Encouraging philanthropic giving to the arts

PQ 6827. Ms Usha Chandradas: To ask the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth whether the Ministry has any specific plans to encourage philanthropic giving to minority arts groups.

1. The Government takes a broad-based approach to encouraging philanthropic giving to the arts. Our initiatives benefit, but do not focus solely on minority arts groups.

2. To encourage philanthropic giving, the Cultural Matching Fund (CMF) provides dollar-for-dollar matching grants for private cash donations to registered charities and Institutions of a Public Character (IPCs) in the arts and heritage sectors. Beneficiaries of the CMF include arts groups such as the Indian dance group Apsaras Arts and the Malay theatre group Teater Ekamatra.

3. To support smaller arts groups, the National Arts Council (NAC) administers the Sustain the Arts (stART) Fund. This Fund supports operational needs, capacity building, and community impact programmes for eligible arts groups with Total Operating Expenditure below $1 million. It is funded by donations from the private sector and may be matched through CMF. Through the stART Fund, NAC has channelled donations to programmes such as Tamil theatre production Vilangkuppannai by theatre organisation Agam Ltd, and ORANG (working title) by Malay dance group P7:1SMA.

4. In addition, the Government has provided significant support for minority arts groups to develop their craft and reach wider audiences. This was detailed in an earlier reply to PQ 6073.