Good Foundations: Trusts & Foundations and the Arts in the United Kingdom

Philanthropic trusts and foundations play an understated yet vital role in funding the visual arts in the United Kingdom. This two-volume publication sheds a new and timely light on this under-scrutinised sector of the arts economy. Volume one looks at the affairs and achievements of a particular independent grant-giving charity. It pieces together a fascinating account of the history and evolution of the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation, whose origins lie in the fashion scene of 1960s London, and it examines in an original and searching way the different outcomes that have resulted from this particular foundation's support for artists and for arts organisations. Volume two, which includes contributions from leading experts in arts funding and philanthropy, provides an overview of the current map of arts funding in the United Kingdom and analyses in great detail the specific contribution made by independent grant-giving trusts. The resulting publication represents a groundbreaking contribution to scholarship in the fields of arts funding and philanthropy.

This publication resulted from a project led by Roderick Bugg which investigated the role of philanthropy, trusts and foundations in the context of the wider visual arts economy, and the history and context of the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation in particular.

The editorial group commissioned a parallel photographic essay from Phil Sayer to document the work of the Foundation and commissioned additional essays from Marjorie Althorpe Guyton and Tim Llewellyn, Henry Moore Foundation, to extend the scope of the work as a point of reference for the study of philanthropy and the arts. Bugg and Gooding, as chair of the editorial board and associate editor respectively, provide introductions to the two volumes, Bugg additionally wrote the essay on the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation major spend out projects. The research method is distinctive in that it combined both text and image as parallel modes of documentation and analysis to produce an integrated research output accessible to both an academic and wider arts professional and donor communities.

During this research Glinkowski, as project researcher, undertook an extensive programme of interviews with a range of charitable organisations, their trustees and their grant recipients in the visual arts, and alongside this developed an in-depth impact assessment and analysis, thought to be the first study of its kind in a UK university. The core of the publication is a report on the findings of a study into the impact on artists and arts institutions of funding received from philanthropic foundations.

The publication was prepared with an editorial group at Wimbledon led by Professor Rod Bugg, and including Mel Gooding, Eileen Hogan, Malcolm Quinn, Anita Taylor, Phil Sayer, Angus Hyland, Pentagram and Deidre Hopkins. The book includes the major work completed by Glinkowski, and two additional essays: one maps and analyses the contribution given to the arts in the UK by independent trusts and foundations; the other provides a history and analysis of the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation, as an exemplar of the trusts and foundations sector.

Paul Glinkowski completed an MA in Curating at the Royal College of Art before becoming a researcher and programme-maker at BBC Television in 1994. From 1996-2003 he worked in the Visual Arts Department at Arts Council England's (ACE) national strategy office where he specialised in artists' professional development initiatives, particularly in support of the artists' studios sector. He later worked as a freelance arts writer and consultant for organisations such as ACE and a-n, The Artists' Information Company. In 2005 he was appointed Rootstein Hopkins Research Fellow at Wimbledon School of Art, where he continues to work as a researcher.