Pictured at a COVID-19-adapted announcement of the Business to Arts Awards is Rachel Ní Bhraonáin of Fidget Feet. Photograph: Robbie Reynolds

In keeping with our Memorandum and Articles of Association, below you will find notice of our AGM, which will be held on Tuesday 30 March 2021 at 6pm via Zoom Meeting. Please contact rsvp(@)businesstoarts.ie for joining details.

Please note that our AGM is a simple administrative process and lasts less than ten minutes.  You can download related documents on links below

1. AGM – Notice Letter

2. AGM – Proxy Form

3. AGM – Directors Reports & Financial Statements (31/10/20)

A Summary of Our Impact in 2019-20

Business to Arts would not have the impact it has without our members, funders and affiliates support. Our membership base is our primary source of funds and without this revenue we would not achieve our mission. To give a recap on some of 2020’s activities:

• We continue to implement our 5-year strategic plan (2018-2023). This is available here
• We curated a series of online events showcasing the breadth of activity undertaken by Business to Arts with our partners including The Merrion Hotel, PwC, FRS Recruitment, Bank of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland, the Little Museum of Dublin and more
• We enabled new arts partnerships valued in excess of €1.025million through various strands of fundraising, which include new sponsorships, bursaries, commissions and grants. We also advised / supported many ongoing partnerships
• We launched the Bank of Ireland Begin Together Arts Fund in partnership with Business to Arts, which will distribute €1million between between 2020-22.
• We added two new Fellows to our Fundraising Fellowship, Ireland Programme, from The Lime Tree Theatre (Limerick) and Music Network (Dublin). The Fellowship is a partnership with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
• We also supported the cultural sector by offering online one-to-one clinics and group fundraising training, which focused on their changing fundraising priorities caused by COVID-19
• We announced a range of new supporters of the Business to Arts Awards including Accenture, Arthur Cox, The Arts Council, ESB, Irish Life and The Irish Times
• We contributed actively to the Arts & Cultural Recovery Taskforce, which reported to Catherine Martin TD, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media

On behalf of the Board and Executive of Business to Arts, I would like to thank you for your continued support. If you would like further information on our activities please do not hesitate to contact us.

Accenture’s Women on Walls portraits arriving to the Stokes Building at DCU for installation. Credit: Conor McCabe

On International Women’s Day, Monday, March 8th 2021, a collection of commissioned portraits of five inspirational females from the world of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) were unveiled at the virtual launch of Accenture’s Women on Walls at DCU.

In collaboration with Accenture, DCU and Business to Arts, the portraits are in recognition of the ground-breaking work of Beatrice Alice Hicks (painted by Blaise Smith RHA), Katherine Johnson (painted by Jackie Hudson Lalor), Dr Marie Maynard Daly (painted by Bríd Higgins Ni Chinnéide) and Irish duo Kay McNulty (painted by Jim Fitzpatrick) and Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (painted by Una Sealy RHA).

The commissioned portraits will be temporarily installed in the Stokes Building at DCU before eventually moving to the Future-Tech building, under construction at the university’s Glasnevin Campus. This flagship building will be at the forefront of DCU’s international reputation for excellence in science, computing and engineering disciplines.

This is the third chapter of Accenture’s Women on Walls, a campaign that seeks to make women leaders visible through a series of commissioned portraits that will create a lasting cultural legacy for Ireland. The campaign commenced in 2016 with the Royal Irish Academy, and a second chapter with RCSI was unveiled in 2019.

The DCU chapter was completed by five award-winning and renowned artists in 2020, and in the midst of COVID-19 which has impacted significantly on all sections of society, including the arts. DCU, renowned for its commitment to gender equality, is particularly pleased to support the initiative, to publicly commit to programming of the arts across the university and to pledge support to the arts sector as it charts its way through this global pandemic.

Commenting on the virtual unveiling Andrew Hetherington, Chief Executive of Business to Arts said,

“We are privileged to support Accenture’s Women on Walls at DCU portraiture commission. While COVID-19 has presented challenges for the completion of this edition of Women on Walls, they have been overcome, and we are proud to be able to unveil these five portraits created by some of Ireland’s leading portrait artists. We are equally proud to support DCU, who are continually building their reputation for programming of the arts. Commissioning artists to create new work is one of the vital ways businesses and other organisations can support the arts during and beyond the pandemic.”

To watch the virtual unveil of Accenture’s Women on Walls at DCU please click here.

Follow the conversation at #womenonwalls