香港兒童合唱團成立「藝術基金」

In the past few weeks I have introduced two new charitable funds that support NGO activities (viz. the Digital Solidarity Fund and the HER Fund). Another new $30 million trust fund from the arts sector - the Hong Kong Arts Fund for the Youth (temporary name only) - will be established by the Hongkong Children's Choir using funds from the organisation's own accumulated reserve. As noted by HKCC, it is kind of an unprecedented move by an arts organization (indeed by any NGO in Hong Kong) to deploy its own resources to set up a permanent fund for supporting some general purpose social causes (promoting youth arts in this particular case). The organisation also challenges the property developers bidding for the West Kowloon Cultural Project (see the quotes below) by asking them to set up a $15 billion Arts Endowment for promoting arts in the territory...

It's good to see recently many trust funds are established in Hong Kong, given the fact that we do not have a strong foundation culture, and worse still many existing foundations (individual, family, or corporate) simply do not operate in a very transparent manner and appear not very responsive to community needs. In the past two years, I have been advocating for the establishment of the Hong Kong Community Foundation for serving as an umbrella philanthropic institution that assists individuals and groups in different service fields to establish charitable endowments. While from time to time (usually as the aftermath of some critical social events) there would be individuals and organisations working to set up charitable endowments (just like after the SARS outbreak many funds have been set up), those efforts may not be sustainable. The creation of a community foundation could assist such efforts to produce concerted and lasting impacts in the society. While up to this moment the project is still not a very successful endeavour, I'll continue to promote this concept given the right opportunities...

拋磚引玉成立「藝術基金」

為了貫徹我們的理想，董事局在慶祝建團三十五周年的好時機，通過一個在業餘藝術團體來說實屬破天荒的創舉，就是設立一個「香港青年藝術基金」（暫定名稱），金額初步定為不少於三千萬港元（由本團歷年的儲備中撥出），長遠目標為五千萬港元（規模和現時的「香港賽馬會舞蹈、音樂藝術基金」相若）。基金以每年的利息和收益撥作推廣青年藝術活動，同時會支助有藝術才華和具發展潛力的青年人深造。這計劃待會員大會通過後，即可進行。

挑戰「西九龍」計劃入圍財團

這次「西九龍文娛藝術區」計劃中入圍的三大財團，對推廣藝術都表現出無比的熱情，其中之一更豪氣地說，就算為這計劃補貼一百幾十億都不成問題！以他們的財力 我們相信並非虛言，為了顯示他們對藝術支持的誠意，我們公開呼籲三個入圍財團承諾，任何一個在奪標後先行捐出一百五十億元成立一個「香港文娛藝術發展基金」，讓文化界及專業人士組成獨立委員會為信托人負責管理，這樣香港才真正有希望成為亞洲文化之都！

假如「西九龍文娛藝術區」計劃不幸告吹，亦希望起初有意支持此計劃的財團，合力捐助實現特區政府令香港成為藝術之都的大計！這些香港舉世知名的財團的實力比起「香兒」何只高出千倍萬倍，但我們做得到，你們亦一樣輕而易舉做得到，這樣全港市民就不會再說你們「忽然藝術」了！