Cultural districts are the heartbeat of a city. They are the distinctive part that makes your city unique and reveals the character and spirit of your town.

In addition to measuring the dollars spent by businesses in support of the arts, as well as the types of companies doing the supporting, the 2013 BCA Survey of Business Support for the Arts delved into the motivations and goals of businesses when considering partnerships with the arts.

Randy Cohen

There is an old quote attributed to John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich:

Shannon Ford

“I’m not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean”

One thing I’ve learned during my years in the field of arts administration is that when it comes to the arts, decision makers are often willing to discount their intuition.  They ignore that gut feeling they have that the arts really do make a difference in their community, because it can be difficult to prove.  However, there is another lesson here as well: facts proven by valid research are extremely powerful and difficult to ignore.

Institutions of higher education and the communities in which they reside must be collaborators, and they must mutually seek beneficial ways to partner.

Nowhere is this more critical than the arts. Put another way, the arts in higher education must be part of and inseparably linked to, and woven into, the fabric of the community in which they exist.

Most everyone will agree with the above. The mayor of virtually every city in this country has probably been quoted as saying something like, “The arts are our heart and soul and must be part of our future.”