Crisis, Recovery and Renaissance Fundraising Campaign
The Covid-19 crisis presents Sage Gateshead with an ongoing financial challenge. Through our 2020-23 Crisis, Recovery and Renaissance plan, we aim to serve communities and people in the North East and wider North for the long-term.
This ambitious plan means we must raise £3 million.
Before the pandemic, 60% of our income came from concerts, classes and events. A year ago, this income stopped overnight. A further 20% of our income was impacted by this crisis.
When audiences can return to Sage Gateshead, it could take 12-18 months before our income recovers. This means that without additional support, our organisation is not viable.
Despite these significant challenges, we are deeply committed to responding to the needs of our communities and to strengthening our organisation’s long-term impact. We have ambitious plans for our future, and we want to start work on our Recovery in 2021/22.
Sage Gateshead is still recovering from the pandemic. This year we need to raise at least £1m from our Crisis, Recovery and Renaissance campaign. Can you help? Any gift, no matter its size, will help safeguard live music in the North East.
Donate £250 Donate £150 Donate £100 Donate £50 Donate £20 Donate £5 Custom Amount Quick Donate (No login required) Set up a Direct Debit
To donate by post: Please send your cheque, payable to ‘North Music Trust’ to the Fundraising Team, Sage Gateshead, St Mary’s Square, Gateshead, NE8 2JR.
Donate by Text: Text SAGE to 70460 to give £20
(Texts cost £20 plus one standard rate message)
We have three priorities for this campaign, and we have several areas of focus
Priority One: Overcoming the Covid-19 Emergency
We are very grateful to have raised £1m in our first year. Donations have supported crucial action and adaptation including:
- Safeguarding our building for communities. Find out more >>
- Continuing our creative learning work online. Find out more >>
- Supporting artists, including our orchestra Royal Northern Sinfonia. Find out more >>
Priority Two: Recovery
Once Sage Gateshead is able to reopen, our income will be significantly reduced. People will not be able to return in the same numbers straight away. We will need support while government guidance changes and our audiences recover. Our box office and trading income is set to be half of that in a pre-Covid year and we envisage a gap of £5 million. Thanks to a repayable loan of £3 million from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund Round 2, we have secured finance which will go a long way to helping us navigate the year. We still need to raise at least £2 million to get through 2021/22, including £1 million through public support for this next stage of our Crisis, Recovery and Renaissance campaign.
Looking ahead, communities in the North will need us more than ever, and we want to have the ability to meaningfully respond. Music plays a vital role in improving health and wellbeing, education and learning, and in creating positive shared experiences. We want to retain and support the wealth of musical talent across the region for the benefit of all. Arts and culture are also a powerful economic driver for the region, helping to attract investment, tourism and businesses.
Our plans for the Recovery include:
Support artists to make and perform extraordinary music – from jazz to folk, from electronic to classical – which will be from the North and for the whole region, country and world to enjoy. We will do this by:
- Restarting our live events, presenting world-class music to audiences in the North
- Realising a new vision for our orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia
- Creating a new hub where artists can create, collaborate, develop and perform live or digitally
- Investing in digital equipment so people can connect with artists and music in new ways
Ensure all children and young people from our region can find joy, develop life skills and build careers in and through music. We will do this by:
- Creating a unified learning programme of classes, projects and performances for young musicians
- Reimagining our hall, Sage Two, as a year-round development centre for future talent
- Investing in the digital delivery of our learning programme
Support our communities’ wellbeing, making live music part of everyone’s life. We will do this by:
- Asking people in the North East how they see the future of live music
- Involving communities in decisions about our future work
- Creating new projects for our communities to make and perform music together
In the next few months, we will share more information about our plans.
Priority Three: Renaissance
By raising £2m during the 2020-21 Crisis and 2021-22 Recovery phases, supporters will have helped Sage Gateshead survive a completely unexpected and unprecedented shock.
In the 2022-23 Renaissance phase we will focus on the big ambitions set out in our Recovery. We hope to welcome back audiences to a full programme at full capacity. We will invest in creating ambitious and accessible work across all our programmes.
Our supporters will have ensured Sage Gateshead not only survives but will have adapted to a new world and provided substantial community benefit. This will mean the organisation can flourish into the future.
To make all of this happen we need to raise £3 million, and we can only do this with your help.
We appreciate many are facing financial hardship at the moment, but if you believe in the life-enhancing power of live music, a donation to this campaign will help to safeguard one of the UK’s most cherished music organisations.
Public campaign donor levels and recognition.
Your gift to this campaign helps safeguard Sage Gateshead’s future, and so, to acknowledge your support we have created a range of donor recognition levels:
View the Campaign Donor Recognition Board >>
If you renew an existing membership, we’ll also automatically place you within one of the levels in this campaign. Your other benefits will continue as normal once we are able to reopen.
Thank you to those who have already given to our Resilience Fund, either through a ticket or one-off donation. If you choose to make an additional donation now this will be combined with your first donation for recognition purposes.
We would welcome conversations with businesses or charitable Trusts who might be able to support our campaign. As well as the levels of support indicated above, we can also offer special partnerships for those who are able to give at a higher level. Please contact Natalie Heath [email protected] to arrange a conversation with the fundraising team.
Sage Gateshead is still recovering from the pandemic. This year we need to raise at least £1m from our Crisis, Recovery and Renaissance campaign. Can you help? Any gift, no matter its size, will help safeguard live music in the North East.
Donate £250 Donate £150 Donate £100 Donate £50 Donate £20 Donate £5 Custom Amount Quick Donate (No login required) Set up a Direct Debit
To donate by post: Please send your cheque, payable to ‘North Music Trust’ to the Fundraising Team, Sage Gateshead, St Mary’s Square, Gateshead, NE8 2JR.
Donate by Text: Text SAGE to 70460 to give £20
(Texts cost £20 plus one standard rate message)
Our progress to date...
