Unlocking the value of cultural partnerships

While Australians are passionate about attending festivals, museums and cinemas, cost-of-living pressures are starting to bite and Australia’s cultural sector is facing some of its toughest operating conditions to date. As in other industries, new ways of operating are required for the sector to be sustainable and to ensure Australians can continue to access and enjoy cultural experiences.  

‘Cultural partnerships’ describes the formal and informal collaborations between organisations to deliver cultural goods and services. This can include partnerships between cultural organisations, government agencies, philanthropic trusts and businesses in other sectors. 

Some examples of these partnerships include festivals delivered through agreements between businesses, governments and creative producers; philanthropic donations to art galleries and museums over many decades or family generations; and collaborations across cultural and creative industries and within education and healthcare settings. Understanding and unlocking the value of cultural partnerships is key to Australia securing its place as a cultural powerhouse.  

Significant Australian and international evidence confirms that these types of cultural partnerships deliver direct, positive social and economic impacts. These impacts occur across all five themes in Australia’s national wellbeing framework Measuring What Matters – health, security, sustainability, cohesion and prosperity. Importantly, in light of current discussions about social cohesion, ‘creative and cultural engagement’ is included as a key measure under the theme ‘cohesion’. 

New research from A New Approach (ANA) demonstrates how partnerships help make cultural experiences possible, even in these tough times. The report, Thriving through Thick and Thin: Partnerships for our Cultural Life, reveals how collaboration helps the cultural sector to evolve, meet future demands and drive social, cultural and economic benefits now and into the future.  

From this research, it is clear that working in partnership produces practical resourcing benefits, helping to diversify and pool finances and other support, such as personnel, materials, infrastructure and facilities. Working in partnership can also produce improved returns on investment and results beyond those that can be achieved by a single organisation. Partnerships matter throughout cultural and creative value chains – from creation and production through to the manufacturing and distribution of cultural experiences, goods and services.  

In short, the cultural life of our nation thrives through these partnerships and their impacts extend into social and economic benefits. Importantly, cultural partnerships promote social capital – the norms, networks and trust that facilitate cooperation within and between groups. In doing so, these partnerships foster cooperative behaviour and improve social cohesion. 

While this research is focused on cultural partnerships, its insights are relevant to many public-facing, consumer-reliant businesses. Over the last five years, our cultural sector has been highly impacted by health emergencies, economic fluctuations, political shifts, environmental changes and technological advancements. The operating conditions of the sector continue to be affected today by domestic and international pressures. 

Like many businesses navigating this environment, our cultural sector is also subject to high expectations from audiences, participants and purchasers. Goods and services make up more than 85 per cent of income to organisations in Australia’s cultural and creative industries. Sales from goods and services are also the single largest source of income for not-for-profit organisations with a cultural purpose.  

Consumers expect our cultural sector to provide goods and services in ways that maintain their trust, and Australian research suggests the trust expectations on culture-related business are particularly high. With this in mind, this new research explores practical frameworks that can be used in cultural partnerships to consider the expectations of contemporary Australian society. 

The report highlights that strong partnerships actively anticipate and manage the challenges that can test their resilience. Challenges might arise from differing contexts, with cultural partnerships occurring across different industries and different countries, as well as operating in multifaceted legal, ethical and interpersonal contexts with varied authorising environments, governance requirements, strategic plans, business objectives, liability levels and risk appetites.  

Challenges can also arise from perceived or actual misalignment of values, interests and needs. This misalignment can emerge for different reasons, including stated or unstated views about: ideology; injustice; harmful words or behaviour; historical events; freedom of expression; approaches taken to intercultural dialogue; and roles and responsibilities, such as control and credit. Thus, cultural partnerships, particularly those that are working across industries, need well-developed, tested and refined strategies to navigate adversity.  

This new research confirms that intentional efforts to strengthen cultural partnerships are essential to sustaining our cultural sector, securing Australia’s place as a cultural powerhouse and ensuring that all Australians, no matter where they live, can access, contribute to and benefit from cultural experiences that are meaningful to them.