Small Charity Week is an annual celebration of the small charities making a huge difference to communities across the U.K. The campaign aims to amplify the messages and impact of small charities, support them in their invaluable work, and connect small charities with those who can strengthen them. When small charities are stronger, the communities they support are stronger too.
In the spirit of Small Charity Week, we are delighted to highlight the brilliant work of small charities in Bath & North East Somerset, by featuring several individual charity spotlights across the week of June 24th - 28th. By sharing their stories, we hope to support further recognition for the vital role small charities play, empower our members to have their voices heard, and celebrate their magnificent efforts.
Today we're delighted to introduce a brand new social enterprise in Bath: Bath Arts Collective! Bath Arts Collective have achieved a lot in their short time so far, read on to find our more about this great initiative!
Can you tell us a little bit about your small charity?
We are Bath Arts Collective, a community interest company that drives, develops and contributes to a collaborative, vibrant and varied arts & events scene in Bath and surrounding areas.
Our three Directors - Kate Hall, Kate Abbey and Jasmine Barker - have between them an award-winning track record of creating, producing and marketing over 2,500 events across books, music and film festivals.
We launched in November 2023 with a clear purpose to set up a social enterprise that puts cultural collaboration and connection at the heart of everything we do. We create our own programme of curated events specifically around books, film, art and music; provide consultancy services on events programming, production and marketing for venues and organisations and work pro bono on projects that seek to broaden and diversify events and audiences.
Bath Arts Collective has also set up BACE (Bath Arts Culture & Events) bringing together over 47 arts organisations and venues across the city by creating a network that meets regularly to support each other and collaborate.
Are you working on any big projects at the moment?
Yes! We have a sell-out event with fashion designer and Great British Sewing Bee judge, Patrick Grant, in collaboration with Heritage Services and the Bath Spa National Centre for Fashion & Sustainability. Patrick's new book is called Less and he'll be in conversation with Lizzie Heffer talking about how having fewer, better things can make us happier.
And we're hoping the sun stays out for our BRLSI's BRILLIANT DISCOVERY WEEKEND - a free family fun event (29/30) to celebrate 200 years of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. We're taking over the BRLSI building and Queen Square with music from Music Workshop and Orchestra of Everything, craft activities, dressing-up, games, building workshops and an exhibition. Bath Arts Collective is consulting on a year's project to support BRLSI in their mission to reach new audiences.
We've also created a special dino-tastic city trail linking Queen Square visitors to find their way down to the Holburne Museum where the brilliant Forest of Imagination is running the same weekend.
Have there been any accomplishments your charity is particularly proud of that you'd like to share?
Bath Arts Collective created, produced and marketed a brand new festival called Curious Minds: a festival to ignite ideas (March 2024) - 35 book talks, film screenings, writing workshops, walks and live performances running across 8 Bath venues. This whole project was developed and delivered in under 15 weeks and we sold 1275 tickets, welcomed big names including Jeremy Bowen, Bryony Gordon and Robin Ince, partnered with local charities including Julian House and Bath Mind, trialled grief writing workshops and supported a number of local writers and creatives. Curious Minds will return in 2025.
We supported the Holburne Future Collective (a talented group of 18-25 yr olds) and The Holburne Museum with the creation, marketing and delivery of the very first Holburne Pride (14/15 June 2024) - an incredible weekend of talks, films, crafting, comedy and evening silent discos and drag shows that lit up the museum, inside and out.
We've also pitched for, and won work with a range of interesting names including BRLSI, Salisbury Cathedral, Ryedale Festival, Persephone Bookshop, Stratford Literary Festival, National Trust and Lammemuir Festival.
Bath Arts Collective is also very proud to have supported 8 young people (18-23 yr olds) with work placements where they've gained valuable experience in festival and event management, attended live events and got involved with social media.
Other than volunteering and donating, what other ways can local people help support your charity's great work?
Please sign up to our social media and newsletter at www.batharts.co.uk and then come along to our events pr share details with friends and family. We love hearing about great festivals and experiences that people have had in other cities so do please tell us what you'd like to see in Bath.
What are the benefits of being a small charity?
We can create our own opportunities, built around supporting and developing our vision, mission and purpose and are able to be agile in how we work. Bath Arts Collective can see immediately the impact we make with each event, festival, project and are able to curate and shape our work where it is most needed.
What do you think are the main challenges facing small charities, and what could be done better to tackle these?
Funding is scary and burnout is real! This is the first social enterprise (and business) that we have set up and we are incredibly ambitious for Bath Arts Collective. Securing money and making sure we are are not stretched too thin with resourcing is always going to be a challenge. We often don't have time to research and apply for funding or sponsorship as we are too busy staying on top of the day to day workload. Some shared resource across grants or funding across the city would be amazing.
As a small charity, what is your favourite thing about being a 3SG member?
We've loved how welcoming the networking events are and how we have a space to share our story and hear from others. Third sector is a wonderful space to be working in and 3SG do vital work in bringing us all together.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out the Bath Arts Collective website to learn more about what they do!
Find out more about Small Charity Week here: https://www.smallcharityweek.com/
Small Charity Week defines a small charity as a voluntary organisation with a social or charitable purpose with an annual income of less than £1 million. This includes registered charities, community groups, community interest companies (CICs) and other structures.
If your small charity would like to become a 3SG member, you can find more information here. Alternatively, please get in touch and we'd be happy to have a chat - contact@3sg.org.uk
Comments