Round 43: Small Business/Big Change: Economic Perspectives from Artists and Artrepreneurs is one of several projects in the running for the Robert E. Gard award. This is the inaugural year of the award which recognizes and celebrates an exemplary project from 2015 that has successfully crossed the arts into community life in meaningful measurable ways.

Intermedia Arts, in conjunction with Americans for the Arts / Animating Democracy commissioned this national study of local arts agencies to assess community arts activity and training opportunities.

Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce the BCA 10: Best Businesses Partnering with the Arts in America honorees for 2016.

Presented every year by the Business Committee for the Arts (BCA), a division of Americans for the Arts, the BCA 10 awards honor 10 U.S. companies for their exceptional commitment to the arts through grants, local partnerships, volunteer programs, matching gifts, sponsorships, and board membership.

Americans for the Arts knows that engaging business employees through volunteerism and the arts is key to fostering a desirable work environment, increasing efficiency and morale, and doing good in the community. For arts groups seeking to build deeper ties with the business community, offering to address the need to engage employees in their work can serve as a powerful tool and argument for why supporting the arts is a win-win for everyone—the company, its employees, your organization, and the entire community.

SAW was created in 2010 by local artist and business owner John Avelluto (The Owl’s Head Wine Bar) and business owner Heather Hamilton (Long’s Wine & Liquors) as a way to showcase the diverse community of Bay Ridge and give it a unique platform for engagement and dialogue with the visual arts. By supporting and promoting emerging local artists and celebrating local Bay Ridge businesses, SAW broadly explores the intersection between commerce, art and community. While Bay Ridge is home to many artists, the neighborhood is under-served and underfunded in terms of public arts spending and grants.

When a love of art and Italian food combine, the result is delizioso.

We Connect The Dots–a STEAM education program–joined with Microsoft to ring the opening bell of the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City.

"From now on... if we haven't got exactly what the customer wants, we'll send him where he can get it. No high pressuring and forcing a customer to take something he doesn't really want. We'll be known as the helpful store..the friendly store...the store with a heart...the store that places public service ahead of profits. And, consequently, we'll make more profits than ever before." --Mr. Macy, Miracle on 34th Street.

Mathew Heggem is a dancer turned CEO of SUM Innovation, a 15 person company that assesses, designs, implements, and manages accounting solutions. After working in the nonprofit world for many years, Matthew changed his career to seek out new experiences. Though one may not think that “choreographer” and “accounting consultant” share many characteristics, Matthew says building a business is creative work.

Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce that eight projects have been submitted for the Robert E. Gard award.

Members of Americans for the Arts now have until Sunday, March 13, 2016 to nominate outstanding arts leaders from their communities for one of seven Annual Leadership Awards.

Arts partnerships offer companies effective and cost-efficient methods of achieving critical business goals. To explore and illustrate the different types of benefits that arts partnerships can bring to businesses, Americans for the Arts is producing a series of essays on pARTnershipMovement.org. Each essay includes case studies from some of America's most successful business and arts partnerships.

When you talk about the arts, you talk about opportunity! That is one of the many messages we brought to Capitol Hill the morning of March 8, 2016.