Neil McKenzie

Business & Arts Partnerships: The Benefits and the Challenges

Posted by Neil McKenzie, Nov 15, 2011 0 comments


Neil McKenzie

Neil McKenzie

For years the arts have received the support of patrons in order to grow and prosper. Today the role of the patron is increasingly being replaced by support from the business community.

To many in the art world, this trend is a welcome sight in an era of strained sources of traditional funding.

Ironically, even while businesses are viewed as a source of arts funding these same businesses are faced with shrinking budgets. One of the challenges that businesses face is that they are being asked to support a multitude of organizations and worthy causes including the arts.

As the competition for corporate support increases, arts organizations must be able to prove that they provide measureable benefits. Businesses are in their comfort zone when they can quantify the outcomes or benefits associated with an expenditure or investment.

The problem is that many of the benefits associated with the arts are “soft” or intangible and thus difficult to measure -- this is a major challenge for both business and the arts as they seek to develop partnerships.

Benefits of Business and Arts Partnerships

A successful partnership or collaboration can be characterized where all parties benefit -- a business/arts partnership is no different. The trick is to find common goals or outcomes where everybody comes out a winner.

Here are some of the areas where business can benefit from the arts:

  • Increased exposure and prestige for a company in terms of  its products, services, and social responsibility.
  • Helping to build a vibrant community to make it easier to attract and retain talented employees needed to compete in today’s global economy.
  • Taking advantage of the educational and entertainment value of the arts as a benefit for employees.
  • Giving employees something “creative” to work on like providing business expertise to the arts organizations.

The arts can also benefit from business in more ways than just financial support. Here are some areas where the arts can benefit from a business alliance:

  • Assistance in marketing, organizational management, and financial management.
  • Having a wider audience and more participants in the programs they provide.
  • Developing ways to transfer creativity from the arts to business.
  • Becoming an important part of an area’s economic development efforts.

Challenges of Business and Arts Partnerships

Along with the benefits come challenges. Many of these challenges involve looking at what each party needs and expects, for many this may be a new and unfamiliar point of view.

Some of the challenges that businesses face include:

  • Being able to quantify “soft” or intangible benefits and include them in their calculations of why they should support the arts.
  • Putting themselves in the shoes of artists and arts organizations and understanding the challenges that they face in providing arts and culture.
  • Realizing that that the arts play an important role in developing creativity which leads to innovation and entrepreneurship.
  • Considering arts and culture an important part of local economic development efforts and the stake business has in creative, sustainable, and vibrant communities.

Some of the challenges that artists and arts organizations face include:

  • Developing objective measures for the benefits and value the arts provide.
  • Looking at the world from a business’s point of view.
  • Looking for ways to help businesses increase creativity and innovation.
  • Identifying ways to engage and benefit a business’s employees.
  • Highlighting their contribution to helping companies recruit and retain the workers they need to be successful.
  • Promoting and supporting business partners in a meaningful manner

The Bottom Line

Business and arts partnerships can be a great way to help build strong and vibrant businesses, creative organizations, communities, and local economies.

Each side needs to agree on a common set of benefits and then work through the challenge of assigning a value to them.

When arts organizations can put a dollar value on the things they do and provide it will become much easier to forge business partnerships.

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