The Art Fund charity was founded in 1903 to help UK museums and galleries buy and display important works of art. Art that otherwise would have been lost overseas or to private collections and therefore never seen by the general public.

Income has historically come from membership subscriptions and a small number of wealthy donors. Like most charities, Art Fund attracted these members and donors by communicating the worth of their cause.

But by 2010, Art Fund was struggling. Their total number of memberships was in decline, despite the need for funds being greater than ever - the government’s funding cuts meant the majority of museums in the UK had been forced to reduce their number of full time staff and opening hours.

In response to this bleak situation and despite the challenges faced, Art Fund sought a 50% growth in their charitable programme by 2014, which could only be driven by a dramatic increase in membership and donations.

To do this we would need to steal market share from other UK charities - brands with bigger budgets, media profiles and ‘worthier’ causes than ours.

We decided the task would demand a more lateral strategic approach.

Charities’ business models have always relied on altruism. People handing over their spare cash in return for the knowledge they are supporting a worthy cause. At first glance, it seemed Art Fund was like any other charity in this regard; members joined primarily because they got to support its mission of saving works of art for the nation to enjoy.

But qualitative research in 2010 suggested there was a far more self-indulgent reason why members renewed their Art Fund memberships, which had little to do with saving works of art.

As part of their memberships, supporters received free and discounted entry to museums, galleries and historic houses across the UK – benefits that were valued highly. Incredibly, these member privileges were regarded as the primary benefit to joining Art Fund, the cause considered secondary.

Art Fund was perceived as a cultural membership scheme more than a charity.

Could we better align the organisation and its marketing with this truth? If we could ‘flip’ or reposition ourselves from being a charity asking for money to a cultural membership scheme with a compelling offering then we could attract more members and wouldn’t have to compete with the other big charities at all.

The National Art Pass was created to reframe the organisation as a cultural membership scheme granting people free or discounted entry to over 240 museums and galleries throughout the UK.

We would no longer be asking for donations or ‘rattling the tin’, but instead selling a compelling product with long-lasting appeal.

We didn’t even have to change Art Fund's benefits or member privileges. The 'new' National Art Pass simply re-presented the organisation's benefits in a more desirable form, tapping into people’s need to see more art for less.

The pass also reshaped the role for comms. Rather than sporadically inviting philanthropic donations we could now behave like a retailer with sales targets to be met and tracked.

There have been various iterations of successful National Art Pass advertising since 2011. Creative has ranged from emotional to rational and various media channels have been used, from print to film to social.

Since launch, the creation of the National Art Pass has transformed Art Fund’s fortunes:

Brand tracking shows that Art Fund is now perceived by most people as a cultural membership organisation, as well as a charity.

New memberships were almost x4 higher in 2018 (21,751) than in 2010 (5547).

These new memberships nearly doubled total membership numbers, from 76,311 in 2010 to 150,662 in 2018.

Most importantly, Art Fund's founding purpose (saving art for the nation) has been well served by the creation and successful marketing of the National Art Pass. Over the last 8 years the National Art Pass has delivered a total incremental profit of £23.33 million*. This extra profit has helped museums and galleries to acquire or retain an astonishing range of art since 2011, which might otherwise have been lost.

*Conservative life-time value (LTV) figures from 2017 were used as proxy to calculate revenue and profit

‘Rattling the tin’ – refers to tins or buckets charity collectors use to collect cash from people in public locations