IdeasTap, the arts charity for ‘young, creative people at the start of their careers’, has announced that it is to close. Set up by the businessman and philanthropist Peter De Haan in 2008, it will shut its doors for good on 2 June 2015.
De Haan explains in a statement on the IdeasTap website that “we simply do not have the funding to continue”.
He continues: “Despite our success, to-date IdeasTap has been primarily funded by my charitable trust. Our efforts to secure government or corporate support have failed – and my charitable trust, which was set up in 1999 to improve the quality of life for people and communities in the UK, will soon run out of money. The result, regrettably, is that IdeasTap will close three months from now.”
In the article, De Haan also expresses his concern about the current state of the arts in the UK, and in particular central government cuts to funding.
He says: “After six years, the picture for the arts is still gloomy. Further funding cuts are coming. The cost of higher education is now dauntingly high.
“The recent Warwick Report suggests that the arts are not catered for by government agencies, and that arts education is steadily being marginalised – despite the huge value the creative industries offer the UK, both culturally and financially. I hope they wake up, and soon.”
Praising the IdeasTap team and the organisation’s members, De Haan says: “If running IdeasTap has taught me one thing it is that we have an incredible pool of creative talent in this country, who – given the chance – have an enormous amount to contribute to our culture, our society and our economy. It is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.”
#SaveIdeasTap campaign
In response to the announcement that IdeasTap is to close, the group Save IdeasTap has been launched to ‘to take positive action to save and/or celebrate IdeasTap following announcement of the organisation’s closure on 2 June’.
The group is collecting statements of support from high-profile people in the arts and exploring ways to keep IdeasTap going.
It is calling on IdeasTap members and others who would like to see the organisation continue to get in touch with messages of support and to organise events, petitions and more, in the hope that this will help raise the issue.
The group states that “we are hopeful that if enough member support is mobilised and made public… they [potential funders] will be able to directly quantify the positive impact their financial support would be having and this could be a very attractive prospect.”
