ARTSblog

The recently posted Americans for the Arts strategic plan re-asserts the role of local arts agencies in our organization. My recent travels, emails, and tasks around the office remind me of the challenge and opportunity we face in serving the local arts agency community well. In completing a statistical report for the U.S. Urban Arts Federation (the directors of the arts agencies in the 60 largest U.S. cities), we are reminded that more and more, there isn’t just one entity providing the service – one organization may provide most of the funding to artists and arts organizations, while another manages cultural planning. Yet another may manage the bulk of the cultural facilities in a community or coordinate advocacy and public policy development. We asked Urban Arts Federation members if other public agencies, offices, and departments supported the arts, whether it was with cash, and if so, whether that cash was managed through the arts agency. The answers were all over the map. Conferences where I got to meet with local arts agency leaders in Georgia and California this spring confirmed that this complexity is not unique to urban areas.

We are no longer in the age (if we ever were) of a stand-alone agency that takes care of all of a community’s needs. This decentralization is generally great news in terms of making art more widely available in our communities. A challenge for us – how do we understand and document the full picture of support for the arts on the local level? What professional development and training opportunities will best position our members to develop partnerships and leverage relationships to increase resources? We know each community is different – so what kind of strategic analysis necessary to size up what will work best? When is it worth it to try to centralize activity?

We’d love to hear from you about the ecology of support in your community and how Americans for the Arts can both provide the training you need to excel in your environment, and the research and information you need in order to do your job well.

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We’ve all heard the bad news. According to The Conference Board, corporate giving is expected to be down 41 percent in 2009, with arts giving taking the brunt of the cuts. Many companies are cutting back their arts support or cutting their programs completely. Americans for the Arts estimates that 10,000 nonprofits will close their doors this year as a result of the economic situation.

However, it is not all bad news. Led by President Obama’s call to service and a desire at companies to give back to their communities and engage employees, volunteerism has gained momentum. 45 percent of companies surveyed by The Conference Board are increasing volunteer resources in 2009—the biggest increase of any program area.  Volunteering is beneficial to companies because it aids in recruitment, retention, and engagement—all key areas for businesses trying to navigate through a treacherous economic landscape.  Arts organizations also benefit from the addition of skills and resources that they would not otherwise be able to afford.

A volunteer management consulting service like Business Volunteers for the Arts (BVA), a program of Americans for the Arts, can greatly increase the mutual success of both the volunteer and nonprofit experience. BVA assesses capacity and needs of a nonprofit and then carefully matches a business volunteer’s skills with these needs. This program can be hosted by a local arts agency, united arts funds, Business Committees for the Arts, or Arts & Business Councils.

BVA has proven results. Between 2003 and 2007, more than 7,200 BVAs have been involved in the program nationwide. During those years, 64,443 hours have been donated to the arts. At the hourly consulting rate of $160 per hour, donated services add up to $10,310,920. At a time when each dollar is carefully accounted for, 10 million dollars of donated time adds up to a lot of value.

Even when corporations can’t provide sponsorship or grants, they can still retain their relationship with the arts in a way that is good for everyone.

Have you ever worked with business volunteers? How were they able to help you or your organization?

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As Manager of Public Art at Americans for the Arts, I wanted to familiarize our constituents about the Public Art Network (PAN) and the tools and resources available to enable arts professionals to create public artworks and programs in their communities.

PAN was initiated in the late 1990’s by a group of public art professionals from across the nation and Americans for the Arts officially adopted the network in the year 2000. PAN serves a membership of over 1,000 public art programs and artists nationwide and operates with a fifteen member-elected Council of advisors.

One of the first questions people often ask is: “what is public art?”

Read the rest of this entry »

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So the future is now and everyone is enmeshed in a million social networks. You are undoubtedly on Facebook, despite the threat of viruses, the fact that your sixth grade math teacher or HR Director can see your scandalous Halloween party, and the endless “How well do you know Mira?” quizzes. You probably opened up a LinkedIn account just to combat the shadow of unemployment hovering over the country. And naturally your amazing arts group has its own website – where you communicate with patrons, funders, and other staff. You see your computer screen more than your mom.

I personally manage a website, Facebook site, eblast template, some relevant Google alerts, a mini-Flickr account and a regular work email account. I count myself among the lucky ones. The thought of adding Twitter to the mix makes me break out in hives. I’m probably not going to start my own YouTube channel anytime soon. (Although I feel a bit delinquent by not doing it all.) I’m sure that the NAMP family would love a microblogging feed for conference updates, and it certainly seems that Twitter is the hot new thing in marketing. But there is that thing called “work”, even if updating all of your social networks is an integral part of that work. And strangely enough the act of writing requires a calm environment totally antithetical to Facebook updates or scrolling through emails. Then there are those things called people, sigh. There’s the fine point after which multitasking just becomes absolute madness…I’m afraid I’m approaching it.

I would love to hear about any back end strategies for managing the social networks that any marketing staffer now has to wrestle with. There is a constant struggle to balance “regular work” (meetings, proposals, events, etc.) with the time-sucking minutiae of social networking. Are there any low-cost methods you all have found to steal some time back into your day?

This article comes from Arts Watch, the newly redesigned version of the Cultural Policy Listserv. If you would like to receive Arts Watch, please sign up.

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Every day it seems like another corporation is planning layoffs.  The employees who keep their jobs are often stressed, overworked and their morale is low.  Businesses are left wondering how they can get out of this recession when they are struggling to do more with fewer resources.  This is where the arts can play an important role by improving employee morale, encouraging creativity and, as a result, improving the bottom line.

U.S. employers rate creativity/innovation as one of the top five skills that will increase in importance in the next five years and they rank creativity/innovation as one of the top ten challenges they will face in the next ten years according to research from the Conference Board. CEOs view participation in the arts as one of the top indicators of employee creativity and innovation.  Whether it’s a performance in the workplace, an opportunity to volunteer at an arts festival, company tickets to a symphony or an employee art exhibition, the arts can stimulate innovation and creativity. Read the rest of this entry »

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