Arts and business partnerships are celebrated for 20 years

The arts is an underfunded and underappreciated industry in South Africa, but Business and Arts South Africa (Basa) hopes to correct this injustice.

Basa is an NPC that aims to develop the arts industry locally and internationally by encouraging valuable partnerships between businesses and art collectives, and this year celebrates the 20th annual Basa Awards.

The Awards, in partnership with Hollard and Business Day, looks to acknowledge the companies which make significant contributions to the industry through shared work and partnerships.

Let’s take a look at the 11 award categories for 2017 and who took home the coveted titles in 2016.

• Innovation Award – This award was scooped up by the Nando’s Heartfelt Celebration of South Africa Design in 2016 and what you need to win in 2017 is the most innovative and progressive partnerships across all platforms.
• First Time Sponsor Award – This self-explanatory award was won by the SA Taxi Foundation Art Award in 2016, for creating a new platform for emerging artists.

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• Increasing Access to the Arts Award – This award celebrates a partnership that has encouraged specific audience engagement with the arts, and was won by Samro and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their partnership on Concerts SA (EMBED ).
• Beyond Borders Partnership Award – Awarded to a global-level partnership that builds brand reputation and audience for both the business and arts, Absa’s Barclay’s L’Atelier competition was the clear winner of this award for the promotion of arts across Africa and beyond.

• Long Term Partnership Award – Total South Africa won this award for the Buskaid Academy of String Teaching and Performance; awarded to a company which has significantly developed and expanded its commitment to an arts project over three years or longer
• Media Sponsorship Award – For consistent and innovative support given by electronic, print, broadcast and web-based media; this award went to radio station RSG in 2016 for RSG Kunstefees.
• Strategic Project Award – For outstanding initiative, with best use of a project, which is an integral part of the business’ strategy, PPC was the winner in 2016 for the exciting PPC Imaginarium .

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• Small Business Award – For vital support given to the arts by a small company with up to 200 hundred full-time employees and an annual turnover of no more than R10 million. Kirchhoff Professional Surveyors won this award for their support of the exciting work called Eland and Benko 2015 (#firegrazer) by Hannelie Coetzee; a controlled veld fire resulting in an impressive artwork that can only be seen from the sky.
• Sponsorship In Kind Award – For a company giving a quantifiable non-monetary support to the arts; this one was won by Meropa Communications for their support of the Johannesburg initiative called Moving into Dance Mophatong.

• Development Award – This is for projects with an implicit educational and development element and in 2016 was won by Distell for their full-time training programme which also aids job creation.
• Cultural Tourism Award, supported by Nedbank – Transnet SOC won this award for the National Arts Festival; in a category that looks for business support of arts and culture projects which contribute towards the growth of communities and job creation, and support the opportunities provided by local tourism.

Don’t miss the road to the 2017 Basa Awards; to be held in September.

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