Beauty and the corporate beast

Mar 9 2010 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

The Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle will be widening its appeal to businesses this spring with a new corporate marketing push.

A new brochure, Opportunities for Corporate Involvement at The Bowes Museum, will outline how local companies can help raise the £50,000 or so needed from business to offset the Bowes’ £2m a year running costs.

Director Adrian Jenkins said the brochure was aimed at regional businesses and would highlight opportunities for corporate involvement at the museum in a number of ways. That included venue hire, exhibition and event sponsorship, payroll giving for staff, through patronage, and by becoming a member of its new corporate partner programme, The Racing Club.

“In spite of the recession our ambition is for the business community to appreciate that investment in museums is good value for money,” said Mr Jenkins. “The bigger the national profile of the Museum and what we do, the more opportunities we hope to attract via business sponsorship.”

Among the first to sign up to the Racing Club was Darlington law firm BHP and Northumbrian Water although at least one other significant partner, who - like many patrons of the arts - would prefer to keep its identify confidential, is also understood to have signed up.

At the time of its launch in September the museum said The Racing Club was intended to offset some of the decline it had seen in donations from trusts and foundations, which had been hit by poorly performing investments.