L E A D I N G A C U LT U R E O F
Resilience by David Brownlee Director of International Strategy
Arts Council England (ACE) was also worried. They commissioned Mark Robinson to research and write Making adaptive resilience real, which was published in July 2010. One of Robinson’s key arguments was that arts organizations need to adapt as they grow and mature, hence “adaptive resilience.” This seminal paper informed ACE’s new 10-year strategy where Goal 3 was defined: “the arts, museums and libraries are resilient and environmentally sustainable.” ACE’s approach picked up Robinson’s call to be agile and adaptive but focused largely on new approaches to plugging financial gaps.
Let’s go back a decade to the UK in 2009. The arts had enjoyed 15 years of the spoils of the new National Lottery and over a decade of growth in funding from both local and national government. But a storm was coming. Economically the world’s tectonic plates shifted in 2008. In the UK the not-for-profit arts sector was initially shielded from the new reality thanks to longterm national funding agreements, but those were coming to an end and a general election was on the horizon.
Fast forward to today and much has changed. Statistical evidence suggests the arts sector has largely adapted and survived (and in some places thrived) despite unprecedented cuts to public funding. The Arts Index shows that even with taking inflation and population growth into account, the combined expenditure of revenue funded per person at arts organizations grew by 23 points since the study started. That equals £600 million between 2007-08 and 2014-15.
There were many who made a prophesy of imminent disaster and irreparable damage to the sector. In 2010 the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) launched a UK Arts Index (similar to what Americans for the Arts compiled); a holistic health check of the sector and its impact on society. Starting from our overall index of 100, we expected to track a substantial decline in the fortunes of the sector over the following years.
In advance of writing its new 10-year plan, ACE commissioned Golant Media Ventures and The Audience Agency to produce What is Resilience Anyway? (published July 2018). -8-
