About the Southbank Centre

You may know the Southbank Centre for the thousands of events they put on each year, from London Literature Festival to a thriving classical music programme with six resident orchestras. They even have a major three-day festival coming up called Creative Intelligence, which celebrates the intersection of art, artificial intelligence, and digital innovation — this is one Xapien can’t wait to attend.

The Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, and it prioritises making its spaces accessible to the more than 11 million people who visit each year, offering free tickets to over half of its events. This endeavour of accessibility is made possible through both philanthropic income alongside earned revenue and public funding. Its Development team raises funds from high-net-worth individuals, trusts, foundations, and corporate partners across the full breadth of its artistic programme.

The Challenge

As a charity, the Southbank Centre undertakes thorough due diligence on every major supporter and partner in line with its Gift Acceptance Policy. Before Xapien, the Development team’s research processes were almost entirely manual. Individual prospect checks could take hours, creating bottlenecks at key moments in the cultivation cycle. With a growing pipeline and limited capacity, the team needed a way to scale its due diligence without compromising on rigour or diverting time away from relationship-building.    

“Before we used Xapien, our due diligence was really influenced by our own algorithms. We couldn’t be sure we were reaching the right information and it was much harder to assess risk. Xapien helps us collate more information in much less time, making due diligence quicker and more reliable.” — Beatrice So, Philanthropy Executive

The Solution

The Southbank Centre adopted Xapien to serve as the starting point for all donor due diligence. The platform is now used by the entire Development team. Everyone, from philanthropy managers to senior leadership, now has access to consistent, comprehensive reports that synthesise corporate records, sanctions screening, adverse media, and open-source intelligence in minutes.

The team particularly values how Xapien supports them in quickly assessing prospects through the platform’s summary and risk-flagging features. When they need to dive deeper into an area, the team uses the “Ask Xapien” feature to surface more specific findings.

“Xapien really speeds up our due diligence, summarising the risks and quickly identifying the key issues. It helps us progress decisions on gift acceptance much faster while allowing us to focus on relationship building.” — Lydia Shacklock, Corporate Partnerships Officer

The Results

Xapien has become embedded in the Southbank Centre’s due diligence workflow, enabling the team to vet more prospects in less time, all while maintaining a consistent standard across the department. Standardised reports give senior leaders a reliable evidence base for gift acceptance decisions, and team members across the organisation have praised the platform’s usefulness as a research starting point. By automating the initial research layer, the Development team has freed up capacity to focus on building and stewarding donor relationships.

“Xapien helps us to take a holistic view of the risks and benefits in accepting a gift. Without its thorough reporting, we would struggle to assess the reliability and significance of so many sources in such a short time.” — Amy Ross, Director of Development