Organisers of the Cambridge Literary Festival are searching for a new major sponsor after investment fund Baillie Gifford cancelled all of its remaining sponsorship deals with literary festivals.
The withdrawal of sponsorship comes after growing pressure from the campaign group Fossil Free Books, which demanded the fund manager stop any investments in the fossil fuel industry and that it divest from companies linked to Israel.
The campaigners said this was because “solidarity with Palestine and climate justice are inextricably linked”.
Last month, both the Hay Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival ended their partnerships with Baillie Gifford and the investment group then decided to pull out of all festival sponsorship.
Angela Golby,Cambridge Literary Festival’s operations director said: “It’s all been a bit of a shock, because Bailey Gifford have been with us and other festivals for a long time, so it’s come about unexpectedly, something that wasn’t in the forecast and will obviously put a strain on the festival going forward.
”We’ve been really lucky. We didn’t have any authors pulling out of our festivals because of it, and Baillie Gifford have been really good, really supportive, and talked to us all the way along. We understand that Baillie Gifford has less investment in fossil fuels than the average fund.”
However, the loss of a major sponsor will impact which activities the festival can offer in future. Angela explained that half the festival’s income comes from ticket sales with half from sponsorship, which helps to fund community events and subsidised tickets.
She said: “In spring this year, we put on our children’s festival and offered the tickets for free. We want to continue to offer that but this turns our focus quite acutely onto how we’re going to manage to do that.”
The festival has regularly held author interviews and panel discussions about climate change, including, most recently between 2023 Baillie Gifford non fiction prize winner John Vaillant , for his book Fire Weather, and Cambridge author Robert Macfarlane, who signed the Fossil Free Books’ demands.
“This is the disappointing sadness about the situation,” says Angela. “The festival is all about providing a platform for these discussions to have open debate.”
The festival is now set to have a board meeting to discuss the impact of the loss of funding and how to attract further sponsors.
“We have a lot to offer as a festival based in Cambridge with the links we have to academics at the university. We’ve been making our mark as an important festival - and everyone has heard of Cambridge.” says Angela.
Now she is hoping that the furore faced by Baillie Gifford won’t put off other sponsors.
“We’re imagining it’s going to be difficult for corporate sponsors to come forward, given what’s just happened,” she said
