Americans for the Arts

Like several other communities that have been posting on the blog this week, we at the Regional Arts & Culture Council (Portland, Oregon) were looking for a fun way to celebrate creativity in business and cultivate employee engagement in the arts while raising more money for our 10th annual united arts fund campaign, known as Work for Art. Drawing from several great models including the CincySings event produced by ArtsWave, we decided to produce a Battle of the Bands on May 12 at the beautiful Crystal Ballroom in downtown Portland.

And what a battle it was! By the end of the night, we had raised about $75,000.

Thanks for joining us this week to learn more about how arts groups around the country are engaging business employees through the arts, and what the impact is with individuals, companies, and entire communities. This week, we’ve heard from a number of arts leaders, as well business employees who’ve both led and participated in efforts to bring the arts to the workplace, stimulate innovation, and deepen the daily practice of creativity in our lives.

Here’s a recap of what we’ve seen this week, and some of the best and most inspiring quotes:

One would think that an artist paint company, especially one that is also employee owned, would have a full understanding of the value of the arts in our lives. Unfortunately, work within a manufacturing and distribution facility requires many sorts of skills and interests, and many don’t connect what they do for the creative arts at Golden Artist Colors. It is only by constant effort of sharing the creative process and developing opportunities for integrating with artists that we can begin to break down these barriers.

It has been three years since ArtsWave and I launched the city-wide company singing challenge CincySings in Cincinnati, and it is evident to our city that the unique choral competition has delivered on its mission to leverage the power of the arts to create employee engagement and excitement among the participating companies, and a renewed passion for the arts across the regional community. The sing-offs that lead up to CincySings have become a staple at some of the region’s largest businesses, including Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where it all began.

Most of us has had times in our life when we’ve felt lonely and isolated—and it’s a lousy feeling. But a growing body of research suggests that not only does loneliness make you miserable—it can kill you.

Recent research indicates that health risks associated with loneliness and social isolation are comparable to the dangers of smoking and obesity, increasing the likelihood of premature death by up to 30%. With the alarming increase in the rate of loneliness and isolation in our society, America is facing one of today’s most urgent—yet largely hidden—public health issues.

At first glance, the Arts and Business Council of New York’s (ABC/NY) Diversity in Arts Leadership (DIAL) internship program looks like your typical summer arts internship: undergraduates descend on the city and ABC/NY helps them get their foot in the door of one of NYCs coveted arts and culture sector organizations.

However, you might not guess that DIAL doubles as an arts-based platform to engage employees in the corporate sector. Huh? How?

Engaging with the business community has always been the hallmark of the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia; we were established in 1981 and are an affiliate of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. As an extension, our core programs revolve around engaging the employees of businesses, harnessing their skills and talents for the nonprofit arts sector.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The idea of creativity in the workplace is getting a lot of play in the media these days. Books like Creative Confidence, from IDEO founders Tom & David Kelly, entice business people to retool their approach to problem solving. Industry leaders like Hitachi CEO Barbara Dyer are making bold statements like ““[c]reativity is rapidly shifting from a “nice to have” to a “must have” quality for all types of successful organizations.”

In the midst of this hey-day, lots of people are talking. But our partners at Southwest Airlines are doing. They’re finding new ways to embrace creativity in their business, and it doesn’t stop at corporate retreats. These guys are making creativity a way of life that they embrace and encourage in the day-to-day, and it shows through in their quirky corporate culture and innovative approach to airline service.

Employee engagement: a term Americans for the Arts has been throwing around a lot lately. But what does it mean, and how can you use it in your community? Simply put (according to Forbes), employee engagement is “the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.” According to Deloitte’s 2015 Human Capital Trends Report, this emotional commitment is one of the top challenges facing 87 percent of companies around the world today.

As arts administrators, we’re finely attuned the emotional connections and revelations the arts can usher forth. As we explore best practices in partnering with the business sector, it’s clear that there are direct ways to harness the emotional power of the arts with business employees to increase morale and communication within a company, as well stimulate innovation and embed a practice of daily creativity.

This week is National Volunteer Week, started by Points of Light in 1974 to inspire, recognize, and encourage people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in their communities. Seeking out imaginative ways to engage business employees through volunteerism has a natural link with the arts, as we’ve seen from over 40 years of experience with the Business Volunteers for the Arts® (BVA) Network.

Since its founding in 1975 by the Arts & Business Council Inc., the BVA program has grown and adapted to serve the changing needs of both the arts and business communities. Over its 40-year history, the BVA program has proven to be a dynamic and effective model for diverse sizes and types of communities. Since the program’s inception, nearly 25,000 business volunteers have served more than 26,000 arts groups across the United States.

From a purely business perspective, the arts in general and public art in particular are demonstrated spurs of economic development. This happy reality has proven true in my work as the Principal and sole employee of Prospective Inc., which is the exclusive leasing agent for the 4-million-square-foot office component of Reston Town Center, an internationally-recognized urban mixed-use development located in Reston, Virginia.

Last year, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and Shake Shack joined forces for Summer Rendezvous, a breezy, bright mural on the wall behind Shake Shack’s first Philadelphia location. Edwin Bragg, Vice President of Marketing & Communications at Shake Shack, took a few minutes to talk to me about the partnership.

CRS: What drives Shake Shack’s giving philosophy, both historically and currently?

EB: Shake Shack’s mission is to Stand for Something Good, which means taking care of each other and our communities. Giving back is an essential to connecting to every community that Shake Shack is in. We have a program called Shack Gives Back, a company-wide community program that recognizes Shake Shack employees for volunteering. We also donate with funds, meals at Shake Shack, and more.

At Bloomberg Philanthropies we recognize the enormous potential of public art to enliven neighborhoods, drive foot traffic to local businesses, bolster tourism, and inspire people to live and work in places identified with creativity. So in October 2014, we launched the Public Art Challenge to support temporary public art projects that catalyze urban growth, contribute to local identity, and promote creativity. In addition to generating exciting work in cities and seeding strong public-private partnerships supporting culture, we hoped the initiative would encourage local governments across the United States to view artists and the arts as resources for addressing civic priorities in real and transformative ways. 

Diversity and inclusion is more than a hiring statement header. For many of America’s most successful businesses, diversity efforts are an essential part of company culture. They help to communicate the company’s values and goals and build bridges to the communities it serves.

As one of the oldest American companies still in operation, Wells Fargo’s history is reflective of America’s history, and diversity plays a big role to this day. In the 1870s, Wells Fargo created bilingual publications to facilitate commerce between Chinese-language customers and businesses. One hundred years later, Wells Fargo employees joined with a local radio station in California to produce a Spanish language series on banking and financial literacy.

There’s a lot of talk these days about bringing creativity to the workplace, but what exactly does that look like?

My brother and I started a consultancy dedicated to making the creative practices of artists accessible to anyone, anywhere. This means that we spend an unusual amount of time (for artists, that is) with executives in industries like aeronautics, energy and pharmaceuticals. In fact, when we ask any room of executives–with specialties in operations, compliance and engineering–if creativity is essential to the success of their company, the overwhelming majority, and I mean 99%, of the group will raise their hands. I wrote more about this on ArtsBlog last month.

They have been told to think big and innovate, get outside of boxes and comfort zones, but no one has given instructions for how to do this. We say, “It’s easy, all you need to do is commit to practicing a little every day!” For many this just feels like one responsibility on the never ending to-do list. However, we know that even a short experience with creative practice can have powerful effects.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? We all know the answer to this old chestnut but there’s a reason why the joke persists.

After spending a lot of time considering how we might use our skills as artists to provide do something of value beyond amplifying the voices of others (through advocacy, marketing, design, etc.) my brother and I launched a consultancy, Another Limited Rebellion, focused on the creative development of individuals and organizations. What does that mean? 

In June 2015, Silicon Valley Creates, a regranting organization in San Jose, California, with a thirty-plus year record in providing funding opportunities for the local arts and culture community, made a bold move–for us. We took a first-time experimental step in investing in capacity building, specifically to elevate the conversation about product relevance.

 “[Cultural activities] enrich and expand on my understanding of what binds us together as a community, where we have come from and perhaps where we are going.”
-ArtsFund Patron Survey, 2015

Arts advocates often talk about how cultural organizations play a critical role in creating a vibrant, thriving economy, in definining civic identity, and in building an engaged and connected population, but how do we support that claim? 

Corporate art collecting may be motivated by a number of objectives, from creating an aesthetically pleasing work environment to fostering employee engagement to strengthening a company’s image. Businesses that place a high value on art within and beyond the workplace likewise demonstrate an appreciation for innovation, creativity and corporate social responsibility. For the global furniture, interior architecture, and technology company Steelcase, corporate art collecting has created a thriving interplay between art, design and inspiration over the course of its 103-year history.

Crowd-sourced genomic data, 3D printed hearts, robotic surgeries, dramatic shifts in medical education and population health–the future of how we think about, define and create health is exponentially changing–which is why we are pioneering new roles for artists in this ever-changing industry and societal landscape.

At Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine conference, co-founder Peter Diamandis said, “You are the CEO of your own health.” But, when there is systemic racism in clinical trials, inequality in access to care, and discrepancies between how medical practitioners define health and how different communities do, new approaches must come forth which empower both people and systems to fully realize a culture of health.

If I ask what “C is for,” many of you reading this would probably respond by recalling the lyrics of Cookie Monster’s famous song. Throughout history, from the cave wall to the Facebook wall, art has forged connections by communicating specific ideas and emotions in a relatable, memorable way. The idea that art can be used not only to entertain, but also to communicate important messages, has been demonstrated effectively by educational children’s television shows. Numerous studies over the years have shown that children who watched Sesame Street programming outperformed their peers in English, math, and science, and had more positive attitudes toward school.

This piece by Laura Bruney of the Arts & Business Council of Miami was originally published on their blog, www.artsbizmiami.org/ArtsBizBlog.

When Jessica Goldman-Srebnick moved to Miami 18 years ago to work with her father, the iconic Tony Goldman, she felt like a fish out of water. The whole city was quickly becoming a serious place for business and she found her niche, fell in love with South Florida and put down roots. Since becoming CEO in 2012, this innovator and change-maker has put her own stamp on Goldman Properties with her unique vision and creative flair. The company is firmly embedded in the fabric of Miami-Dade with the arts playing a leading role in many of their projects and investments. I sat down to talk with Ms. Goldman-Srebnick, in her sunny South Beach office, about her vision for Goldman Properties and how the arts are embedded in their corporate DNA.

Last year during Pro Bono Week, Arizona Citizens for the Arts held a series of pro bono orientations with three goals for our Business Volunteers for the Arts program, which we relaunched in 2013:

a) increase visibility of existing pro bono service activity;

b) increase understanding of pro bono needs in the community; and

c) increase pro bono service being provided in the high need areas for nonprofits.

Does business have any skin in the arts education game? And if they do, can we rally business support to help ensure that all students have access to arts education? After all, business has been in the forefront of other social change movements, such as LGBT marriage rights.  Besides business, can we also make a stronger justification for the role of the arts in strengthening our workforce to educators, policy makers, and governments? 

In 1883, John Michael Kohler, who was in the business of making cast iron farm implements and cemetery crosses, looked at a watering trough and realized he could add four ornamental feet to transform it into the company’s first bathtub. 120 years later, that same innovative spark is what turned a simple dorm room project into Facebook, a $200 billion company that changed the world and ignited a new era in entrepreneurial innovation.

Imagine that you are arriving to a job interview at a tech company. As you wait, you take a look around you, and notice beautiful, thought-provoking works of art displayed on the walls, plus sculptures in the public and outdoor spaces. Imagine working for a manufacturing firm, when one day you receive an announcement of an exciting new art contest for employees. Or, attending your national insurance firm's annual meeting, knowing that you'll soon be able to take the stage for a company-wide battle of the bands and sing and perform your heart out. In these three examples, you would actually be at Microsoft, Ford, or Aetna, respectively, but in reality it could be any one of thousands of businesses that are harnessing the power of the arts...because it is good for business.