Americans for the Arts

The Cultural Alliance of York’s campaign has been active since the beginning of January. Our increases are coming from our Marquis Society, a leadership giving initiative. The corporate contributions remain flat or decreased/declined. Since the alliance began as a corporate United Arts Fund, we are so glad we slowly moved to leadership giving.

We began the Marquis initiative after a few individuals wanted to donate early on when we were strictly a corporate ask and our partner agencies said “take the money.” Over the past few years, as our corporate CEO’s retired, the notion of a place for them to continue giving to our campaign turned into leadership giving.

After reading the blogs and participating in conference calls and every other forum, the question remains: What works? Because we are a UAF we want to know the message that helps garner investments. But any one of us knows that to do whatever we do, we need money. How do we get it?

We ask each other, searching for just the right message that will resonate–with corporations and individuals. One of my questions has become: Is true philanthropy gone? We continually try to link investment with return–and not just helping create a wonderfully rich community–a dollar return. What do you get for the money?

I’ve always said, “Money follows good ideas.” But, as we all know, that’s an oversimplification. We wish raising money was as simple as having a good idea, explaining that idea and waiting for the “investor” to respond, like pitching a movie script or TV pilot.

In reality, creative ideas drive the nonprofit arts sector but often, that’s not what gets us funding. While funders are attracted by inspirational and innovative ideas, what seals the grantmaking “deal” is often far from that big brilliant idea. It is organizational consistency, communication, and solid business practices that represent the maturity of the organization that will implement the creative project. But it’s even more than that. There are both internal and external forces at play.

Internally, an organization needs to have strong leadership with vision for the future and management skills for the present. The product must be unique and high quality. It’s very helpful to have enough depth in administrative staff to keep good records, write excellent grant applications and final reports with a program staff that understands evaluation.

This debate is very timely.

Here in the UK we are rapidly approaching a General Election in which the overarching theme is likely to be how and where the next government makes the cuts necessary in public expenditure to balance the budget. For the arts, the impending cuts have led to a growing debate about how the private sector can play an even more significant role and, in doing so, fill the resulting funding gap. Only a few days ago, the leading opposition party called for the arts in the UK to look across to the US and adopt their approach of endowment funding. But while we look to you, one imagines many US arts organisations are looking back to us in envy at the perceived level of public funding of the arts here.

This week, hundreds of people met in Providence to discuss “Connecting Creative Communities” in New England.

While there, I had the chance to share our new research with the audience. The response was inspiring. So many people there seemed to recognize the polite head nodding we get when talking about ROI of the arts in dollars and cents. Like us, they also know it isn’t persuasive enough to decision-makers. So, the arts remain a vulnerable policy choice in the public arena.