Tom Clinch brings together two worlds that do not always meet: wealth management and the creative arts. His day job is with Clinch Wealth Management, while his own background is in the creative arts, having studied drama at Trinity College and remained closely connected to theatre, film, music and visual arts. Through cultural sponsorship, he encountered smaller arts organisations doing high-quality work but without the same access to philanthropic support as larger institutions. That experience helped lead to the Creative Arts Foundation of Ireland.

What sparked your philanthropy journey?

A few years ago, Clinch Wealth Management started sponsoring events and, because of our own personal connections and the nature of the business, we decided we would do all our marketing and branding through the prism of culture. We sponsored the Wigmore Series in the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin Theatre Festival and its accessibility programme, Dublin Gallery Weekend, and this year Ireland’s representation at the Venice Biennale. When you add all those things together, I got to meet a lot of people in the cultural world who were looking for support. Initially, it was corporate commercial sponsorship. But it also made me realise that many smaller organisations are doing exceptional work, yet they simply don’t have the same capacity or connections to raise philanthropic funding as the larger national cultural institutions. ’I’ve been very fortunate, as has my whole family, to be involved in amazing cultural things over the years. It gets you thinking: I’ve got an awful lot back from the arts, and I should give something back.

So how did that develop into the Creative Arts Foundation of Ireland?

When I started out, I wasn’t sure it would result in a foundation. I just wanted to see if there was a group of like-minded people who wanted to support the arts. We had three events. We started with 25 people at the first one, then we had 50, and at the third we had 75. The first two were really about testing the water: is there an appetite? By the third event, we were ready and up and running. It turned out there was. People were telling their friends, there was momentum building, and it mushroomed from there. That process also brought in expertise around the structure.

What did you want the Foundation to support?

The key thing for me was that it was going to be primarily aimed at arts organisations that don’t have the ability to access philanthropy themselves. I wanted to shape the ethos of the initiative so that it would be seen to be for grassroots arts: independent theatre, contemporary art, traditional music, literature and other art forms that may not always attract the same level of philanthropic support. There are certain art forms that have historically been better at raising philanthropic support, classical music, fine art, and absolutely good luck to them. But there are other art forms that perhaps don’t get the same attention and don’t lend themselves as much to private philanthropy. I thought, well, let’s see if we can support those.

What does that look like in practice?

One of the first grants we've approved is to ANU Productions. Their work is absolutely world class, but they didn't have a theatre, a rehearsal space or an office. We found them a space in the north-east inner city, which is their heartland, that will double as a rehearsal space and an office. We persuaded the landlord to provide it on a ten-year lease, virtually rent-free, and we have undertaken to give them a grant of €25,000 to fit it out. Dublin City Council has agreed to match fund what we're doing. With the ANU Productions project, our €25,000 grant has essentially unlocked value of probably close to €300,000. So we effectively can provide seed funding that gives other organisations the confidence to jump on board and match what we're doing. That could be departments, the Arts Council, city councils or other philanthropic organisations.

What is your longer-term vision for the Foundation?

We have modest aspirations to begin with. We're doing grants in the region of €10,000 to €25,000. It's amazing how much of an impact you can make with a relatively small grant to a small arts organisation. Part of the whole vision is to build up a community of philanthropists who are interested in arts and culture.

Why build a community of donors?

What we've discovered is that there is a community of people who are interested in this, but they've never had a facility to come together before. So as much as it's a foundation, it's also a community of donors who over the years will hopefully get to know each other and collaborate on things they'd like to support. I'm a believer in organic growth. You start out, get a community, get some very worthwhile projects, people can see the evidence of what you're doing and then they want to get on board. The idea is to attract a wide variety of donors so that long after I'm dead and gone it'll still be going - that there'll be a structure that's well established and that donors can have confidence in and grantees can have confidence in.

What advice would you give someone considering philanthropy?

One of my friends came to our event and said, “Tom, I'd like to help you.” I said, “That would be lovely, thank you very much.” And she said, “Tom, but you just have to ask.” So my advice is: sometimes you just have to ask. You have to ask in the right way and have your message straight, but sometimes you just have to ask. And that goes for donors. It goes for government. There is huge value in focusing on the cause and leaving the administration and governance to the people who know what they're doing. People assume, 'I have to set up a foundation.' You don't really. If people are starting out, I would strongly advise them to engage with Philanthropy Ireland, who can guide them, or organisations like the Community Foundation or Rethink Ireland, who can structure it for them.