arts & business council

MetLife Foundation National Arts Forums Series

ProArts
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Arts Trustees for the 21st Century
12/04/2003

Introductions:

• Michael Kumer, Executive Director, Nonprofit Leadership Institute, Duquesne University
• Marilyn Coleman, Executive Director, ProArts

Panelists:

• Cosette M. Grant, Director, African American Leadership Development Program, Urban League of Pittsburgh
• Marimba Milliones, President, Onyx Alliance
• Ray Obenza, President, New Pittsburgh Collaborative
• Peter Eberhart, Board Member, Leadership Pittsburgh, Inc., Mellon Financial Corporation
• Marilyn Coleman, Executive Director, ProArts (Business Volunteers for the Arts®/Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts)

"Arts Trustees for the 21st Century" explored a unique, new communitywide collaboration in Pittsburgh, PA—the New Pittsburgh Collaborative—that uses leadership development, voluntarism, and civic engagement to encourage progress in Pittsburgh.

Like many former industrial cities, over the past decade, Pittsburgh has lost population and has had particular difficulty keeping its young people, both those born locally and the thousands that move to the city to attend Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the scores of other colleges in southwestern Pennsylvania. The diverse New Pittsburgh Collaborative brings together 22 local organizations in an effort to attract and retain talented young professionals.

Pittsburgh is a city that’s developing a well-earned reputation for collaboration; its business and economic development agencies have come together in strategic, focused efforts to promote the region. Its local arts community, known for a richness and depth fostered by robust foundation and corporate involvement, has recently joined forces in a successful effort to attract to Pittsburgh the first-ever, combined convention of the American Symphony Orchestra League, Chorus America, Dance/USA, OPERA America, and nine other associations that will draw an estimated 5,000 arts delegates to the city in June 2004.

This forum provided a unique opportunity for the arts community to engage young business leaders in dialogue about the importance of the arts to business, economic development, and the quality of life in the region, and to encourage their participation in the arts as a way of keeping young professionals involved in Pittsburgh’s future. Panelists provided overviews of their organizations, their activities, and their members. A lively Q&A generated ideas for future collaborations between specific organizations, as well as several invitations for arts leaders to speak at professional groups meetings. Arts leaders left the session with new-found knowledge of how collaboration across sectors may be key to a vital arts scene—and vital arts leadership—in decades to come.