Rebalancing the Arts Economy — Beyond Crowding In, Towards Foundational Culture
A recent report commissioned by Arts Council England, Leading the Crowd: A report on the role of public investment in Crowding In, offers compelling evidence that public investment in arts and culture remains essential. It documents how institutions such as the National Theatre, Southbank Centre, and English National Opera have used public grants as leverage to secure significant additional income from private sources. This “Crowding In” effect—where public funding enhances credibility, reduces risk, and attracts sponsorship, philanthropy, and earned revenue—underpins what is commonly called the UK’s “mixed economy model” for the arts.
But while the report offers detailed and well-documented case studies, its focus remains narrowly fixed on large, high-profile institutions—National Portfolio Organisations with established development teams and the capacity to manage capital campaigns. What’s missing is any consideration of how this approach translates to the foundational level of our cultural ecology: the freelance artists, voluntary associations, micro-organisations, and place-based creative networks that exist well beyond the reach of metropolitan arts philanthropy or corporate sponsorship.
This omission is more than a blind spot. It reflects a long-standing structural imbalance in the way the UK funds the arts. Institutions with stature, buildings, and legacy status naturally attract investment and attention. But the foundational layer—the grassroots cultural life that sustains community participation, civic creativity, and everyday expression—is too often left with precarious access to funding, if any at all.
The problem is not simply that public investment is too small. It’s that it is too centralised, too bureaucratised, and too narrowly targeted. As we face the prospect of a possible break-up or reorganisation of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and a growing emphasis on devolution to English regions and the devolved nations, a more radical mindset is needed. Policymakers and funding bodies must ask: how do we push funding down to the lowest levels of society—not just to support culture that is seen, but culture that is lived?
We cannot build a resilient arts ecosystem by relying solely on high-status institutions to trickle down benefits. Nor should we respond by simply expanding centralised grant schemes. What’s needed is a rebalancing of our expectations—towards supporting socially grounded, local, and regenerative arts economies. This means creating the conditions for small-scale arts organisations, collectives, and practitioners to thrive without being trapped in the cycles of application writing, compliance, and gatekeeping that characterise much of the current system.
We need to reimagine what a healthy cultural economy looks like, not as a hierarchy of prestige, but as a distributed network of cultural value. This is where the principles of the Foundational Economy become vital. Just as we argue for foundational services in housing, care, and transport, so too must we recognise foundational culture: the shared creative life that binds communities, supports wellbeing, and gives meaning to place.
This will require public funding to be more than a badge of prestige or a lever for match-funding. It must become an enabler of local cultural capacity. Investment models should be designed to support co-created, low-cost, high-impact cultural activity—often informal, always place-rooted. Rather than expecting every project to become self-sustaining or commercialised, we should nurture circular, place-based economies where cultural value is recognised, reciprocated, and reinvested in community life.
It also means trusting practitioners. Freelance artists and community facilitators are too often expected to function as administrators, fundraisers, and evaluators. We should be building mechanisms that free up creativity, not bury it under process. Let’s invest in intermediaries who can carry the administrative burden and make space for artistic work. Let’s develop shared infrastructure—civic studios, neighbourhood venues, digital platforms—that reduce cost and complexity.
Above all, let’s treat foundational cultural work not as an afterthought, but as a strategic priority. If we want to crowd in meaningful investment, we must first crowd in belief—that the everyday, participatory, community-based arts are not marginal, but essential.
We at ArtWorks Alliance call on policymakers, funders, and local authorities to rethink the logic of cultural investment—not to abandon the institutions that inspire us, but to extend opportunity and sustainability to those working at the roots of cultural life. Only then can we build an arts economy that is not only mixed, but balanced, just, and enduring.
