Alicia Gregory

Jordan Shue

Welcome to Americans for the Arts blog salon on Corporate Social Responsibility!

This week, you’ll hear insights from corporate leaders who are using arts and culture as a tool to advance their corporate social responsibility goals—as well as for community and social good—and the artists, administrators, and cultural workers who partner with them to advance social good through the arts.

This salon is an extension of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Arts by Lynn E. Stern—a report released in January by AFTA’s Animating Democracy program that surveys the current landscape of corporate support for arts and culture. The report drew from 16 interviews with corporate executives from StubHub, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Time Warner Inc., Boeing Corporation, and many others to offer a first time snapshot of the ways in which corporations and corporate foundations are using arts and culture to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals. We invite you to read the full report , and to join us this week blog posts from new voices weighing in on the topic.

You will hear from corporate leaders who are doing more than simply writing a check, including those who’ve crafted programs and collaborations within the communities where they live. These leaders have used arts and culture as a tool to empower and inspire both their own employees and the artists and citizens on the ground.

With the report, our companion tool-kit from the pARTnership Movement, and this salon, we hope to make the case for CSR and arts partnerships – a win/win defined – and to inspire both business and arts leaders to seek out mutually beneficial partnerships that also support the communities in which they operate. Throughout this week we will capture the narratives, showcase the program models, report on the good work, and stimulate the conversations necessary to further evolve CSR and arts partnerships.

Here are some highlights to look forward to in the coming week:

Rachel Ebeling, the founding member of The Angel Band Project, writes about how the project got off the ground and became a huge success with the help of Edward Jones, a 2014 BCA 10 honoree. The Angel Band Project seeks to highlight the issue of sexual violence, and stimulate healing for victims and their relatives and friends through music.

You will hear from Helen Goulden from Nesta Corp and Caroline Mason of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation in the UK about their involvement with the new Arts Impact Fund established between Nesta, Esmée Fairbairn, and the Arts Council of England.

Alex Parkinson, a Researcher in the Corporate Leadership division of The Conference Board, addresses the value placed on data and the quantifiable measurement of impact, something that is not always possible when dealing with the arts as a strategy for social impact. This makes it difficult to make the case for the arts to those who are not already tapped into their power, but it does not make the arts any less important.

That’s just a brief glimpse of the posts you’ll read this week! We encourage you to follow the salon through the week, and add your voice to the conversation by sharing your own comments, ideas, challenges, and more below and on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn!