There are many ways you can support the community to see local arts and culture flourish. You can roll up your sleeves, provide specialist skills, fundraise or reorient your business expenses to support the arts long term, using ArtsPay. Here is a helpful list of ways you or your organisation can be part of the recovery of our arts and cultural sectors.
For individuals, here is a list of ways to get involved.
1. Volunteering Giving your time is one of the best ways you can make a contribution to the arts. All the major museums, galleries and festivals have volunteer programs and positions. Volunteers can help with running tours, sharing information or offer specialist skills. If you want to support smaller organisations, get in touch and find out what you can do to help.
2. Donations Donations are incredibly important and we can’t underestimate how much this supports arts organisations. Even if you aren’t not in the position to be a large donor, every little bit counts. Often these donations are used for operational funding which is core to ongoing day to day activities and keeping the team employed to run the organisation. Consider making a list of your favourite arts org and becoming an ongoing supporter rather than just at the end of the financial year. Lots of arts orgs a provide great perks for becoming a donor and foster deeper relationships with their donor community.Buying a ticket to a show is great , but why not up your support by becoming a donor?
Check out all the arts orgs you can support here or go directly to their website — https://australianculturalfund.org.au
3. Join a board Arts organisations need experienced people with different skill sets to support their organisational governance and operations. If you have experience across accounting, legals, operations, marketing, fundraising, technology or governance you could be invaluable to an arts organisation. Most arts orgs recruit board members through advertising online and through their own networks on Linkedin. Keep an eye out or connect with your fav arts org and let them know you are interested in being part of a board.
For businesses, here is a list of ways to support the arts through your organisation.
1. Sponsorships Consider aligning your business with a new community and sponsor an arts organisation. Connect with their leadership team and find out what they need and if you might be able to provide products or services to support them. Your business could get a real boost from aligning with the arts and the brand awareness that goes along with it.
2. Staff engagement If your staff are interested in the arts, then incorporate it into your engagement strategy. Give tickets to staff as rewards rather than booze or knick knacks. Or bring your team together for an outing to the gallery, theatre or music events.
3. Volunteer time If your organisation has a product or service that could benefit an arts organisation, then reach out and see if it aligns with their goals. Dedicate some pro bono time and roll up your sleeves. This kind of support could have a huge long term impact. Help them build a website, provide marketing services, printing, fundraising strategy, graphic design, accounting etc. There are lots of ways to help, the best way is to ask the orgs that you want to support, what they need most.
4. Pick ArtsPay as your payment provider If your business takes payments in-store, online or via invoices then you would be familiar with merchant service fees. These transaction fees are paid every time a customer pays with a debit or credit card. ArtsPay is a payment solution that is re-directing those fees back into the arts ecosystem. If you take payments, then consider switching and helping us build a new revenue stream for the arts through transaction fees.
There are so many ways you can help rebuild the arts and guarantee a future filled with great gigs, art and shows. We encourage you to jump in.