After the crowdfunder: how can cultural spaces not just survive, but thrive?

In Bristol and elsewhere, campaigns to safeguard arts venues’ future are commonplace – and regularly smash fundraising targets. But the hard work doesn’t stop there.

Manager Rosie Bowery has led Jamaica Street Studios’ bid to buy its building

Features 4th September, 2024

Alex Turner

“I couldn’t even think about it falling through,” says Rosie Bowery, the manager of Jamaica Street Studios, laughing nervously. “I was like, if this goes tits up, we are fucked – I can’t do this again.”

We’re speaking a few weeks after the artist-led organisation smashed a crowdfunder target in June, unlocking a huge government grant, as part of a bid to take ownership of its home near Stokes Croft.

The imposing, Grade II-listed former carriageworks has had artist studios on its upper levels since the 1990s, when few property developers were poking their snouts into this part of Bristol.

It’s news to nobody that this is no longer the case. And as city land values rise, not only do cultural venues’ rents often follow, but building owners become more likely to sell – making years- or decades-long arrangements suddenly precarious.

Where landlords are only interested in the highest bid, that may be the end of the road – but often, sitting tenants are offered a first bite at the cherry.

In Bristol and elsewhere, campaigns asking the public to dip in their pockets to safeguard venues from becoming flats, supermarkets or co-working hubs have become commonplace – and regularly hit or exceed crowdfunder goals. Not far from Jamaica Street, Mickey Zoggs, home to Noods Radio has also done so in recent months.

But behind the scenes often sit groups of people with little prior knowledge of putting together big packages of funding – and after money is raised, when donors may tune out, the work can get even harder. We sat down with several veterans of community-funded buyouts, to hear more about that – and about the benefits their campaigns are bringing, beyond just keeping hold of a building.

Assembling the jigsaw

On Jamaica Street, where owners expressed their intention to sell more than a year ago, Bowery’s most recent stress spike came from an unexpected source. The studios had sailed past its original £85,000 crowdfunder goal, and a stretch target of £100,000, pulling in £106,961 in 42 days from 1,036 supporters, aided by the endorsement of snooker icon and DJ, Steve Davis, who lives nearby.

Its arguments were straightforward – that chipping in would maintain a longstanding, affordable studio, and safeguard the more recent downstairs gallery KIT FORM as a public space to access art for free.

It’s a big step from just having a landlord, pay low rent, and they fix the building

Rosie Bowery, Jamaica Street Studios

But the crowdfunder cash – augmented by two sums from private donors, to raise it to £125,000 – was just a match fund, the raising of which released just over £500,000 from a £150m pot called the Community Ownership Fund. This in turn formed part of the Conservative government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda – which abruptly ended with July’s general election.

For an edgy couple of weeks afterward, the studios’ funding – along with other grantees – “was stuck in purgatory, between the two governments”, Bowery says. It was finally confirmed days before we meet, bringing a big sigh of relief. But, she says, with a deadline of February 2025 to use the grant, the story is far from over.

As well as the government money, the studios must secure a mortgage to complete the purchase of the building. The owners have warned they will otherwise put it on the market by March.

Bowery estimates £30,000 has already been spent on things like surveyors and architects, both to underpin the grant bid and to get a robust valuation of the building. With the clock ticking, finalising a price with the owners remains a hurdle – which if cleared, will bring space for forward planning.

Salaries for her and another person to steer the project forwards, including applying for further money to give the building much-needed TLC, form part of the grant funding package.

“We’re trying to make the organisation resilient – this is a big step from just having a landlord, pay low rent, and they fix the building,” she says. “But you either take that step up, or you have some horrible hot-desking company or whatever take over the building.”

Knock-on effects

Over on Old Market, there was less of an existential threat to the Exchange when the small music venue set out in 2018 to raise £300,000 via a community share offer to preserve its future.

The bricks and mortar of the Exchange’s building remain leased long-term from its owner. But, echoing Bowery, co-founder Matt Otridge says the money raised, which enabled people to become co-owners of the Exchange business, was crucial to it remaining a going concern. Rent, although a massive deal for many, is just one of the costs that hurt grassroots music venues, many of which are loss-making.

“The three of us who founded it loved it, could see the community loved it, but we were all getting older and had poured a lot of our own money in – as much as we could possibly justify investing,” he says. “The share money allowed us to do investment that brought down running costs – for example, solar panels – and to do major renovations, like putting in the basement stage.”

Besides those direct works, Otridge says the success of the share offer demonstrated that a significant number of people cared enough about the Exchange to put their money where their mouths were. This had the major unforeseen benefit of making it more appealing to grant funders.

“The irony was, we had costed out things we were going to buy [via the share offer], like paying for a PA system,” he says. “Then about eight months later, Arts Council [England] said, here you go, money for a PA – it felt like a sweet spot, becoming more fundable, and then also being able to pay staff what they’re worth.”

The share offer rules mean that if the venue has a tough year, its financial wellbeing comes before rewarding investors, putting it on a more stable footing, adds Otridge, who has since stepped back from hands-on involvement.

“The fact that I’m no longer involved day-to-day, and that the people who are doing the jobs I was are getting better paid, is testament [to the success of the share offer],” he says. Otridge now works for Music Venue Properties, which is applying the same fundraising model to help other small music venues by buying out their freeholds and offering them long leases outside the pressures of commercial ownership.

‘Campaigning wiped a lot of us out’

Buying their building freehold was also the aim, a decade ago, of the collective behind the Cube Microplex, after their landlord agreed to enter into negotiations. In a more straightforward campaign than those run by Jamaica Street Studios or the Exchange, the volunteer-run cinema and art space raised the £185,000 asking price to take full ownership of its warren of rooms on Dove Street South.

Hitting the target in late 2013, after a 15-month campaign that ended in a flurry of last-minute donations fuelled by tweets going viral, realised what had previously just been a “pipe dream”, recalls Chiz Williams. He was part of the Cube for almost 25 years up to 2023.

“A lot of us realised that where the real art was, was how we organise ourselves, what we do with our space, rather than just what films we’re going to show and what beer we’re going to stock,” he says.

Buying the freehold presented opportunities to transform the Cube, making it more soundproof, more accessible, more comfortable and more energy-efficient. But achieving the ambitious plans – which got as far as architects’ drawings – proved a reach.

“The campaign brought people together but also wiped a lot of us out,” says Williams. “Then the cost of changing things was going to be just shy of a million pounds – five times the amount we’d bought the building for.”

While big changes were put on hold, Williams emphasises that buying the freehold “secured the land, and the building for community, amateur arts”. It’s “really important not to underestimate that”, he adds.

Ten years on though, major things are finally afoot, in a DIY project that the Cube has again run a crowdfunder for.

Over the summer, work has been underway to “future-proof” the building, explains Jo Kelly, a Cube volunteer and architect who has helped manage the improvements. These have involved ripping out its decaying toilet block, creating gender-neutral facilities and implementing first steps towards improving the building’s accessibility – arguably its biggest challenge – and energy-efficiency.

At the time of publication, and following hard efforts by both current and former volunteers, the venue was due to reopen on the evening of 4 September.

Back at Jamaica Street Studios, Rosie Bowery also has accessibility, in all its forms, on her mind as she looks ahead. “Making the [ gallery space ] physically accessible is really important, the doors aren’t powered at the moment,” she says.

“But it’s also ensuring the ground floor doesn’t repeat what happens with a lot of art spaces – it’s not just about showing work or having artists involved from diverse backgrounds or protected characteristics,” Bowery adds. “It’s sharing ownership of the space and decision-making with them.” 

She says she also hopes to build on tentative steps to offer free-to-access creative workshops that will make the space feel truly open to people living nearby. “We just need to get over the hump of buying the building,” she says. “Then you’re like, ok, we can think again.”