BASA continues to synergise business and arts relationships with its 2020 Supporting Grant cycle

BASA CEO Ashraf Johaardien - photo by Theana Breugem

Says CEO, Ashraf Johaardien, "BASA is a public-private partnership that formed part of South Africa’s strategy to secure greater involvement in the arts, and support from businesses in South Africa. In line with that, the purpose of the Supporting Grants Programme is to amplify and augment the impact of partnerships between arts and business partners."

Funded by a generous allocation from the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture (DAC), the Supporting Grants Programme assists in activating sponsorship for a cross-section of arts projects in different regions of the country, by providing vital financial support to a project that is in an already existing business and arts relationship.

Since inception, BASA has disbursed an astounding R40m to more than 1,600 projects, which have leveraged over R515m in sponsorship from the business sector – that equates to R19m of business support for every R1m of Supporting Grant funds during the 2018/2019 financial year.

"To apply for a BASA Supporting Grant, applicants have to adhere to a rigorous process that has been designed to add value to an already existing partnership between an arts organisation and business sponsors," explains BASA Grants Officer, Sipho Mthiyane.

"Both the arts applicant and the sponsor must submit a joint application on the prescribed forms and clearly demonstrate how the partnership benefits both the sponsor and the recipient. New, emerging and established arts projects that already have sponsors on board are eligible, and forms are available for download from the BASA website."

Interested applicants must take note of the following key dates, when they can apply for BASA’s 2020 Supporting Grants:

Supporting Grant guidelines and application forms are available for download from https://www.basa.co.za/home-page/growth/supporting-grants-2/. Enquiries may be directed to Sipho Mthiyane at az.oc.asab@ohpis. BASA Supporting Grants are made possible through the generous support of DAC.