlain tells ArtsHub, ‘I think the culture of philanthropic giving is certainly not as mature in WA as it is in some other Australian states.
‘Having said that, I’ve been working in arts philanthropy for many years and so I know there are many good people out there who give a lot to the arts.
‘But inevitably, it’s the larger, higher profile institutions that attract the most philanthropic support, and the smaller, independent artists who struggle,’ he says.
For Chamberlain, this skewed picture – where the large, established arts organisations are attracting the lion’s share of philanthropic support – risks audiences being denied the kinds of artistically risky, experimental work that only arts philanthropists can help make happen.
‘Unfortunately, governments seem to be more and more wary of taking risks,’ he comments.
‘That’s part of the reason I am so passionate about arts philanthropy,’ he adds.
‘Private philanthropy can take more risks and achieve great outcomes by investing in small to medium sized arts organisations and projects. That’s one area where I think philanthropy plays a very important role.’
Chamberlain also notes that while government funding will always be important to the arts funding ecology, he is hopeful that a stronger culture of arts philanthropy will develop in Australia, especially within the smaller, independent sector to help achieve a more equitable national arts landscape.
‘I don’t believe we are at that [more balanced] point yet – at least in WA,’ Chamberlain says.
‘There is certainly more work to do in building a larger community of art donors who are genuinely passionate about the work our artists are doing, and who truly believe in its value,’ he concludes.
