Family Arts Campaign granted new ‘Sector Support Organisation’ status within Arts Council England’s new National Portfolio investment from 2018/19

The Family Arts Campaign has learned of its success in Arts Council England’s 2018/19-2021/22 National Portfolio investment plans, announced today. The Family Arts Campaign, which is a consortium of ten organisations which has been led by the Albany since April 2016, is one of only a small number of new Sector Support Organisations announced within ACE’s new NPO structure.

As a Sector Support Organisation, the Family Arts Campaign will work to help deliver ACE’s national priorities under Goal 2: giving everyone the opportunity to experience and be inspired by the arts, museums and libraries. The Campaign will fulfil three key objectives within this priority:

• Leading public-facing activities to raise awareness of opportunities to engage in arts and culture
• Supporting arts and cultural organisations to become more family-friendly
• Encouraging programming and commissioning of artistic work to meet the needs of families

Chair of the Family Arts Campaign’s Project Board, Michael Eakin (Chief Executive of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) said:

“Becoming a Sector Support Organisation is a hugely important development for the Family Arts Campaign. Since the establishment of the Campaign, we’ve been working hard to raise awareness for the importance of family audiences for all kinds of arts organisations, across all art forms and regions. Bringing the sector together like this has effected real and significant change and the movement continues to grow. We really welcome this new status, which will help the Campaign to set in place a longer-term strategy to support the sector, and enable us to build on the success achieved so far.”

To date, the Family Arts Campaign has celebrated 4 annual Family Arts Festivals, conceived to raise awareness of opportunities for families to engage in the arts. 3,000 organisations participated, promoting 17,000 events to 2.2 million family members. Developing the legacy of the Festival, 2017 sees the launch of Fantastic for Families– a new, year-round listings service for family arts events. Currently over 500 organisations hold the Family Arts Standards accreditation, providing an excellent welcome to families.

Speaking at the Family Arts Conference in Bristol in March 2017, Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England said, “The idea of family has become an ever more important pillar of the work that Arts Council England does”, going on to say, “working with the Family Arts Campaign, we want to increase the amount of cultural provision for families- we want them to have a better time and we want them to be better informed.”

Head of the Family Arts Campaign, Jenny Daly said, “We’re delighted to receive the news about becoming an SSO- this is such an important development and reflects the incredible work put in by our consortium, Family Arts Networks, Standard-holders and the many organisations who have helped us to create this movement.”

Gavin Barlow, Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Albany, said, “we’re very pleased to take on leadership of the campaign and very much look forward to the next few years of building on our success.”