Americans for the Arts

Are you sitting down?

If not, take a seat, but before you do, look at the chair.

Why did you choose that chair? Was it look, feel, comfort factor?

All of the above?

We like the way it looks. We love the way it feels.

That is exactly what art and design is all about.

That’s why it matters in today’s world. Now go to your window.

Open it. I want you to toss out the myth of the “starving artist.” And that’s what it is—a myth.

Artists and designers and other visual pioneers aren’t just leading us into the future, they are creating it right now. We have moved past the Industrial Age, through the Knowledge Age and into the Creative/Conceptual Age. This is the age in which art and design and the gamut of creativity set the parameters for our future, determining the bottom line in terms of economics. The bottom line has always, and will always be economics. But what drives the bottom line? That is what has shifted.

Continuing from my first blog post...

Feeling like we'd leveled off in our effort to build broad support for the arts, we decided to get more information. We studied how people think about the arts -- that is, we engaged in some real research over the past 18 months. With this information, we’re crafting a new communications strategy—one built on a deeper understanding of the best ways to communicate about the arts—that we believe will lead to increased shared responsibility and motivate action in support of the arts.

In order to create a more constructive dialog, we had to explore the dynamics of the current public conversation—in the media, for instance—as well as in the thinking of the majority of people who do not focus on the arts in their daily lives. Understanding attitudes and beliefs more deeply is a key to negotiating them more successfully in future efforts. A new argument, or lens, on the issue is useful to the extent that it can move people to a collective perspective and shared action in support of the arts.

When legislators, business leaders, community leaders, and others all take in the same core message seen through the same lens—and in turn repeat them to their own constituencies—the resulting echo chamber can begin to transform the accepted common sense on the issue.

I have just had the pleasure of attending the “Great Ideas Conference” sponsored by ASAE and the Center of Association Leadership.  While the main focus of the conference was sharing new and exciting ideas in the association world, a lot of attention was focused to online giving and fundraising strategies.  Not only the importance of embracing these new methods of giving through mobile texting and social media, but also how businesses should link these fundraising efforts with their marketing plan.  So, you have implemented these great tools and strategies (Blog, Facebook, Twitter etc.) to cultivate a broad base of donors, now what?  Don’t stop there!  It is just as important to close the loop on these efforts by tracking your new media efforts regularly.   Sure, we can do the basic math and compare the monetary contribution as it relates to each social tool but what will this tell you about the leads you have created?  Who are the donors going to your site and how are they getting there?  Here is a collection of free tools from Hubspot that evaluate the effectiveness of various marketing initiatives which will hopefully guide you in this final step of your new media fundraising strategy.

Here in Portland, business giving to the arts has been in the news quite a bit lately. Our Business Journal reported that giving is down 33% since 2006, and isn’t likely to recover anytime soon. And a recent article in the Sunday Oregonian noted that large corporate gifts are becoming increasingly rare – not only due to the economy but also a lack of said corporations here; Portland has only two Fortune 500 companies, vs. oodles of small independent businesses.

These articles recommend that arts organizations scale their visions accordingly, recognizing that major visionary cultural projects may never be able to come to fruition. Some say that that’s not necessarily a bad idea, conforming toward our city’s strengths, anyway: progressive, smaller scale, more indie, and a bit quirky. When an arts reporter from New York comes to town, she’s not interested in our Sondheim or Tchaikovsky but rather the creative collaboration between cellos and local rock bands, or the way our ballet dancers are attracting hipsters to their performances at night clubs. These are the more unique aspects of Portland’s vibrant arts community, and programs like these are developing quite a grassroots following.

When talking about private sector or corporate funding .… it occurred to me that we toss around the word corporation like there is one person on the other end of that word. And indeed, corporation is derived from the Latin word for body “corpus”, with one definition of corporation as ‘any group of persons united or regarded as united in one body’.

However, for the arts organizations that seek funding in today’s environment, this definition poses a conundrum. Who is the corpus in corporation? In the recent past, arts support might have come through a champion in the company’s executive offices, or through the corporate foundation. It was easier to navigate the decision maker (s) for philanthropic support when funding dollars were coming from one source.

But corporations are not made up of one individual. They are made of many individuals, just as the definition states. These individuals are in positions of authority. They have their own operating budgets, their own P&L statements, and decide, on a day to day basis, the budget dollars spent.

Responding to the economic meltdown last year, the San Francisco Foundation downsized and began reconsidering what a community foundation needs to be in the present environment. As a result of this rethinking, in addition to the arts portfolio, I now have multiple tasks including managing programs for LGBT organizations, diversity in philanthropy, and a new initiative supporting mergers, closures, joint ventures, and back office collaborations. During this process of transition, I found myself having to be comfortable with ambiguity, as the importance of the arts was weighed in relation to the enormous safety net issues of food, clothing, shelter, job losses, and mortgage foreclosures. Funding cuts decimated education, health, and human services; the arts should not be exempt. Looking at any community holistically, an argument can be made for how essential arts and culture are to its vitality.  Yet, this can only be argued when a community has affordable housing, jobs, access to heath care, quality schools, parks, and libraries.  As the very tenets of civil society are being rewritten in the current recession, and the social safety net is ruptured, support for the arts is understandably imperiled.