The new patrons
Art philanthropy, public culture and the family office
Some family office conversations are nominally about one thing, but quickly become about almost everything else. Art philanthropy is one of them.
At a recent GPFO session at the Whitechapel Gallery in London led by Cameron Foote, in discussion with Simon Martin, Janine Catalano & Fran Sanderson which began with the practicalities of giving to the arts: how families choose institutions, how donors and curators work together, how to think about anonymity, impact, reputation and long-term support. But beneath those practicalities sat a larger question. Once wealth has been created, structured and preserved, what is it for?
That question is often too large to answer directly. In the family office, it tends to appear indirectly: through succession planning, investment policy, education, governance, philanthropy, reputation and the careful management of family identity. Art philanthropy brings many of these questions into the same room.
It is personal, but it cannot be purely personal.
It is generous, but generosity does not remove power.
It is often joyful, but it still requires discipline.
It may begin with taste, but it should not end there.
For family offices, this is why arts philanthropy deserves to be taken seriously. It is not merely a lifestyle interest or an elegant appendage to a collection. Done well, it can become one of the clearest expressions of a family’s values. Done badly, it can expose the weaknesses of those values: vanity mistaken for legacy, influence mistaken for support, visibility mistaken for impact.
The best patrons understand the difference.
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A cultural model under strain
The UK has long benefited from a cultural ecosystem that feels both elite and accessible. Major museums remain free to enter, while regional galleries, theatres, libraries, festivals and arts organisations have traditionally been supported through a mix of public funding, earned income and private giving.
That model is increasingly under pressure.
The independent review of Arts Council England led by Baroness Hodge found that between 2009/10 and 2022/23, per-person public spending on culture by Arts Council England fell in real terms by 18%, while local authority spending fell by 48%.
The second figure matters particularly. Local authorities have historically underpinned cultural life across towns, cities and regions. When that support weakens, the effects are felt not only by major institutions but by community venues, youth programmes, artist studios, regional museums and local cultural infrastructure.
Private funding has consequently become more important. Yet while private giving has increased, costs have risen too. Higher wage bills, energy costs, maintenance requirements, insurance, security and production expenses mean that much additional funding is not supporting ambitious expansion. It is helping organisations remain operational.
The wider philanthropic environment is also becoming more challenging. Families increasingly want evidence, accountability and measurable outcomes, but the arts do not always fit neatly into those frameworks.
For wealthy families, the implication is clear. Cultural institutions will increasingly look to private capital. Yet private funding is not a direct substitute for public support. It follows a different logic. It can be more flexible, faster and more personal, but it can also create dependency, visibility and reputational exposure.
This is the landscape in which modern patronage is emerging: not as a replacement for the state, but as a distinct form of capital with its own freedoms, responsibilities and risks.
Beyond the cheque
It is tempting to frame the issue simply as a funding gap. The reality is more nuanced.
Cultural organisations need more money, but they also need the right kind of money, provided in the right way and over the right time horizon.
A one-off gift can be valuable. A gala table can help. Yet many organisations need less glamorous forms of support: multi-year operating funding, reserves, educational programmes, archives, digital infrastructure, affordable studios, production space and the ability to pay artists properly.
Here, family offices possess a particular advantage. They are not constrained by electoral cycles or public policy frameworks. They can take a longer view. They can support institutions through periods of transition as well as moments of celebration. They can back people and ideas before broader recognition arrives.
The discussion repeatedly returned to a simple principle: good philanthropy is relational, as emphasised by Simon Martin and his work working with various Patrons of the Pallant House Gallery, with different objectives. It depends on trust between donor and institution. It requires families to listen before designing solutions. It asks donors to recognise that arts organisations are holders of expertise, mission and public trust.
This sounds obvious. In practice, it is often where difficulties begin.
The pull of place
Families rarely give in the abstract. They support things that matter to them.
In the arts, that connection is often tied to place. A gallery may have shaped a childhood. A museum may define a city. A theatre may have inspired confidence. A community arts programme may provide opportunities otherwise unavailable.
This emotional geography matters.
It is one reason arts philanthropy can be so powerful within a family office. It gives values a location. It turns legacy from an abstract concept into something tangible. It gives younger generations a way to participate in family wealth that extends beyond financial returns.
Research supports this. Many family offices view philanthropy as a practical means of expressing values and strengthening family cohesion. It also provides a way to engage younger family members meaningfully. Where investment committees and governance structures can feel distant or intimidating. Philanthropy offers a more accessible route into responsibility and decision-making. It teaches judgement, trade-offs and accountability. It demonstrates that wealth is not only something to preserve but something to direct.
The pleasure of giving
One risk of increasingly professionalised philanthropy is that it can become overly procedural.
Families can become so focused on governance, reporting and measurement that they lose sight of the reason they wanted to give in the first place. Rising fears of reputational risk, both for institutions and donors, highlighted by the Sackler Family and Baillie Gifford stories over the past few years, have further added to concerns on the giving.
However the Whitechapel discussion made room for a point that is sometimes understated: supporting the arts should bring joy - this may be as simple as enjoying a decent glass of wine with peers with a shared passion, or exploring a subject on location. That joy is not self-indulgence. In fact, it often sustains commitment. Families are more likely to remain engaged when they genuinely enjoy the relationship: watching artists develop, introducing children to cultural institutions or helping create something that might not otherwise exist.
This also raises the question of visibility. Many families, particularly in the UK and Europe, instinctively favour anonymity. Privacy, security and humility all have obvious appeal.
Yet anonymity is not always the most generous option. Sometimes a visible gift reassures institutions, encourages peers and helps unlock further support. The decision is less about principle than context.
The power in the room
Every philanthropic relationship contains power. In the arts, that power is often subtle.
A donor may feel supportive, enthusiastic and engaged. They may possess expertise, networks and genuine passion. In many cases, these qualities add significant value.
Yet from an institution’s perspective, the same dynamics can feel different. A suggestion from a major donor may be interpreted as an instruction. A preference can become a constraint. A useful introduction may create an obligation. Taste can begin to shape curatorial decisions without anyone explicitly agreeing that it should.
There is also a softer form of influence at work. Long-term support creates association, legitimacy and trust. Families that support respected cultural institutions become part of those institutions’ stories.
That does not diminish the value of the gift. It simply means the exchange should be understood honestly.
Janine Catalano offered a useful analogy. A donor funding antiviral research would not expect to direct scientific decisions within a laboratory. The arts are more complex because interpretation and judgement are inherent to the field, but the underlying principle remains the same: institutions must retain independence.
Good donors, and their advisers such as Janine, understand this asymmetry. They recognise that organisations may find it difficult to push back. They seek healthy boundaries and ask what institutions need before deciding what they wish to fund. The question is not whether philanthropy creates influence. It almost always does. The question is whether that influence strengthens the institution or gradually bends it towards donor preferences.
Impact without flattening meaning
The arts resist simple measurement. That is part of their value.
A painting does not become important because it performs well against a dashboard. An artist residency may matter years before its significance can be demonstrated. A gallery may strengthen community identity in ways that are obvious locally but difficult to quantify centrally.
Yet difficulty should not become an excuse for vagueness. The challenge is to measure thoughtfully.
The Jameel Arts & Health Lab is a useful example of this more disciplined approach. Established in 2023 by the WHO Regional Office for Europe, NYU Steinhardt, Community Jameel and CULTURUNNERS, the Lab was created to build the evidence base for how the arts can improve health and wellbeing, particularly for overlooked and underserved communities.
Its work is not philanthropy as decoration. Nor is it arts funding forced awkwardly into a medical framework. It sits somewhere more interesting: using philanthropic capital to connect artists, researchers, cultural institutions and health systems around a question that is increasingly difficult to ignore. If arts and culture can support prevention, mental health, social connection and the management of chronic conditions, then their value is not only aesthetic or civic. It is also part of the wider infrastructure of public wellbeing.
The goal is not to force culture into inappropriate metrics. It is to develop evidence that strengthens the case for support while preserving what makes the arts valuable in the first place. This is where having someone such as Fran Sanderson can add value, using their financial background to understand what impact is and how it can be measured.
From patronage to partnership
The word patronage carries historical baggage. It evokes private collections, great houses and the long relationship between wealth and culture.
Modern family offices inherit both the strengths and complications of that history.
Perhaps partnership is the more useful term.
Partnership implies mutual respect. It acknowledges that institutions possess expertise donors do not. It recognises that the role of private capital is to strengthen capacity rather than absorb control.
Short-term support can be valuable, but long-term relationships change what becomes possible. Shared language, trust and understanding develop over time.
This is where family offices can be at their best. They understand long horizons. They know that legacy is rarely built through isolated gestures. They can support the unglamorous middle years between a campaign announcement and a visible outcome.
They can also convene. Families often become more confident donors when they learn alongside peers. Conversations such as those facilitated by GPFO matter because philanthropy improves through shared experience. Families learn what works, what fails, what institutions actually need and where good intentions can become counterproductive.
The arts do not need families to arrive as saviours. They need them to arrive as serious partners.
What wealth makes possible
Perhaps the most important insight from the Whitechapel discussion was also the simplest: a family office is not merely about money, but about what money enables.
That observation captures much of the family office story.
Wealth creates choices. Some are defensive: privacy, security, succession, asset protection and governance. Others are expansive: education, enterprise, philanthropy, community, culture and legacy.
Arts philanthropy belongs firmly in the second category, but it still requires the discipline of the first. It asks families to think carefully about governance, power, reputation, conflicts, time horizons and impact. It also asks them not to lose the human impulse that made giving meaningful in the first place.
At its best, arts philanthropy allows private wealth to serve public imagination without attempting to possess it. It helps keep institutions open, artists working, collections accessible and communities connected to something larger than utility.
It gives families a way to express gratitude for the places that shaped them and responsibility for the places they may help shape.
That is both the promise and the discipline of cultural philanthropy. It asks family offices to deploy private capital in support of something that must remain public in spirit: the fragile infrastructure of imagination, memory and place.
The best patrons understand that legacy is not measured by proximity to culture, but by what they help endure.
Event Speakers
Cameron Foote
Curator
Cameron Foote is a curator, writer and art collection specialist based in London and working internationally. Alongside his institutional practice, he works as an independent consultant, developing curatorial narratives and long-term strategies for significant private collections, artists and estates.
Simon Martin, Director
Pallant House Gallery
Simon Martin is Director of Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, one of the leading regional modern art museums in the UK. He is a Trustee of the Artist Collecting Society and previously was on the Board of Charleston, on the Fabric Advisory Committee of Chichester Cathedral, the Courtauld Association Committee and International Art Advisor to the Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan.
Janine Catalano
Independent Culture Sector Consultant and Strategist
Janine Catalano is an independent culture sector consultant and strategist, focusing on fundraising and philanthropy, partnerships, stakeholder engagement, organisational structure and business planning.
Francesca Sanderson
CEO, Figurative
Fran has 25 years of experience in investment and innovation programme design and delivery. She started her career as an analyst and fund manager at JPMorgan, moving to the impact investment market in 2012 as an Investment Director at Better Society Capital, after living off-grid in Portugal for a year.
She launched Figurative in 2024 from Nesta, and sits on UnLtd’s Investment Committee, RSC’s Development Council and CoSTAR Foresight Lab’s Foresight Board. She is also Treasurer of Theatre Peckham and a Trustee of I Stand Beside. Fran has studied creative writing and is a keen amateur musician.
Caveat Emptor | This article is not legal, investment or tax advice.
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