La Tribune de l’Art was born on 7 April 2003, almost twenty-two years ago. The development it has undergone since then is a source of great satisfaction to us. We believe that we have kept the promises we made at the time (which are still online, and still relevant today), and that it has been a viable business from the outset, right up to the present day, which was not a foregone conclusion in the French journalistic landscape where many newspapers are regularly created, but where many others disappear just as regularly.
Despite the current difficult climate for the press in general, La Tribune de l’Art is doing well, and we hope to be around for a long time to come. The only downside is that, although its future is assured thanks to prudent management, it is difficult for us to make enough profit to carry out all the projects we have in mind. That’s why every year we launch one or two fundraising campaigns.
Recently, these have enabled us to develop the English version, as well as to create the three new bases, in addition to Stella, which were the subject of the previous fundraising campaign. However, we had hoped to raise enough money to pay a sales representative for a year, until he or she was fully operational and had the resources to secure the position. This has not been possible, but we hope to achieve it one day.
At the end of the year, we are therefore launching a new fundraising appeal. Remember that donations to La Tribune de l’Art are tax deductible in France, just like donations to an association.
Better still: thanks to the Belgian King Baudouin Foundation and its American offshoot Myriad, it is now possible for Americans and tax residents in the United States to donate to La Tribune de l’Art while benefiting from the tax deduction in the United States! The equivalent of "American Friends of La Tribune de l’Art". To do this, you need to give them via this page and they will transfer the amount to the association J’aime L’info who will give it to us, remembering to tick the box "Add a note for J’aime l’Info" and to specify that your donation is for La Tribune de l’Art. For the French, nothing changes, and you donate directly via this page of the site.
By supporting La Tribune de l’Art, you are helping us in our heritage battles. These battles have sometimes been victorious: recently, we have participated in the fight to save the squares of Notre-Dame, with some success since the devastating project of the Paris Town Hall has evolved in the right direction (see article). We are currently leading the battle for the stained glass windows (see articles) and we are confident that, alongside the Sites & Monuments association, which will soon be taking legal action (we are helping them to find funding for this action), we will be able to save the stained glass windows designed by Viollet-le-Duc. Our action has helped to make the French Ministry of Culture aware of the need to protect certain monuments: the conservatoire d’art dramatique, should be classified in the coming weeks, and the Palais de Chaillot will soon be inscribed, a first step towards classification... The creation of new remarkable heritage sites in Paris, which we had called for, is now a credible prospect, even if it will surely take time (see article). Better still, our ideas for funding heritage (tourist tax and heritage lottery based on bets from the Française des Jeux) have entered the public debate.
All this is also possible thanks to you. First of all, your subscriptions, which are necessary and still have great potential for development. The site has 100,000 unique visitors a month, which is huge, but far fewer paying subscribers.
All this is possible thanks to your donations.
These, which enable us to maintain free access to many articles linked to our heritage battles, should also help us to finance the many projects we have for the site (non-exhaustive list):
– the development of a more efficient subscription system (estimated project cost: €5,000)
– setting up a small video studio that would enable us to record filmed programmes as well as podcasts, and thus resume "Patrimoine en question" and "L’art sur un plateau" (estimated cost: 15,000 euros),
– taking on interns, whom we could pay (cost for one year: 6,000 euros),
– the recruitment of a sales person, which we mentioned earlier and which we’re not giving up on (Update 20 November:Thanks to the immense generosity of American patrons, this project is now fully funded !).
We certainly won’t be able to do all that in a year, but you don’t have to hope to undertake something, nor do you have to succeed to persevere. And we always undertake, and sometimes succeed. Thank you in advance.