arts & business council

MetLife National Arts Forums Series

Business Arts Council
San Francisco, California

Why Business Should Be Concerned About Arts & Culture In The Bay Area
05/25/2005

Moderator: John R. Killacky, Program Officer, Arts and Culture, The San Francisco Foundation

Panelists:

• Moy Eng, Program Director, Performing Arts, The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
• Lucas Bernays Held, Director of Communications, The Wallace Foundation
• Barry Hessenius, Executive Director, Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet; author and independent advocacy consultant
• Eileen Loustau, Director of Investor Relations, San Francisco Center for Economic Development
• Robert L. Lynch, President and CEO, Americans for the Arts

Lucas Held of the Wallace Foundation reviewed the main points of the Rand Report which suggests a new approach to articulating the public value of the arts. It stresses the intrinsic values such as captivation, pleasure, expanded capacity for empathy, cognitive growth, creation of social bonds, and expression of communal meaning over the more traditional instrumental values such as such cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral gains for children, and social capital and economic gains for the community.

The panelists then began their discussion of the current state of the arts in the California. Points were made that the San Francisco Bay Area is rich with a vast array of arts and cultural organizations, which are facing financial difficulties due to three main factors. First, the education budget has been declining. With barely enough money to fund core curriculum, arts programs are often the first to be cut. The second factor is the sharp loss of funds for the California Arts Council whose budget went from $36 million to $1 million from 2003 to 2005. The third factor is the overall economic downturn due to such factors as 9/11. With the demise of funding, it was concluded that the public value of the arts is not being articulated very well.

There are over 21,232 arts-related businesses in the Bay Area alone. Moy Eng stated that the funding resources are being spread too thinly over too many organizations. Barry Hessenius said that building demand and public support for the arts is necessary to gain clout with both private- and public-sector funders. There may need to be a shift away from the supply of arts organizations towards the cultivation of demand.

Although 70 percent of Californians say artists make their communities a better place to live and 81 percent support government funding, there is still little public funding of the arts. The panelists stressed that until the arts can gain political muscle on both the state and national level, they will continue to be ignored by government funding and programs. Specific tools on how the arts can integrate into the identified priorities of legislation were mentioned, such as strengthening the power of the arts organizations by working together collaboratively for advocacy.