Local authorities face a familiar challenge: how to protect and grow cultural, heritage and arts provision at a time of intense financial pressure. Authorities themselves struggle to maintain services or support their own ambitious capital projects. At the same time, they find it increasingly difficult to provide revenue support for independent local agencies — from theatres to art galleries, community centres to museums. Sometimes the result is an unenviable conflict between statutory and voluntary services. But is this conflict inevitable?
There are ways to build the skills, confidence and systems that allow independent culture to thrive alongside statutory responsibilities and initiatives.
The National Arts Fundraising School supports local authorities in two complementary ways: directly, by helping councils and arms-length bodies raise significant funds for major projects, and indirectly, by strengthening the fundraising capability of local cultural organisations so they become more resilient over the long term.
1. Direct impact: helping councils raise money for major cultural projects
The school works hands-on with councils and their partners to support ambitious capital and transformational projects. This includes shaping compelling cases for support, testing fundraising propositions, building confidence with donors and funders, and aligning fundraising with wider civic and regeneration goals.
Two examples illustrate this approach:
Blackpool Council
The £18m Showtime Museum
The team supported Blackpool Council in developing the fundraising strategy for the Showtime Museum, a major cultural investment celebrating Blackpool’s entertainment heritage. The work focused on clarifying the narrative, identifying viable funding routes, and creating a case for support that resonated with funders, donors and partners — helping unlock significant external investment alongside public funding.
Renfrewshire Council
The £65m Paisley Museum redevelopment
For Renfrewshire Council, the school team helped shape the fundraising strategy for the £65m transformation of Paisley Museum. This included aligning fundraising with place-making ambitions, heritage outcomes and community impact, ensuring that fundraising activity complemented — rather than competed with — the council’s wider objectives.
2. Indirect impact: building sustainable fundraising capacity across local agencies
Just as important as the direct work above is the school’s indirect impact: helping councils strengthen the long-term sustainability of their local cultural ecosystem.
Many authorities now invest in training and supporting their local museums, theatres, festivals and cultural trusts to raise more of their own income — ethically, confidently and in ways that fit their mission.
Examples include:
Calderdale Council
This council organised fundraising training through the National Arts Fundraising School for local cultural organisations, helping them develop clearer strategies, diversify income and reduce dependence on short-term grants. Many of the agencies were small and volunteer led- but they went on to succeed with corporate and foundation support.
Northumberland County Council
They supported local agencies to take part in structured fundraising development training, enabling them to build skills in areas such as major giving, trusts and foundations, and persuasive case-making. We went on to support one project, the Berwick Community Trust, with their capital plans.
A practical, cost-effective investment
For local authorities, using the NAFS team represents a highly cost-effective intervention. The team is focused around real projects, real constraints and real results — not academic theory or overambitious promises. Participants leave with practical tools, tested strategies and the confidence to act.
Crucially, the cost of training is modest compared to the potential return: even a small uplift in fundraising performance can unlock six- or seven-figure sums for cultural projects and programmes.
Sustaining culture for the long term
At a time when councils are under unprecedented pressure, sustaining culture, heritage and the arts requires more than goodwill. It requires skills, strategy and confidence — both within local authorities and across the organisations they support.
By combining direct project support with long-term capability building, NAFS helps local authorities move from firefighting to sustainability — ensuring that culture remains a vital part of place, identity and community life for years to come.
Want to know more and discover how we could help? Contact the school director, Bernard Ross
