Americans for the Arts

Megan Van Voorhis

Partnership is the future of arts support in this country. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at a few indicators:

• HUD launched a $100 million Sustainable Communities Planning Grant program earlier this year in an effort to create stronger, more sustainable communities in the U.S. They placed an emphasis on planning processes engaging in non-traditional partnerships (including arts and culture) – a move supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
• The Kresge Foundation, long known for its capital challenge grants, is now considering how the different disciplines (e.g. arts and culture, health and human services, education) approach their work differently, but are really working toward the same end – the creation of “exceptional communities.”
• The BCA Triennial Survey of the Arts suggests that 61% of businesses are motivated to support organizations that “offer programs that tie into social causes such as hunger, violence and homelessness.”

Often I talk with artists and arts organizations who ask me “When are we going to be able to stop talking about the ancillary benefits of arts and culture [economic development, education, neighborhood development] and get back to what we’re really about – art?” This concerns me, because it suggests that our discussion of the arts’ role in these activities is mere messaging alone – a means to help other people understand our work so they will fund us for the stuff that is harder to explain. It suggests the arts community itself doesn’t believe all of those things are core to the arts. They are. To suggest otherwise devalues the arts. It traps us into a paradigm from which we cannot escape, and to a set of diminishing resources.

Jim Rivett

First and foremost we must define what support actually means. Support in the way of financial contributions is most often cited, yet it is only one measure among many. And as we know, constricted financial donations are a reality in times of economic hardship.

Yet there are numerous ways that businesses and individuals can support the arts, through times of both Boom and Bust. Attending and partaking in artistic events is a basic level of arts support that’s easy and also entertaining.

But more importantly, businesses should recognize that there are ways to offer support that can have an equally important bottom-line impact on the arts as any cash donation or sponsorship. Corporate engagement in the form of time, talent, energy and expertise are all incredibly valuable resources that today’s businesses can provide to arts organizations and initiatives.

For instance, at Arketype, we make it part of our corporate mission to give back to the arts in ways that go well beyond cash contributions. Our 80/20 rule is a reflection of that commitment—80 percent of our time is spent on client projects, while 20 percent is spent putting creative resources in the form of in-kind design, advertising, marketing, video and multimedia toward helping museums, theatres, musicians, artists and other nonprofit groups that share a passion for the arts.

Jim Rivett

The business community has commonly perceived the arts as ancillary to its day-to-day operations and important only to the enrichment of its community’s cultural vitality. Now thanks to positive research and a new understanding of creativity’s potential—including efforts to meld creativity and the arts within and across multiple disciplines such as science and mathematics—business is just beginning to “get it.” Companies and corporations are s-l-o-w-l-y changing their perceptions and discovering the untapped success potential the arts can deliver.

The business community is beginning to understand the value the arts and creativity bring to the workplace. It’s realizing the arts can positively shape corporate culture and enhance the lives of workers both in and out of the workplace. But more importantly, business is gradually getting the message that by supporting and embracing the arts, the true impact of art’s potential to foster creative inquiry, entrepreneurial thinking, pure imagination and inspiration can serve as fuel for authentic corporate competitiveness.

Translated: The arts have bona-fide, bottom-line benefits.

That’s the message businesses throughout Wisconsin have been receiving through our firm’s volunteer work on behalf of the Wisconsin Arts Board. By creating brochures, presentations, and videos, and through our task force involvement, our business has been working to change the perceptions that Wisconsin businesses have about the arts. We want our state’s business community to understand that by juxtaposing and infusing the arts and creativity within the realms of technology, science, engineering, and beyond, unlimited possibilities spring forth.

Bruce Whitacre

At the NCTF Board meeting this fall, we invited Louise Chalfant, the Director of Education at the Guthrie Theatre, to talk about her programs targeting professionals.  (See  http://www.guthrietheater.org/learn.)

Our guest speaker slot is usually offered to a distinguished artist, an artistic director, a major producer, someone one would normally consider of interest to the managing directors and high level executives on our Board.  This time, we wanted to share the special programs Louise and her team have created that are quite unique in their scope, their consistency, and their success.  It was an eye-opening presentation.

Louise is building a very important new bridge into corporations and professional firms for her community, and the country as a whole.  Success such as hers makes a strong case for companies to engage with the arts the Shugol report cites, but at an all new level.

Over the past few years, in conjunction with board members and corporate partners (more on this, below), Louise and her team have crafted the rather likely but exciting range of professional training for employees: leadership, team-building through improvisation.  Sporadically, many theatres have offered this to specific corporate partners, but few do it consistently.  However, there are many for-profit, small-scale companies of actors who have entered some of these arenas.  Louise’s focus, which she emphasizes time and again, is that she brings Guthrie-level standards of excellence to these programs.  Many were tested on the companies of Guthrie board members before entering the curriculum.