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CULTURAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAM University of Barcelona
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT OF CULTURE company sponsorships in public initiatives
In the public sector and the public management of culture,
private sponsorships have been traditionally restricted to
great events, emblematic projects, monuments restorations...
but, many small business have had great difficulties in finding
a financing resource.
Traditionally, cultural sponsorships have belonged exclusively
to two sectors: music and visual arts.
Almost all cultural sectors aspire to have sponsorships.
Unfortunately, many of them won't get them,
since the relationship between the economic resources offer
of companies and the entities demand is extraordinarily unbalanced.
This unbalance favours the great demand
in detriment to the limited economic resources.
We ask sponsorships to pay for our communication budget
and when they see it they get surprised at the amount.
But a venue like ours needs a high budget.
The more money your sponsorship puts on our venue,
the more communication we will be able to do.
We make sure they know where their money goes.
Sponsorship is a responsibility exercise, as well as a companies communication tool.
Patronage is a very important channel of income.
But it is also a way to set loyalty, a way to relate
company equipments to their surrounding.
All surveys made in Spain, asking for the reasons
for companies to sponsorship, had a clear answer:
their last motivation was tax rebate. The first one,
social responsibility, followed by image benefits
and territory connection.
We have four types of patronage: Honor sponsorship, which is
the most important one and it's mostly comprised of companies
that aren't located in the city.
Their patronage consists of renting halls free of charge,
using sport premises for free, offering a pack of seats for
performing arts venues. On second, third, and four places, we have
the golden , silver and bronze patronages.
Bronze patronages tend to operate on an individual basis.
They help to the use of sport premises for free,
and also to have a seat in a cultural premise.
We have a close example we shouldn't dismiss: France.
In 2003, six months after the 49 2002 Spanish law,
France dramatically modified its law of taxes and gave
a 60% tax rebate to companies and a 66% tax rebate to people.
Let's remember that the Spanish 49 2002 law, just six moths before,
had approved tax rebates of 30%-35%.
As a consequence of this law, in France, the number of foundations
and the number of sponsorships have increased dramatically.
We have, in MACBA, a very interesting sponsorship model.
As you know, MACBA has, as government models,
not only Generalitat, the Council and the Ministry,
but also the private foundation MACBA.
The private foundation MACBA is contemporary with MACBA creation.
It's the strongest found raising tool we have,
since it devotes to finding money for us to buy pieces of art
on big sponsorship operations.
In Spain, there is now an unanimous request from many cultural entities,
social groups, chambers of commerce... asking for a tax improvement.
We have to bear in mind that MACBA's patronage side is so strong
that we have to be very careful not to crash,
since many of the companies we'd to looking for sponsorships,
are already helping us through our foundation.
That, allows us to start doing operations linked to other types of public
but are, on the other hand, very grateful when we explain them
through our general manager, for example, what are the year's programmes
or so many things involved to contemporary art.
They are, normally, company managers,
or important figures inside business.
We work on a one to one basis. We start with a year trial period
and then we set up agreements for every three years.
Patronage agreements last for longer, ten years or so.
It's not that they want us to put their logotypes in certain places,
but they want to identify their company image with an institution
image that is close to them.
We want things that can relate to our way of working.
Of course ,we have local companies, but we also look for companies
outside Sant Cugat, though they require a bigger effort.
We'll probably look for a company profile to sponsorship MACBA's activities,
that is new in our environment, maybe exclusively technological things,
since we are thinking of having international experiences
such as international companies,
such as Google, Macintosh, etc.
Sponsorships in kind will grow, since it has many virtues,
like being equivalent to receive some economic resources,
and companies are, obviously more interested in this way.
since making a cash payment isn't the same as giving goods.
If it is a technology company, it will probably help us to develop
our transmission discourse with multiplatforms,
and work together in developing good contents for the displays
they are, currently, commercializing.
If it was a fashion design leading company,
we would get much more involved with working as a kind of lab
to present their collections in a risky way.
How can we increase this percentage in order to get more sponsorships?
On one hand, entities must improve the effectiveness on dossiers presentation,
they must do a professional work and address it to the right companies.
They also must value more the compensations they give.
Companies, also, must be more sensitive in this aspect and
be aware of the sponsorships possibilities.
But, there is no doubt we are getting there.