The level at which the decision is made

The accountability of corporate office bearers to shareholders and stakeholders

relies on a company’s governance structure and governance principles: these

include structures, processes, cultures and systems that are intended to lead to the

successful operation of the firm. With a focus on support for the not-for-profit arts

sector the data generated from the interviews identified that within companies there

were three levels of management that had a participatory role in the decision

process to provide support: the Board; the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and line

management. This section records the findings of within these decision making

On the topic of setting policy and in-principle support for the arts and culture,

seven of the twelve participants in the study identified their Boards as being

responsible for these decisions. The standard of response was typified by the

following words from participant C6:

“…the champion in the company is the Board. This has been demonstrated through their ability to acknowledge the quality of the projects being aligned to company goals.”

Private philanthropist P1 expressed the view that for corporations the decision at

Board level was an entry level decision. This meant the Board made the in-

principle policy decision, leaving management to implement the decision without

the need for further reference to the Board. Three participants related how Board

members other than the CEO advocated at Board meetings for the inclusion of

support for the arts in company strategy. For most of the companies in the sample,

the Board, having made the in-principle decision to support the arts, was willing to

hand the implementation of the policy over to the next layer of management.

As the next layer of management, the role of the CEO in the decision process

appeared to be multi-dimensional. The first of these dimensions was

encouragement to consider support for the arts as a component of the overall

corporate strategy. The CEO, as a Board member, had the opportunity to advocate

at the Board level for getting in-principle support. Four of the participants indicated

the CEO played a key role as an advocate within their companies.

A second dimension was the review of the policy and its method of implementation

whose structures consisted of a national head office supported by a network of state

based-offices. The participants indicated this provided an opportunity for the CEO

to assume responsibility for the national response and devolve the implementation

of policy to the states, depending on the particular business model used by each

company. Seven of the respondents that had state-based office structures were

allowed to act independently of head office, within delegated limits, deciding for

themselves what activities to support. Within the companies these networks created

a level of expertise about support for the not-for-profit arts sector that was shared

between the offices.

The role of management in the decision process appeared to be multi-dimensional,

ranging from the implementation of operational matters to participating in strategic

decisions. In what appeared to be a key operational role, managers operated as a

filter mechanism. Seven companies from the sample designated management to

review all requests received for support, regardless of the type of support required

or the origin of the request. Four companies in the sample have what was referred

to as a community team, made up of staff from all levels of the company hierarchy.

The role of this team in each company was to review all requests or proposals for

support with the purpose of filtering and recommending those that met the

company criteria. Six of the participants indicated that implementing a formal

system where proposals for support were subject to a filter mechanism either

through the CEO or through the management structure was useful. They described

how their filter mechanisms eliminated personal influences from individual Board

What to support and why, as a collaborative and shared decision process and role

between levels of management was not found to be a common practice. One form

of that shared decision role, as described by participants from two companies, had

established programs in which the company matched dollar for dollar contributions

made by employees dollar for dollar. The employees select the organisations to be

supported and the method of how, where and when the support would be provided.

All twelve company participants and each of the private philanthropists interviewed

expressed concern at the number of applications for support each received in any

one year. Whilst this thesis concentrates on the corporate support for the not-for-

profit arts sector, each of the participants in the research made the point that the

requests for support were not confined only to requests for support of the arts. In

their substantive roles they received all the requests for support put to their

organisations. Only two of the companies retained unapproved requests for a period

of more than three months. The stated purpose of the retention policy was that it

provided a contingency against the potential of the company withdrawing from an

already approved project. The participants’ explanations as to why their companies

would withdraw support were that they reserved the right to support activity of

which their companies approved.

For the private philanthropists all stated that their governance structure set the

boundaries for their giving. Decisions relied on the receipt of information similar to