{"id":3824,"date":"2025-07-18T09:50:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=3824"},"modified":"2025-07-18T09:50:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:50:23","slug":"the-search-for-the-very-nice-arts-philanthropist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/07\/the-search-for-the-very-nice-arts-philanthropist\/","title":{"rendered":"The search for the very nice arts philanthropist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, the Scottish government came up with a one-time grant of \u00a3300,000<\/a> to cover the Edinburgh International Book Festival, after pressure from environmental protestors caused the previous sponsor, Baillie Gifford, to back out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week in Canada, its premier book award, the Giller Prize, having lost its primary sponsor, Scotiabank, after protests, has appealed to the Canadian government<\/a> to keep things afloat:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Without stable funding, the Giller Foundation says the prize will be forced to end operations at the end of 2025, according to a report Wednesday in the Globe and Mail<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual $100,000 prize for fiction ended its 20-year partnership with lead sponsor Scotiabank earlier this year<\/a>. At that time, Giller Foundation executive director Elana Rabinovitch did not comment on the financial effect the loss of the lead sponsor would have on the prize\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foundation has drafted a letter to the federal government asking for $5 million in funding over three years to help it continue operations, the Globe<\/em> reports. The letter has reportedly not yet been sent to Ottawa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are incredibly bullish about the future of the prize and all of its various programs and activities, and are actively engaging with potential sponsors,\u201d Rabinovitch said in an email to Q&Q<\/em> on Thursday. \u201cOur aim is to host an amazing event this fall that not only champions Canadian authors but also upholds our long-standing tradition of honouring exceptional Canadian fiction. Our focus remains steadfastly on celebrating Canadian authors and their books.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rabinovitch told the Globe<\/em> that the foundation is considering scrapping the televised gala event and national author tour in the future as a way to keep the prize alive, but did not provide Q&Q <\/em>with any further comment.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The goal here seems to be to find a corporation or an individual who accumulated billions of dollars in assets, which they are willing to use, in part, to patronize the arts, who earned those billions doing very nice things. Failing that, when a long-time sponsor is found lacking in some moral dimension, it is then up to the government to fill the funding gap, though in the long run this is bound to change the nature of the prize, and also brings with it the need for a justification of why<\/em> the government ought to use its funds this way. \u201cBut the state should fund the arts\u201d isn\u2019t a good enough response, because state support for the arts can do many things besides giving $100,000 prizes for fiction. I like fiction, and I like public funding of the arts, but were I still a Canadian taxpayer I would balk at the suggestion that this is a good use of $5 million, money that a Canadian bank was, in the past, pleased to provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope that the planet can reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, and I think the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza are immoral. But if I feel so strongly about those issues that I refuse to have anything to do with any company that has any ties to such things, then I have to accept that I might not have a book festival or a fiction prize anymore – that would be a price to be paid for my convictions. Saying \u201cwell, the government can fund it\u201d is a cop out, too easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cross-posted at https:\/\/michaelrushton.substack.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, the Scottish government came up with a one-time grant of \u00a3300,000 to cover the Edinburgh International Book Festival, after pressure from environmental protestors caused the previous sponsor, Baillie Gifford, to back out. This week in Canada, its premier book award, the Giller Prize, having lost its primary sponsor, Scotiabank, after protests, has appealed to the Canadian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-ZG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4581,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/09\/going-back-to-vail\/","url_meta":{"origin":3824,"position":0},"title":"Going back to Vail","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"September 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In May 2024\u00a0I wrote about the town of Vail, Colorado cancelling the artist-in-residency agreement with Danielle SeeWalker, before it even began, over complaints not of her planned art for Vail, but over other art previously made that she had reposted on social media, regarding Gaza. My post concluded with this:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2514,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2019\/11\/the-wealth-tax-and-the-museum\/","url_meta":{"origin":3824,"position":1},"title":"The wealth tax and the museum","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"November 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"At Bloomberg, Tyler Cowen has a short post on some unintended consequences of a wealth tax. It's an idea being talked about in the Democratic candidate debates. In the US we do have a few wealth taxes already: local property taxes, and, for the very, very wealthy, estate taxes. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/reading-the-will.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/reading-the-will.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/reading-the-will.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/reading-the-will.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/reading-the-will.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1390,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/06\/droit-de-suite-revisited\/","url_meta":{"origin":3824,"position":2},"title":"Droit de Suite revisited","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Today at Slate, Whitney Kimball tries to make the case for US adoption of resale royalties for visual artists, or droit de suite: In what would become the first scandalously record-breaking Sotheby\u2019s art auction in 1973, taxi magnate Robert Scull and his wife famously made a fortune on 50 artworks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"We're back ...","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/auction.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/auction.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/auction.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1425,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/07\/strategic-pricing-for-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":3824,"position":3},"title":"Strategic pricing for the arts","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm pleased to say my book on pricing in the arts has been released - Amazon link here, and Routledge link (including for ordering e-inspection copies) here. What's it all about? As I do \u00a0on this blog, I have tried to give arts managers, and students of arts management, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"for what it's worth","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/my-book.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2724,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2022\/04\/book-diary-april-22\/","url_meta":{"origin":3824,"position":4},"title":"Book Diary – April 22","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"April 22, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I am writing a book, on the \"moral foundations of public funding for the arts\". It will eventually appear in the series New Directions in Cultural Policy Research, hopefully some time in 2023. But first I have to write it. This diary will chart my progress through the year, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"my taxes paid for this?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/CO.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/CO.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/CO.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1371,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/06\/fixed-book-prices\/","url_meta":{"origin":3824,"position":5},"title":"Fixed book prices (updated)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"France has passed anti-Amazon legislation. Publishing Perspectives reports: On Wednesday, the French parliament passed a long-debated law that will end Amazon.com\u2019s ability to offer a combined 5% discount and free shipping on books shipped to France, according to\u00a0Livres Hebdo.\u00a0 France\u2019s fixed book price law, dubbed \u201cThe Lang Law,\u201d was passed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"paid full price","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/french-reader.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3826,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3824\/revisions\/3826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}