arts & business council

MetLife Foundation National Arts Forums Series

Arts & Business Council of New York
New York, New York

Corporate Culture: Workforce Development through the Arts
10/30/2006

Moderator: Will Maitland Weiss, executive director, Arts & Business Council of New York

Panelists:

• Kianga M. Ellis, president, Avail Art, L.L.C.
• Polly Rua, senior director, sponsorship and corporate relations, Lincoln Center
• Nick Simunovic, director, corporate development, Americas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

As this forum was the first of the 2006-2007 series, Gary Steuer, vice president of private sector affairs, Americans for the Arts, and executive director, Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts, introduced the program and provided context for this year’s national topic (arts and workforce development).  Rohit Burman, new manager of culture and public broadcasting at MetLife Foundation, also made a brief opening statement. 

The panelists addressed the role of exposure to the arts for today’s workforce, specifically in staff recruitment, retention, and advancement.  In a competitive business environment, companies have invested significant resources toward programs that attract and keep new talent and reduce turnover.  At the same time, arts organizations are developing partnerships that not only bring in new audience members, but also swell the rolls of skilled volunteers.  With this forum, ABC/NY asked: how and where do these approaches intersect?

All of the forum’s panelists have a background in both the private (specifically, corporate) sector and nonprofit (specifically, the arts) sectors.  Kianga Ellis was a corporate lawyer at Goldman Sachs, Polly Rua managed sponsorships for ChevronTexaco, and Nick Simunovic was a consultant at McKinsey & Company.  Each brought his/her own experiences with arts and business in New York to bear in the discussion.

New York City has prominence as a major center for the arts, culture, and business.  Companies who seek to recruit and retain talent to work (and live) in New York are likely to offer employees and clients access to this incredible cultural richness.  As an example, Ellis cited how law firm recruiters organize outings to Broadway plays or nights at the opera for summer associates.  These experiences get “summers” excited about starting their professional careers in a city with a vibrant cultural scene, and the employers receive the credit for making such opportunities available. 

Rua emphasized that New Yorkers lead busy lives, yet still want to be involved in their communities, and she believes that turnkey programs which offer this are attractive to businesses. Ellis agreed, adding that in her experience, young business professionals have an interest in being involved but do not know where to go or how to start, or even what engagement they would find fulfilling.

Employee volunteerism as a way in which to connect the arts and business worlds figured prominently in the discussion.  As a representative of a major visual arts institution, Simunovic said that the Guggenheim had struggled in the area of helping companies develop their volunteer offerings, as most museum volunteers are docents who require lengthy special training, and the types of opportunities that a food bank, shelter, or school had did not exist at an art museum.  Simunovic posed the question to the audience: how do arts organizations better respond to firms who want to provide volunteers whom they are not currently equipped to accommodate?

Skills-based volunteerism was also discussed.  Rua cited how Lincoln Center’s significant partnership with Disney/WABC-TV engaged employees from all areas of the New York City office with a variety of activities in the organization’s surrounding Upper West Side neighborhood.  Booz Allen, a consulting firm, also organized an extremely popular employee program that created a “virtual workforce of volunteers” to provide engineering and strategic assistance to nonprofits. Simunovic, whose work on a pro bono project with the Guggenheim led to his current employment at the museum, recalled that most of his former colleagues at McKinsey asked to work on a local pro bono project.  The firm’s pro bono practice is one of its core employee offerings, and he believes that once involved, this work allowed the employees to appreciate the intersection of arts and business in a meaningful way. 

Both the arts and business must seize the opportunity to serve each other’s needs.
Interest and opportunities do exist.  Related to Simunovic’s example of consultants lending business expertise to community projects is the Arts & Business Council of New York’s Business Volunteers for the Arts program. Steuer shared examples of workforce development and community programs around the country that serve the arts and present opportunities for related activities in New York. 
• One Midwest bank now requires all prospective employees to list exposure to arts and culture on their job applications. This applies even to tellers and security guards. The bank recognizes that creativity is a contributing factor to good customer service. 
• In a twist on typical corporate membership, a new model permits some companies’ employees to choose individual memberships, at company expense, to up to three arts organizations. 
An audience member asked what the arts are doing to bring themselves to business, as opposed to waiting for business to come to them. At Lincoln Center, Rua and her colleagues approach collaborations with the business sector as partnerships, not sponsorships.  She stressed the importance of packaging opportunities for corporations in a way that serves their individual needs and challenges.

As Ellis summarized, in today’s war for talent, “the business case for the arts now is very, very real.”  Companies recognize that involvement in the arts and culture is not just about doing the right thing, but stimulating employees to have the conceptual abilities to perceive and address numerous challenges in a creative way. Interest exists for deeper, more significant connections between the arts and business, beyond financial support.  The arts, with their ability to enliven and inspire audiences, have the capacity to partner with business and help develop solutions to meet various workplace development needs and goals.  The issue that faces arts organizations is how to take advantage, on a broad scale, of this opportunity and make a powerful impact on businesses and their employees, as well as their communities at large.