After Baillie Gifford, who is ‘clean’ enough to fund the arts?

In 2019, the Hay Festival found itself in an awkward spot. Its main sponsor, the conglomerate Tata, stood accused of harming poor communities in India and limiting their freedom of speech. The Booker Prize-winning writer Arundhati Roy was refusing to attend Hay in protest. Ultimately, Tata agreed to pull its funding. The UK’s biggest literary festival was left with a new main sponsor: the Scottish asset manager Baillie Gifford, which, after more than a decade of arts patronage, seemed too dull to be boycotted by anyone. Problem solved? Not for long.

Over the past year, it has been Baillie Gifford’s turn to feel the heat. The firm, which manages more than £225bn in assets and is best known for investing early in Tesla, has been accused of profiting from fossil fuels and “Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide”. Last month, faced with a boycott from several authors, Hay suspended its sponsorship deal. Edinburgh International Book Festival, which had defended its sponsorship by Baillie Gifford, followed suit.

Soon after, the firm announced it would stop its scheme funding various UK literary festivals, worth about £1mn a year. “We’re thinking about what is possible right now,” says Nick Thomas, a partner at Baillie Gifford. “The way people view companies is different, the way people view capitalism is different and the tolerance for complexity in the social media age is less.”

Many people involved with the arts have viewed the affair with despair. Activists managed to target an asset manager that invests much less in fossil fuels than most of its peers. They succeeded in reducing funding for literary festivals (not fossil fuels or arms companies). The whole arts sector is already struggling from years of public funding cuts, lacklustre philanthropy, cost inflation and Covid. If Baillie Gifford isn’t clean enough to fill the gap, who exactly is?

“It’s a heartbreaking spectacle in which there are only losers,” says Sir Michael Moritz, the tech investor whose family foundation sponsors the Booker Prize. Moritz warns that philanthropic support for the arts in Britain could soon be “frozen”, unless “calm and resolute minds” prevail. “No worthy and well-meaning sponsor will want to run the risk of being publicly pilloried.”

“It’s a huge bloody issue,” says David McWilliams, who runs Ireland’s Dalkey Book Festival. “If you don’t get corporate money you have to put ticket prices up.” The activists have scored a “Pyrrhic victory. If this continues, a lot of people will just drop out of the festival world. It’s very easy to destroy something and it takes years to create something.”

This version of events is not wrong. There is, however, a broader story. The debate over who can sponsor the arts did not start with Baillie Gifford or even Tata. These are simply skirmishes in a long battle, which has involved BP, the Sackler family and the hedge fund Man Group, and which will surely engulf many more brands. Since May, singers and bands have pulled out of three UK music festivals sponsored by Barclays, because of alleged links with the defence industry and therefore Israel.

We were pretty shocked when Hay said it was dropping Baillie Gifford . . . Our campaign was meant to be the start of a negotiation

Social media plays a role, so do the expectations of Gen Z and the horrors of the war in Gaza. But the tussle between money and morals is inevitable in a sector where the talent — writers, artists, musicians — often define themselves by their radicalism. As literary festivals become successful, they risk becoming part of a cosy status quo. Artists ask: if we won’t protest, then who will?

The question is not just will anyone fund the arts, but how will the arts adjust to the evolving reality?

The Baillie Gifford affair was partly a misjudgment. The denouement seemed to surprise everyone. “We were pretty shocked when Hay said it was dropping Baillie Gifford. We expected it to be a much longer-term campaign,” says a representative of Fossil Free Books, the small campaign group involved. (The representative, a relatively well-known author, asks not to be named, because, in the spirit of the age, the group reaches its decisions collectively.) “Our campaign was meant to be the start of a negotiation.”

Fossil Free Books was hardly a giant of activism. Its recent letter was signed by 800 or so people who work in the books industry, some of them famous, but many of them junior. Today it has fewer than 3,000 followers on X and fewer than 5,000 on Instagram. It had expected its demands for Baillie Gifford to divest to be brushed aside, just as leading museums and galleries clung on to BP’s sponsorship for years.

The difference is that museums and galleries are not easily ambushed. With much bigger budgets, they have established processes to vet donations. Tate, for example, has had an ethics committee since 2004, which makes recommendations to the trustees. Some large organisations respond to pressure slowly: in 2022, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and Scottish Ballet ended sponsorship deals with BP.

Others can resist. The director of the Science Museum has warned the arts world against being “eaten alive by its own piety”; it continues to accept money from BP, though it drew the line at fellow oil company Saudi Aramco. Last year the British Museum, chaired by former chancellor George Osborne, accepted £50mn from BP towards its planned £1bn redevelopment, despite at least one trustee objecting. Given these institutions’ broad collections, only occasionally can an individual artist shake them, as Nan Goldin did in 2019 when she threatened to boycott the National Portrait Gallery if it accepted a donation from the Sackler Trust.

Literary festivals, in contrast, are flimsy and vulnerable. Every year they rely on the goodwill of dozens of authors, many of whom are very leftwing. Sally Rooney, Naomi Klein and Greta Thunberg were among backers of Fossil Free Books’ call for Baillie Gifford to divest. Pro-Palestinian activists emailed other authors due to attend this weekend’s Borders Book Festival, saying: “We would love to hear from you on whether you would like to join us.” Some recipients interpreted this as intimidating. Staff at Hay were individually targeted on social media.

The irony is that Baillie Gifford would probably have easily passed most ethics tests. Fossil Free Books accused the firm of profiting from fossil fuels and the defence industry. But this included investments in supermarkets that sell petrol — as well as shares in Amazon and chip designer Nvidia, which have military clients. In January, Nvidia was chosen as the number one ESG stock to consider by Sustainability magazine. “If the threshold is ‘you’ve got shares in Amazon’, it’s going to be hard,” says one leading UK arts figure. (The same authors who were calling on Baillie Gifford to divest from Amazon have books sold on the site.)

Thomas, partner at Baillie Gifford, blames social media: “An activist can say X is linked to Y and that’s linked to you, and then you’re suddenly offside. You suffer a visceral reaction to a tenuous connection. We can point out that it’s tenuous, but not everyone is willing to think it through. In the globally interconnected economy, everything is linked to everything.” (A Fossil Free Books representative says: “Our contention was, because their holdings are small, it would be relatively easy for them to divest.”)

As it is, the loss of Baillie Gifford’s funding has added to UK arts organisations’ sense of anxiety. The leading arts figure worries that Dame Vivien Duffield, whose family foundation is celebrating its 60th anniversary, represents “the last of the great philanthropic tradition”. Tech millionaires abound, but “tech doesn’t give to the arts. Even the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is in financial difficulties.” For arts organisations, “the risk is that we become less brave because we get worried about risking sponsorship deals.”

After the invasion of Ukraine, some Russian donors were lost as a source of philanthropy. Tax changes, initially proposed by Labour but partially brought in by the Conservatives, have squeezed some other foreigners. “I’m worried about the impact of the abolishment of the non-dom regime, as non-doms have historically been big benefactors of the arts,” the chair of a prominent London museum says.

Reflecting the mood, the Cambridge Literary Festival, one of those that was previously sponsored by Baillie Gifford, sent out a plaintive email: “If you or someone you know may be interested in supporting the festival do please get in touch.”

One solution is for institutions to seek more long-term sponsorship deals, not one-off “badging” sponsorship. In 2014, Tate agreed an 11-year deal with Hyundai; Uniqlo has extended its support of the museum for another five years.

Another option is for philanthropy to become more individual than corporate. In 2019, the Man Group dropped its sponsorship of the Booker Prize, not long after the novelist Sebastian Faulks had described it as the “enemy”. Tech investor Moritz and his wife Harriet Heyman stepped into the breach.

A person familiar with Baillie Gifford’s thinking said that it could move to support the arts privately or switch to donations from individual partners. That would be less appealing, removing the corporate link and making the sponsorship less co-ordinated. But it might be the only option, short of stopping donations. (The firm is continuing to sponsor an annual award for non-fiction books.)

One person involved in vetting arts donations says: “We will see [sponsorship] relationships change. It could be collective philanthropy, where a lot of people give smaller amounts. I think there will be less naming rights.

“I’m not panicking [after Baillie Gifford’s decision],” says this person. “We’ve had issues like this in the past . . . The ends don’t justify the means. We’ve seen it with Sackler.”

Individuals tend to receive less scrutiny because they are often one step removed from their investments. Nonetheless, students at London’s Goldsmiths College are occupying the Centre for Contemporary Art, calling for the university to cut ties with its donors Candida and Zak Gertler; in 2019, Zak was reported to have hosted a birthday party for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I won’t pretend that I don’t find it profoundly annoying,” says Richard Noble, head of Goldsmiths’ art department, who raised money for the CCA. “In the UK, particularly in the university sector, there’s a lot of suspicion of philanthropy.” But the war in Gaza has particular implications, because “a lot of funders of contemporary art are Jewish” and some have ties with Israel. How do donors react to activists’ scrutiny? “I think some of them take it personally. Some of them see it as borderline racist.”

A lot of writers are very angry. Self-immolation is spectacular, but what do you do for an encore?

There are other options. Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, has proposed a hotel tax, with the proceeds ring-fenced for British cultural institutions. This would be justified on the basis that many tourists come to London for public museums that they can visit for free.

Some new philanthropists are emerging. Yan Huo, a Chinese-born financier, gave grants of $7mn in 2022, including to five London museums and galleries through his family foundation. The Royal Opera House announced this week that Rolex, which has long been its “Official Timepiece”, will now become “its first ever Principal Partner”. It’s a strange thing for an opera company to promote people looking at their watches, but it’s probably not enough for a boycott.

Who is clean enough for the activists? Fossil Free Books points to a database of organisations that have pledged to divest from fossil fuels. Most of the signatories are universities, faith-based organisations and philanthropic groups. Of the companies listed, most have only signed up for partial divestment: Allianz Group, an insurer, is committed to divesting from coal. Culture Unstained, which campaigns for arts institutions to ditch fossil fuel money, points to two London theatres, the Royal Court and the Arcola, which have sustainability criteria for sponsors. That approach shrinks the pool. But some in the arts world argue that the benefits of private money are overblown. As the Royal Court’s former artistic director Dominic Cooke has said: “Large scale philanthropy for the arts is not and never will be part of the culture of this country. The sector wastes [a] huge amount of time and money chasing after private support.”

What activists really want is more public funding. This is not likely to happen in the UK: whoever wins next month’s election, there are too many other priorities. Moreover, McWilliams, of Dalkey Book Festival, argues that government money is no “purer” than corporate sponsorship. “The Irish state has missed every single environmental target it was set. Ireland does [billions of euros] in trade with Israel. We have €24bn in corporation tax revenues from companies like Google and Amazon.” 

Two dynamics could now play out. One is that activists are likely to widen their focus, including to banks that patronise many museums. “There’s a growing interest in those companies that are funding fossil fuel production,” says Sarah Waldron, an activist with Culture Unstained. She mentions Royal Bank of Canada’s partnership with London’s Old Vic theatre. She wants such deals to be seen as “a transaction, not an act of pure benevolence”. Activists have taken heart from António Guterres, UN secretary-general, calling this month for media and tech companies to boycott fossil fuel advertising.

The other dynamic is that more arts organisations may look to strike a balance. Some donors will already only give money on condition that arts organisations don’t turn down funding from other legal sources.

The Baillie Gifford affair has shown that there is a diversity of views, even among those outraged by events in Gaza. Chris Brookmyre, an author who opposed the boycott, says: “A lot of writers are very angry. Self-immolation is spectacular, but what do you do for an encore?” Author George Monbiot encouraged his audience at Hay to recognise the interconnected reality of capitalism: “[T]his thing that we’re protesting against, we’re all deeply embedded in.” Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said that Fossil Free Books’ campaign “hasn’t worked”.

Fossil Fuel Books has channelled the anger of young workers who felt the marquee events were not living up to their own ideals. But today the campaign itself is not entirely celebratory. “In some ways it’s a shame that those avenues of communications [with festivals] have been shut down,” its representative says. Tactics are under discussion.

Supporters of corporate philanthropy are waiting for the arts sector to face down the activists. “Where are the people running these arts organisations standing up and saying this is outrageous — we believe in the climate emergency but we can’t have this,” says the former chair of one London museum. This week, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival showed its resilience. Its chief executive, Shona McCarthy, revealed its board had “overwhelmingly” voted to keep Baillie Gifford as a sponsor. She complained about the weight of expectations now placed on arts events, with little public funding to match. But she also accepted the inevitability of protests: “It wouldn’t be the Fringe without some kind of activism.” 

Henry Mance is the FT’s chief features writer; Harriet Agnew is the FT’s asset management editor

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Letter in response to this article:

A naming and shaming pressure group’s telling ask / From Christopher Ruane, Lanark, South Lanarkshire, UK