Moira Sinclair has drive – it’s palpable in the air around her. And as the new chief executive of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF), a grant-giving body, she also has the power to change lives.
The PHF recently ran its annual Awards for Artists, where visual artists and com- posers are awarded grants of £50,000 each.
“Unlike most, there are no strings attached to those awards – the artists don’t have to produce anything,” Sinclair says. “They don’t even have to fill in a big report for us. We say the money is for them to do what they think they need to do at this moment.”
It is a generous concept, and one that entirely follows the principles of the company’s founder, Paul Hamlyn, who set the foundation up in 1987 with a contribution of £50m. Hamlyn made his fortune in publishing and when he died he left a considerable part of his estate to the foundation as well.
The PHF has an endowment fund that provides the money to support its work, which is different from Sinclair’s previous employer, Arts Council England, which is funded by the government.
“The difference with Paul Hamlyn is that there are two parts to the business,” Sinclair says. “There’s the grant-making end, but there’s also the looking after the money side of the equation, and they’re very different things. The arts council doesn’t need to generate income in the same way.”
Sinclair’s role at the arts council was a pivotal moment in her career, as was taking part in the first ever Clore Leadership Programme course in 2004. The Clore course is a well-respected programme for arts professionals, and those that complete it often see their careers take off.
“About halfway through the course I realised that I was looking for a new challenge,” Sinclair says. “And at the same time the arts council advertised a new job. They wanted somebody who could understand the relationships that needed to be formed with local government, education and health.”
Sinclair says that it quickly became apparent that she had all the relevant expertise to fulfil the role at the arts council.
“I’d worked with local government, in education and in health, so it just felt like the job had been written with me in mind,” she says. “It was a big step change for me, definitely. It gave me the most phenomenal overview of what’s going on in policy terms, and in practice terms as well.”
New horizons
So what are the factors that really drive Sinclair in her work? “I think it’s equity and fairness. And, without sounding too worthy, I have been so lucky to meet people who under- stood that culture does for me what sport does for other people, and to find ways of allowing me to access it. I’ve always wanted to pay that back, to make sure that other people can experience what I have.”
She emphasises that she feels that art is not the preserve of the middle classes and that everyone deserves to have access to culture in all walks of life, in all sorts of spaces. But she believes that boundaries still exist for many people, and that the PHF can play an important role in changing that.
The PHF’s Our Museum programme ran between 2012 and 2015 and supported museums that wanted to really embed their work with local communities into their organisations.
Sinclair points to the work being done by Our Museum participant Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museums Wales).
“They’re building relationships with third sector and voluntary sector partners in the city to develop leaders in the local community,” Sinclair says.
“It creates a flow of professional leaders, who have a huge role to play in the public sphere, who can add texture and depth to the making of exhibitions, the interpretation, and the telling of stories around a collection, and the people who can learn from them.”
The PHF’s Our Museum scheme gave grants to a number of organisations to achieve this, including M Shed in Bristol, the Lightbox in Woking, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, and the Great North Museum run by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.
“You need trusted navigators to help you ind out about this wonderful cultural world,” Sinclair says. “That’s been a guiding principle for me.”
The PHF supports a lot of access and participation work, she says, because it’s crucial to extend the reach of culture to as many people as possible.
Ivory towers
“There is a danger that as a funder you sit in an ivory tower and can be very out of touch with what the reality is on the ground,” Sinclair says. “So I’ve always made the effort to go out and see people, to meet people, to understand the issues, challenges and opportunities that they see on the ground.
“We had a staff away day in September, and everyone in the building went out to visit projects that we’re currently funding. I went down to south-east London to visit Intoart, a visual arts charity that recognises talent in and lack of opportunity provided for adults and young people with learning disabilities. It’s a tremendous project.”
But the foundation doesn’t just fund arts initiatives – it is among a number of UK organisations that have started to pool resources to help the refugee crisis.
“We’ve been working with other organisations to reframe the narrative around migrants and refugees, which has become very negative,” Sinclair says.
“And based on the experience of our founder, Paul Hamlyn, who was a refugee himself, and the interests and passions of the people who work here now, we want to change that narrative. We want people to have a rounded perspective on the contributions that refugees and migrants make to life here.”
The foundation recently released plans for two new funds, the Breakthrough Fund and the Ideas and Pioneers Fund. The former is to recognise new types of cultural people emerging with an entrepreneurial streak, and to help them realise an idea.
The Ideas and Pioneers Fund is for any- thing that sits under the PHF’s broader mission of helping people who are experiencing disadvantages to lead creative and fulfilling lives. The scheme provides grants to individuals of up to £30,000.
Strategic review
The last grant applications the PHF took were in September 2014, and since then there has been a strategic review of the foundation, which reopened again for applications in August 2015. The biggest grants on offer are for £600,000, but most organisations make applications for much smaller amounts.
The income the PHF makes from its endowment is what it spends on grant-making. The trustees’ principle is that the foundation will be in perpetuity, which means that the endowment needs to hold its value, says Sinclair.
“What we generate over the value of the endowment is what we spend. At the moment it is doing reasonably well, so we’re able to spend a little bit more money than we have done in the past.”
Sinclair is confident that she can help the foundation use this money wisely and have a real impact on people’s lives.
“I want to give people the space to tell their stories in the way that is most appropriate and feels most comfortable for them,” Sinclair says.
“That’s why museums can be so fantastic, and why connecting with their set of communities can be so powerful, because people can find within those buildings and collections the tools to tell really profound stories in interesting ways that then engage other people.”
Moira Sinclair took a degree in drama at Manchester University and went on to be a freelance stage manager for various venues and companies, ending with a touring dance company. She then had her first child, and became the first community arts development officer for South Bedfordshire District Council.
She later became the director of Vital Arts, a charity that delivers arts programmes for the wellbeing of patients and staff at Barts Health NHS Trust in London, before she enrolled on the Clore Leadership Programme in 2004.
She then joined Arts Council England as its director of development, becoming the executive director in 2008. She moved to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in February 2015 as executive director.
Sinclair is also the chairwoman of East London Dance and the deputy chairwoman of Look Ahead Care and Support, a body that provides support to help people with a variety of needs. She has completed a term as a governor of the University of Lincoln.
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation was established in 1987 by Paul Hamlyn (1926-2001), an entrepreneurial publisher and philanthropist.
The charity’s mission is to help people overcome disadvantage and lack of opportunity, so that they can enjoy fulfilling and creative lives. These values draw on the beliefs
and instincts of the organisation’s founder, who believed in a fair society in which people could realise their potential.
The foundation has a particular interest in supporting young people, and a strong belief in the importance of the arts. It distributes annual grants to a combined value of about £25m but this can vary from year to year depending on grant- making opportunities and investment returns.
The PHF recently ran its annual Awards for Artists, where visual artists and com- posers are awarded grants of £50,000 each.
“Unlike most, there are no strings attached to those awards – the artists don’t have to produce anything,” Sinclair says. “They don’t even have to fill in a big report for us. We say the money is for them to do what they think they need to do at this moment.”
It is a generous concept, and one that entirely follows the principles of the company’s founder, Paul Hamlyn, who set the foundation up in 1987 with a contribution of £50m. Hamlyn made his fortune in publishing and when he died he left a considerable part of his estate to the foundation as well.
The PHF has an endowment fund that provides the money to support its work, which is different from Sinclair’s previous employer, Arts Council England, which is funded by the government.
“The difference with Paul Hamlyn is that there are two parts to the business,” Sinclair says. “There’s the grant-making end, but there’s also the looking after the money side of the equation, and they’re very different things. The arts council doesn’t need to generate income in the same way.”
Sinclair’s role at the arts council was a pivotal moment in her career, as was taking part in the first ever Clore Leadership Programme course in 2004. The Clore course is a well-respected programme for arts professionals, and those that complete it often see their careers take off.
“About halfway through the course I realised that I was looking for a new challenge,” Sinclair says. “And at the same time the arts council advertised a new job. They wanted somebody who could understand the relationships that needed to be formed with local government, education and health.”
Sinclair says that it quickly became apparent that she had all the relevant expertise to fulfil the role at the arts council.
“I’d worked with local government, in education and in health, so it just felt like the job had been written with me in mind,” she says. “It was a big step change for me, definitely. It gave me the most phenomenal overview of what’s going on in policy terms, and in practice terms as well.”
New horizons
So what are the factors that really drive Sinclair in her work? “I think it’s equity and fairness. And, without sounding too worthy, I have been so lucky to meet people who under- stood that culture does for me what sport does for other people, and to find ways of allowing me to access it. I’ve always wanted to pay that back, to make sure that other people can experience what I have.”
She emphasises that she feels that art is not the preserve of the middle classes and that everyone deserves to have access to culture in all walks of life, in all sorts of spaces. But she believes that boundaries still exist for many people, and that the PHF can play an important role in changing that.
The PHF’s Our Museum programme ran between 2012 and 2015 and supported museums that wanted to really embed their work with local communities into their organisations.
Sinclair points to the work being done by Our Museum participant Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museums Wales).
“They’re building relationships with third sector and voluntary sector partners in the city to develop leaders in the local community,” Sinclair says.
“It creates a flow of professional leaders, who have a huge role to play in the public sphere, who can add texture and depth to the making of exhibitions, the interpretation, and the telling of stories around a collection, and the people who can learn from them.”
The PHF’s Our Museum scheme gave grants to a number of organisations to achieve this, including M Shed in Bristol, the Lightbox in Woking, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, and the Great North Museum run by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.
“You need trusted navigators to help you ind out about this wonderful cultural world,” Sinclair says. “That’s been a guiding principle for me.”
The PHF supports a lot of access and participation work, she says, because it’s crucial to extend the reach of culture to as many people as possible.
Ivory towers
“There is a danger that as a funder you sit in an ivory tower and can be very out of touch with what the reality is on the ground,” Sinclair says. “So I’ve always made the effort to go out and see people, to meet people, to understand the issues, challenges and opportunities that they see on the ground.
“We had a staff away day in September, and everyone in the building went out to visit projects that we’re currently funding. I went down to south-east London to visit Intoart, a visual arts charity that recognises talent in and lack of opportunity provided for adults and young people with learning disabilities. It’s a tremendous project.”
But the foundation doesn’t just fund arts initiatives – it is among a number of UK organisations that have started to pool resources to help the refugee crisis.
“We’ve been working with other organisations to reframe the narrative around migrants and refugees, which has become very negative,” Sinclair says.
“And based on the experience of our founder, Paul Hamlyn, who was a refugee himself, and the interests and passions of the people who work here now, we want to change that narrative. We want people to have a rounded perspective on the contributions that refugees and migrants make to life here.”
The foundation recently released plans for two new funds, the Breakthrough Fund and the Ideas and Pioneers Fund. The former is to recognise new types of cultural people emerging with an entrepreneurial streak, and to help them realise an idea.
The Ideas and Pioneers Fund is for any- thing that sits under the PHF’s broader mission of helping people who are experiencing disadvantages to lead creative and fulfilling lives. The scheme provides grants to individuals of up to £30,000.
Strategic review
The last grant applications the PHF took were in September 2014, and since then there has been a strategic review of the foundation, which reopened again for applications in August 2015. The biggest grants on offer are for £600,000, but most organisations make applications for much smaller amounts.
The income the PHF makes from its endowment is what it spends on grant-making. The trustees’ principle is that the foundation will be in perpetuity, which means that the endowment needs to hold its value, says Sinclair.
“What we generate over the value of the endowment is what we spend. At the moment it is doing reasonably well, so we’re able to spend a little bit more money than we have done in the past.”
Sinclair is confident that she can help the foundation use this money wisely and have a real impact on people’s lives.
“I want to give people the space to tell their stories in the way that is most appropriate and feels most comfortable for them,” Sinclair says.
“That’s why museums can be so fantastic, and why connecting with their set of communities can be so powerful, because people can find within those buildings and collections the tools to tell really profound stories in interesting ways that then engage other people.”
Moira Sinclair at a glance
Moira Sinclair took a degree in drama at Manchester University and went on to be a freelance stage manager for various venues and companies, ending with a touring dance company. She then had her first child, and became the first community arts development officer for South Bedfordshire District Council.
She later became the director of Vital Arts, a charity that delivers arts programmes for the wellbeing of patients and staff at Barts Health NHS Trust in London, before she enrolled on the Clore Leadership Programme in 2004.
She then joined Arts Council England as its director of development, becoming the executive director in 2008. She moved to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in February 2015 as executive director.
Sinclair is also the chairwoman of East London Dance and the deputy chairwoman of Look Ahead Care and Support, a body that provides support to help people with a variety of needs. She has completed a term as a governor of the University of Lincoln.
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation at a glance
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation was established in 1987 by Paul Hamlyn (1926-2001), an entrepreneurial publisher and philanthropist.
The charity’s mission is to help people overcome disadvantage and lack of opportunity, so that they can enjoy fulfilling and creative lives. These values draw on the beliefs
and instincts of the organisation’s founder, who believed in a fair society in which people could realise their potential.
The foundation has a particular interest in supporting young people, and a strong belief in the importance of the arts. It distributes annual grants to a combined value of about £25m but this can vary from year to year depending on grant- making opportunities and investment returns.