ACCOUNTABILITY CHARTER
In September 2021, Fane took a proactive step to improve representation and engagement with underrepresented groups, reduce its environmental impact, and raise awareness for charitable causes by introducing an Accountability Charter. Within the charter, Fane focused on specific commitments within three key pillars of the business: Audience Development, Creative Partnerships, and Internal Practices. The team report on their progress on a six-monthly basis – with the most recent report for January-June 2023 available here.
Below are our commitments for the period August-December 2023
1. Audience Development
We believe our cultural, engaging, and thought-provoking experiences should be accessible to all. We strive towards constant improvements to our live programming, marketing, and event production, in partnership with venues, to engage with a more diverse audience.
Over the following six months, we commit to:
- maintaining the amount of ethnically diverse talent within our live programme (25%)
- improving the accessibility of our events programme by building up a mailing list for people who have access requirements to notify them when we have accessibility-friendly shows, and creating a link on each event page for anyone requesting special access
- working with partner organisations to offer free or discounted tickets, to widen the reach and impact of the events we are putting on. We commit to:
> offering 2,000 free or discounted tickets to NHS workers, charity workers and service users via the Tickets for Good platform during 2023.
2. Creative Partnerships
We actively seek out collaborations with creative partners who align with our commitments. This includes venues, publishers, community groups, charities, and outreach organisations. We particularly want to engage with those that help amplify the voices, stories, and experiences of all marginalised groups and will proactively and sensitively seek out more diverse stories for our programme.
Over the following six months, we commit to:
- continuing our partnership with War Child, implementing a higher donation point for free events, as part of our continuing partnership with War Child. From August 2023, this has increased from £1 to £3 for all tickets sold through our ticketing platform, Artist-tix. In addition, we will be increasing the B2C comms around our partnership, through Fane’s mailing list and Friends of Fane.
- collaborating with the Bookseller's Association to create a ‘best practice’ document for booksellers to ensure a collaborative working relationship when it comes to author events.
- delivering x1 panel event in partnership with Dark Matter as the event partner and Round Table Books as the official bookseller. This follows the success of our inaugural joint panel event at Brixton House in June.
- continuing our partnership with Brixton House, our aim is to produce x1 live event with a focus on developing audiences.
3. Internal Practices
We strive to create a working environment that promotes and values diversity, environmental sustainability, inclusivity, and social responsibility. We want everyone to feel empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work in a creative and safe space.
Over the following six months, we commit to:
- supporting our two internal committees - Social Action and Green Action - with a dedicated budget (£10,000 for the year) to enable them to implement staff training and volunteering strands. This will include:
> providing training for staff from external conultants:
All employees will take part in a training session with The Equal Group: 'What is Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’
Commit budget and resource for The Equal Group's EDI: 365 initiative in 2024.
> x1 corporate volunteering session with Holland Park - working with the parks horticultural team in the parks forest school, undertaking tasks such as planting, weeding, ground clearance, removal of invasive species, and general maintenance.
> delivering x 1 Discovery Session with Speakers for Schools: the first step in a collaboration with the UK-wide youth charity dedicated to helping students gain experience, with a view to offering work experience placements in 2024.