Visit the current home of Scotland's premiere dance company, our own Scottish Ballet, and sometimes it stinks. Literally.

Its basement often floods with sewage. When it rains, the water slides through the roof and soaks the dancers' heads as they work. The building, in Glasgow's West Princes Street, is so dilapidated it looks ready to fall into the street at any moment.

Its rehearsal rooms are so small that if a dancer tried to lift his colleague, their head would bang into the ceiling. There is so little space that the company cannot practise together. And in addition to the general health and hygiene issues caused by an inappropriate home, recent repairs are uncovering extensive asbestos.

No less a theorist than Einstein said that ballet dancers were "the athletes of God". But in fact Scottish Ballet's traditional home - a former Army drill hall in Glasgow's residential West End - has gone to the dogs. It is, by anyone's judgment, no fit home for one of the UK's leading dance companies.

Which is why, in the city's Tramway venue yesterday, Kirsty Wark, the broadcaster and patron of Scottish Ballet, sat with senior members of the company's management team and launched a public appeal for the final £1m needed to pay for a new home for Scottish Ballet, to be built as an addition to the redeveloped site in the south side of Glasgow, which is primarily now known as a visual arts and concert venue.

So instead of a shabby Victorian tenement, there will be a purpose-built facility designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects at the Tramway. Instead of dismal converted drawing rooms, there will be three huge practice rooms, a practice studio to boot, all climate-controlled (with technology, rather than holes in the roof) with sprung floors and elite technical backup.

There will be a health and fitness centre for the dancers, whose bodies are as highly-strung and taut as sportsmen, and, for the first time in Scotland, room for independent choreographers to work on new material.

The new premises will also offer more to the wider community. Already the ballet's education programmes interact with nearly 10,000 children from all over Scotland. From Tramway, Scottish Ballet is hoping to expand this, through its associates programme and developing apprenticeships, in particular for 16 to 18 year olds.

And all this for £11m. And no leaking sewage.

But Scottish Ballet needs another £1m from the public, to add to the more than £10m already raised from at least nine trusts and foundations - £3.75m from the National Lottery Funds of the Scottish Arts Council and £2m from the Scottish Government, with other money from Scottish Enterprise Glasgow and Glasgow City Council. The sale of the current premises is projected at £1.5m and nearly £1m has come from private sources.

For the final £1m, however, it is over to the public to help provide the ideal home for the national company which has been transformed under the leadership of artistic director Ashley Page.

Ms Wark, on the committee which has been formed to raise the money needed, acknowledged that in recent years, the public has been asked to provide money for major projects - the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum being one. Glasgow's new Riverside Museum has also recently launched an appeal for cash. The recent rush to buy Dumfries House, near Cumnock, also attracted private individuals' funds.

In the modern era, money from the public serves two purposes - not only does it help pay for (usually a tiny minority) of the cash needed for major capital projects, it provides, strategists think, a sense of ownership and civic connection.

"We're here now to ask the people of Scotland to pitch in as we have done in the past with so many appeals," Ms Wark said.

"We have to find the last million pounds to transform the Tramway. Now, Scottish Ballet is due to move into its new Tramway headquarters in October next year, so we would like the appeal to last a year and hope that all the money will be in place a year from now.

"This is a 21st century ballet company, and £11m is lot of money, but if you compare it with the expenses of other companies in the UK and Europe, it is an incredibly modest sum."

Certainly, right now £11m looks reasonable: the Royal Opera House redevelopment for the Royal Ballet in London cost £214m; Birmingham Royal Ballet's redevelopment of the Birmingham Hippodrome cost £38m; Northern Ballet Theatre and the Rambert Dance Company are to benefit from capital projects costing £16.5m.

Like the fundraising for Kelvingrove, any member of the public who contributes to the appeal will be acknowledged in some way. If you give £25 or more, your name will be put on the company's website - £50 and you will receive a thank- you certificate. Give £500 and your name will be added in perpetuity on a donor wall, and if you give £1000 or above, you will be invited on a private tour of the new building and be able to visit rehearsals.

Colin Tweedy, the chief executive of Arts and Business, believes that - with more millionaires and indeed billionaires in Britain every year - the money is available to support such public appeals. And what's more, the sector in which he works, the private and corporate one, like to see public appeals.

"There is absolutely the money out there and that will be increasingly important," he says, "and the rich individuals like to have their names attached to projects, ever since the Carnegies and the Guggenheims. Private giving is now bigger than corporate sponsorship in the UK as a whole.

"I think that public appeals for money reassures corporate donors. It often settles decisions for them. It, apart from anything else, means that what they are paying for is not just for the toffs', it is not elitist."

Niall Scott, a lawyer and businessman who is chairing the Tramway appeal, said: "We've had fantastic support from many places already, and been delighted to see sustained and substantial support from trusts and individuals. It shows a number of established, experienced funders have shown that this project is worthy of significant support.

"The balance must now be raised by the people of Scotland. I believe this project is great for Scotland, and for the people of Scotland."

But is the appetite out there for yet another arts-related public appeal? Scottish Ballet has been very sensible: the extra £1m will not sink the project if it is not raised immediately. Building work is already under way at the Tramway.

"I believe there is an appetite," Ms Wark said. "We do ask a lot of people. But I think people always deliver when they see the project is so valuable."

Other fundraising pleas

  • Around £5m is currently being sought from individuals, trusts and the public to help pay for the £74m new Zaha Hadid-designed transport museum in Glasgow, which will be known as the Riverside Museum.
  • The public fundraising for the redeveloped Kelvingrove Arts Gallery and Museum in Glasgow raised nearly £13m in four years, double its original target. Around £1m came from individual gifts from members of the public. All 8923 people who donated money were honoured with special plaques recording their names, or names of those they wished to be remembered, in the main hall.
  • When the National Galleries of Scotland built its £30m Playfair Project scheme, linking the National Galleries to the Royal Scottish Academy on The Mound, more than £12m came from various trusts and private sources. Sir Tom Farmer, the millionaire founder of Kwik-Fit, personally gave £500,000.