Americans for the Arts

Tim Mikulski

For those of you who were able to attend our local arts education advocacy session at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, you know all about the work of the San Diego Alliance for Arts Education.

For those that couldn't make it to San Diego a few weeks ago, the Alliance was created as part of a statewide effort by the California Alliance for Arts Education to launch local advocacy groups.

Led by Americans for the Arts' Arts Education Council Chair Victoria Plettner-Saunders, the group has recently been attempting to restore funding to the San Diego Unified School District's (SDUSD) Visual and Performing Arts Department (VAPA). (You can read more about their efforts in an earlier post from ARTSblog or by purchasing our full slate of sessions on our Convention On-Demand site and viewing the local arts education advocacy session).

On June 21, all of their relationship-building and advocacy efforts led to a unanimous vote by the board of education that restored full funding to arts education programs for the 2011-2012 school year.

Ian David Moss

On Friday afternoon, I sat in on one of the AFTA Summit's Visionary Panels, "New and Emerging Business Models."  Moderated by Adrian Ellis of Jazz at Lincoln Center and AEA Consulting, the high-powered panel also featured Adam Huttler of Fractured Atlas (aka my boss), Clara Miller of Nonprofit Finance Fund, and Terence McFarland of LA Stage Alliance. (Ben Cameron and Shay Wafer were originally scheduled to appear, but could not make it; McFarland sat in for them instead.)

The panelists each brought a somewhat different perspective to the concept of “new models.” Ellis emphasized a separation between means and ends, defining a new model as an alternative way to accomplish one’s core mission (which presumably remains the same). Nonprofit Finance Fund’s Miller cited high fixed costs as the bane of many nonprofits’ existence and drew a laugh from the audience when she defined a new business model – the only one, in fact – as “reliable revenue that is greater than expenses. Any questions?” Huttler quoted the University of Wisconsin’s Andrew Taylor in describing Fractured Atlas’s model as “mission-oriented around sunk costs, profit-oriented around marginal costs.” Put another way, Fractured Atlas will seek grant funds and other contributed revenue to help pay for one-time expenses such as start-up capital, but always with the expectation that any new program or activity will eventually be able to sustain itself through earned income. McFarland described his organization’s historical reliance on earned income, noting that when he took the leadership reins the proportion of revenue that fell into that category was an astonishing 95%. While that percentage has since fallen somewhat, LA Stage Alliance still employs novel strategies such as marketing its connections with member theaters to interested parties in the private sector (such as newspapers). Despite the economy, LA Stage ended last year with a six-figure surplus.

Sparks began to fly a bit during the next exchange, when Huttler pointed to the contributed-income model (in which the people using the product or service – the customers – are not the same as the people paying for the product or service – the donors) as being inherently problematic. In his view, though the sector is likely stuck with it to some extent, this arrangement can distort programming because those holding the financial cards have a disproportionate amount of power to direct outcomes. Ellis responded that this is in fact what distinguishes the nonprofit sector from the private sector -- why would we change our mission in response to the market instead of changing how we accomplish our mission?

Stephanie Evans

I like structure. It helps me think clearly, feel organized and productive about my day, and create balance in my life. Then I entered the field of arts management: a sector that by it’s very nature and design is possibly one of the most unstructured career paths you could enter into.

Yesterday, I co-facilitated the discussion session "Demystifying Professional Development: Benefits of Classroom vs. on the Job Learning" with Ramona Baker (Principal at Ramona Baker Consulting and Director of the Masters Program in Arts Administration at Goucher College) and Letitia Ivins (Assistant Director of Civic Art at the Los Angeles County Arts Commission).

The idea for this session came out of the 2009 Emerging Leader Survey, where we asked survey participants what their concentration of study was. The 554 responses broke out as follows: 37%  - Arts; 15% - Arts Administration; 8% - Business; 40% - Other. 40% - Other? 

Candance Clement

In mid-June I flew from my tiny western Massachusetts town all the way to San Diego for the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention (click here for information on how to buy the Convention On-Demand). Though I have been to their annual advocacy day in D.C. before, this was my first AFTA event that wasn’t focused exclusively on policy. And though I may be able to slap the label “artist” on my life for all those hours I clock playing music in the DIY scene, I’m no “arts professional.”

That meant that I did a lot of listening for three days. As someone who tends to be a bit of a talker when I’m in my element, there’s something to be said for sitting quietly, absorbing, and identifying themes.

The conference brings together about 1,000 people from the arts world – most of them administrators from local and state arts councils, but many serving double duty in the world as artists, too.

There are moments where you sense things so intensely they have a texture and vibration all their own. One experiences joy and humility in the same breath and it brings a lump to your throat even though you are smiling broadly. I had many grateful moments like these over the course of Convention. To me, our Convention is a graduation experience of sorts (true confessions from a former high school teacher). It happens in June. It’s a culmination of a year’s worth of work. And, when it happens, you forget all the hard times in between and fall back in love with your work all over again. If we did a yearbook, this text would be on my senior page.