Artists studios and public benefit
NFASP Public Benefit Toolkit
The Public Benefit Toolkit is a practical resource to help artists’ studio groups and organisations measure and report on the benefit they provide to the public through the wide range of activities they and their member artists undertake, both on and off the studio premises.
Simple to use, the toolkit takes the form of a questionnaire and is designed for studios of different sizes and circumstances, including those with no paid staff.
We receive the survey data and provide you with a report for you to use:
• to make your annual return to the Charity Commission
• to negotiate with funders or developers, or
• to promote your activities more widely.
We collect the data across all Studio members in a consistent format, which helps us to build a bigger picture of the work that studio groups do. This, in turn, helps us with our advocacy work on behalf of all artists’ studios. [For example, we wish to persuade the Charity Commission that the activities of the individual artists in affordable studios provide significant public benefit, regardless of whether the group directly organises activities or not].
What do I do now?
Read the questions and answers below, then email us at ask@nfasp.org.uk to let us know that you would like to complete the toolkit.
Questions and answers about what the toolkit is for, including an example report and how it works.
Artists’ studios: creating public benefit, Susan O’Reilly, Acme and Capital Studios, December 2006. Download here
A substantial, full-colour publication which provides an in-depth study of two studio buildings in London, ACAVA’s Blechynden Street building in North Kensington and APT in Lewisham. The case studies map the activity of each organisation and the studio artists based there and evaluates, as far as possible, the cultural, economic and social benefits the studios organisations deliver, both in their locality and in a wider cultural context.
Yorkshire Artspace conducted their own Public Benefit Survey for 2008-2009: to read the full results, download the full YAS public benefit survey here: download the full YAS public benefit survey here.
Artists' studios: creating public benefit
A Nottingham case study
This case study looks at two Nottingham based studio groups, Oldknows Studio Group and Egerton Studios, both small scale organisations, voluntarily run and operating as unincorporated groups but with a twenty year presence at one site in the city, the Oldknows factory in St Ann’s Hill Road. By looking in depth at the activities of some of the artists based at these two studio organisations, this study demonstrates that artists in receipt of an affordable studio can gain the support, confidence and security that enables them to participate in cultural life and provide a range of important public benefits.
