Americans for the Arts

Only a few years ago, the business community in Oxford skewed heavily toward traditional notions of economic growth and profitability, which inevitably bred a bias toward large manufacturing businesses, insurance, finance, and healthcare. A smaller-scale entrepreneur community, particularly more creative and artistic entrepreneurs, was not cultivated to the degree it should have been. This community didn’t attract attention because it wasn’t necessarily seen as vital to the health of the local economy. In 2015, Oxford’s local arts agency, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council (YAC), recognized this was an issue for the community. They saw that a major part of the local economy—the arts sector—was not being taken seriously as an economic driver. The numbers, they found, were on their side, demonstrating that the arts made up more than a negligible portion of the local economy. The YAC began strategizing with the Oxford-Lafayette County Chamber of Commerce on how they could best capitalize on the arts ecosystem in town, which was finding a way to survive even without the necessary value placed on it. Together they began looking for ways to integrate the separate arts and business communities such that their complementary skill-sets and capacities could meet their mutual goals and needs.

When you think of MBA coursework, you think of core classes in marketing, finance, economics, operations, decision sciences, strategy, and so on. You don’t think of color theory, collaborative drawing, or watercolors. But at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, we do. Unlike traditional business schools that collect and present art, we make it. In addition to core curriculum that encompasses fundamental business areas, for the past two years Kellogg has offered students an opportunity to participate in artist-led, hands-on workshops that focus on a variety of arts-themed topics. I attribute the success and popularity of these workshops to filling a much-needed void in MBA curriculum—one that stimulates the right brain, which supports creativity and intuition. Exercising these functions encourages important skills for aspiring business leaders. Interactions with art develop observation, collaboration, communication, narrative building, and critical thinking skills. They also emphasize empathic thinking, creative ideation, implicit bias awareness, and recognizing the nature of objectivity/neutrality. Leaders are made and trained, not necessarily born. Exercising empathy, knowing how to communicate effectively, and having the ability to think creatively through complex issues all help leaders manage effectively. 

Founded as a United Arts Fund for York County Pennsylvania in 1999, the Cultural Alliance of York County's annual campaign supports eight partner agencies that are essential to our cultural core and funds the Creative Impact Award grants that bring arts and culture to life in York County.

In an effort to promote camaraderie/fellowship in the workplace for our local corporate contributors and deepen their involvement in the Cultural Alliance annual campaign, the Cultural Alliance created YorVoice in 2015. The event brought 10 local musical acts that varied in style and genre together for a friendly singing competition. Based on the model of the Cincinnati-based ArtsWave United Arts Fund choral competition event; “CincySings,” the Cultural Alliance recruited teams from corporate contributors, as well as local performers who wanted to participate and showcase their talents to a larger audience. We had a panel of celebrity judges rank the teams to award a first place Champion and Runner Up. We also created a People’s Choice category, which awarded the People’s Choice trophy to the team with the most votes, $1 per vote.

I work for Aetna, a healthcare company that builds healthy communities by promoting volunteerism, forming partnerships, and funding initiatives to improve the quality of life for its employees and customers. Here in Community Relations & Urban Marketing we strive to deepen our local market presence in the communities where we live, work, and play. Because of my love of singing, my interest naturally gravitates toward music and arts in the community. So I look for those opportunities where I can contribute my talents to support the company’s mission. What follows are several accounts of my personal experiences with music and the arts in the workplace, all guided and encouraged by the leadership at Aetna. As you’ll see, they were fun, memorable, and unforgettable.

Creating equitable places and healthy people: that’s the mission of Louisville, Kentucky-based, artist-innovation company IDEAS xLab (IDEAS). Together with its education and training nonprofit for artists, Creative Agents of Change Foundation, IDEAS has created a framework that helps corporations and communities re-frame challenges and discover new opportunities by leveraging the dynamic capacity of artists to innovate.

IDEAS was launched in 2012 as an exhibition series designed to connect contemporary artists in Central Appalachian and Southern States with international artist networks. Today, IDEAS has morphed into a new framework for social entrepreneurship centered around artists as strategic human resources on two parallel fronts, civic and corporate innovation. The ultimate goal is creating “shared value” programs between the two.

Human creativity is the ultimate competitive advantage. And who better to learn from than artists who have dedicated themselves to creative expression? Yet bringing arts-learning into business, while a sexy idea, is not so simple. Businesses fear wasting time, resources, and lack of clearly beneficial results. Artists are concerned with protecting freedom to take risks and avoiding ‘dumbing down’ their work for business participants.