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An award of £149,691 from Arts Council England’s Catalyst Arts: building fundraising capacity will boost and support the ambitious fundraising plans for a consortium of six publicly funded photography organisations based in the North of England.

Amber Collective and Side Gallery, Newcastle, Impressions Gallery, Bradford, LOOK: Liverpool International Photography Festival, North East Photography Network (NEPN), Sunderland, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and Redeye, the Photography Network, Manchester have joined forces to work together with aims to increase knowledge of fundraising and build extra income for each organisation.

All consortium members have a long history of formal and informal collaboration; most of the members have worked together over the years on shared exhibitions, shared talks and events. All bring their own area of expertise and specialism and all are bound together by their commitment to promoting and sharing photography locally, regionally nationally and internationally.

The Northern Photography Consortium has a broad reach and includes galleries offering exhibitions, membership organisations offering training and support, an international festival and a unique photographic collective. At the heart of each is the desire to explore, experiment and share people’s stories from across the globe in projects that stimulate and inspire both photographers and audiences.

The Catalyst award will enable the consortium to be radical in their thinking about how they fundraise both individually and collectively. This award will enable them to make a shift in their individual funding models and adopt entrepreneurial approaches to income generation.

Areas of activity will include:
• Identifying potential regional, national and international major sponsors who have an interest in photography.
• Developing innovative events and opportunities for potential sponsors
• Building new individual and corporate membership schemes
• Buying in of specialist fundraisers to work with each organisation, offering training and skills
• Sharing of ideas and knowledge
• Tapping into the potential of social media and digital technology

The National Media Museum (NMeM) will work with the Northern Photography Consortium to advise and support the group.

Paul Herrmann, Director of Redeye (the lead partner in the consortium) said: "This award is fabulous news for photography. We want to make it as easy and appealing as possible for anyone to be able to support photography, both as a whole and for the specific activities of the partner organisations. Bringing this consortium together has been positive and energising; it's great to have the combined knowledge and resources of the partners working together to build and strengthen photography."

Jane Beardsworth, North West Regional Director, Arts Council England said: “The Arts Council has been taking steps, through programmes such as the Catalyst Arts scheme, to strengthen resilience and support the arts and cultural sector to develop new income strands to ensure that ambition and innovation is maintained during challenging economic times. We’re delighted to offer an award to Redeye, the Photography Network with their partners Amber Collective / Side Gallery, Impressions Gallery, LOOK, North East Photography Network and Open Eye Gallery. Redeye already has a strong track record of developing links between organisations and this award will enable them to build on existing relationships in the sector and to lead this consortium in increasing their fundraising capacity and developing digital tools for online giving."

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