When you are best known for your glittering, televised annual awards ceremonies, it’s hard to shake off the general image of an organisation with limitless reserves.

It is not a perception that works in our favour when we go out to the corporate sector to raise funds, particularly at a time when the economy is hitting everyone hard. We have done well to hold on to the majority of our Awards partners and, indeed, to win the support of new ones.

Establishing the true picture, of a charity in need of support to develop its year-round work of learning programmes and events, can be an uphill battle. But it is one that we have to win with potential partners if we wish those programmes to be successful.

With that in mind, we’ve now established a formal strategy for our fundraising activities, with the aim of securing financial support for a number of key, specific projects.

In future months, we will make applications to grant-making organisations with an interest in the arts and social change, such as trusts, foundations and the Heritage Lottery Fund, to help us extend activities such as the BAFTA Youth Mentoring scheme, the regional events programme, BAFTA Young Game Makers and the BAFTA Families events programme.

New Awards partners have continued to join us and benefit from the growing exposure our ceremonies are receiving. It was GAME’s first year as title sponsor of the Video Games Awards and EA confirmed their great relationship with BAFTA by becoming the title sponsor of the Children’s Awards. In Television, we welcomed Philips as the Audience Award sponsor, and, in what was Orange’s 12th year as title sponsor of the Film Awards, newcomers included Asprey, Soho House, Grey Goose, Charles Worthington and Chivas Regal.

In addition to our Awards partners, we have continued to seek out new, ongoing commercial partners. This year, our top level Corporate Partners have included Motorola, Nokia, Bank of America, VMWare and Autodesk.

We would like to express our gratitude to every one of our supporters in what are testing economic times and look forward to building on these partnerships in the coming year.

We’ve now established a formal strategy for our fundraising activities.