The Chronicle of Higher Education carried a story about a Carnegie Mellon professor complaining that a film, Smart People with Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker, was being filmed on the Carnegie Mellon campus. He questions whether colleges and nonprofits are getting too commercial. Too late and wrong question. Too late because films have used college campuses and cultural and nonprofit facilities since the beginning of filmmaking. Then the question should be: are they getting commercial enough to stay in the competition? Our Americans for the Arts research shows that some 50 percent of the budgets of most arts organizations comes from earned revenue sources. This means sales and revenue come from something-tickets, coffee shops, bookstores, space rental, or perhaps even film shooting fees. All this is very commercial and necessary in today’s market. In a world where daily life is a blur of sectors and competing influences, this consideration is probably a fairly valuable one if taken as part of an overall learning opportunity. And all this commerce going on in the nonprofit sector today creates the need for commerce skills like branding and marketing. This is why our National Arts Marketing Project Conference and training programs are in such high demand. The for-profit and the nonprofit increasingly blur in creative ways. Ball State University in Indiana plans to name their $21 million communication and media building after television icon (commercial side icon) David Letterman who has been a $20k annual contributor to his alma mater since 1985, according to the Indianapolis Star and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
The New York Times also quotes business superstar (and friend of the arts and Americans for the Arts) Sidney Harman of Harman International as saying “get me poets as managers”—a succinct understanding of the value of the arts in 21st century workforce readiness and the value that an arts education can bring to someone whether they are entering the nonprofit or for-profit career worlds. In Business Week, the presence of the arts in airports is celebrated as being both good for airports and the cities they serve, as well as good for the arts. “You’ve got a captive audience,” says Greg Mamary of the American Association of Airport Executives.
And of course in our country, it all comes together in politics, as the Southbend Tribune reports that country music performer Sammy Kershaw announced to run for Lt. Governor of Louisiana. Why not Sammy Kershaw as a candidate, or Clint Eastwood as a mayor, or Arnold Schwartzenneger as governor, or Ronald Reagan as president, or Alec Baldwin, Issac Stern, E.G.Marshall, Uma Thurman and all the other non profit or for-profit artists I have had the pleasure to work with in advocating for the arts and arts education for all Americans. I am for more arts experiences, more arts involvement, more arts presence whether from the nonprofit, the for-profit, or the unincorporated sectors of America. The mix makes working, playing, and just living all the richer.
– Bob Lynch, President & CEO, Americans for the Arts
Tagged with: AdvocacyBusinessFundraisingPresident-and-CEO
August 3rd, 2007 at 08:55am
Chad Bauman
The content for this post comes by way of Daniel Adolphson, United Arts Workforce Campaign Director at COMPAS in Minneapolis.
It’s a late night here in the Cities….we are totally shocked and numb here at what has happened.
To bring the importance of our work home…the school bus that was on the bridge when it went down had children on it that were from an organization that we fund - the community theatre project. All of the children are accounted for…about 8 were hurt. Never take your work for granted…we just never know what could happen next.
Now, when you see images of the school bus in the disaster, you know.
Tagged with: Arts-EducationFundraisingLeadershipVolunteerism
August 3rd, 2007 at 08:51am
Rebecca Borden
Find me a sofa without a picture hanging above it. It might not be original, fine art bought in a white-walled gallery. Most of us choose to hang a framed print of people kissing in Paris, or a reproduction of an Impressionist master picked up as a museum souvenir, or a poster of beer bottles from around the world held in place by thumb tacks. Whatever the medium, whatever the image, we all put something on that blank stretch of wall that runs between the furniture and the ceiling. What unites all of the different things we put there is that we choose them; we want to hang them there. “I think this one should go above the couch, we say.
Ask a person why they chose to hang a particular thing in their living room, and they’ll give you an answer that doesn’t take a masters degree in art history. They like the way it makes them feel. It complements the colors in the room. It’s interesting to look at. It matches the mood of the room. It’s happy.
In other words, without consciousness or recognition, we acknowledge that art has a role in our everyday lives.
Now here’s the question: how can we take this collective assumption, that art belongs in our homes, and use it to redefine how we make the case for the arts? I am by no means suggesting that arts professionals should walk into funders’ offices, and demand operating support because there’s a picture on the wall. What I am suggesting is that we as a culture broadly accept art plays an integral part in our lives. So why do we find it so difficult to translate that into case-making?
A recent Monograph,* based on a research study that was an outcome of the 2006 National Arts Policy Roundtable, asks corporations with a steady history of funding the arts why they think corporate support for the arts is declining. For many of the respondents, it came back to the perception that the arts are not relevant to a company’s business, their goals, their employees, or the communities in which they operate.
But we know that’s not true. The arts are just as relevant to communities, and therefore businesses in those communities, as paintings are to living room walls. Without them, we have a blank spot.
*The April 2007 Monograph, “The Quality and Nature of Corporate Support for the Arts’ A Pilot Study,” is one in a series of in-depth issue papers published by Americans for the Arts throughout the year. Monograph is a benefit of Americans for the Arts professional membership at the Standard level and above, and is also available for purchase in our Online Store.
Tagged with: BusinessFundraisingMembership
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:18am
Katherine Copeland
On June 13-14, I had the pleasure of visiting Columbia, South Carolina. My host was Andy Witt, who runs the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties. Andy got things off to a good start by making sure I had the regional food specialty of shrimp and grits! Then it was down to work with a presentation of the economic impact data ($56 million in industry expenditures that support 2,206 jobs) to the Cultural Council’s board of directors’ an impressive group of business and community leaders.
The next morning was the press conference which included a high-profile slate of speakers. Margie Gilbert, whose Central Carolina Community Foundation funded local participation in the study, described this as one of the best investments they’ve made. Not only is the AEP3 study good for the arts, but it is also good for the Foundation in their estate giving work. The Foundation will use the study to provide tangible evidence to potential donors of how their contribution will have a lasting impact on the community. Other speakers at the Columbia press conference included: Ted Speth, Chair Elect, Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce; Rep. Jim Harrison, SC Arts Caucus Co-Chair; Representatives from U.S. House of Rep’s James Clyburn and Joe Wilson’s Offices; Ken May, Deputy Director of the South Carolina Arts Commission; and Greg Pearce from the Richland County Council.
More soon as I take the AEP3 show to the Golden State!
Tagged with: EventsFundraisingResearch
June 26th, 2007 at 08:30am
Randy Cohen
So the convention has now faded a bit into the past, and visions of pink flamingos (and slot machines) have stopped haunting my dreams. Now I can try to put the frenzy of activity in Las Vegas into some perspective. All in all, I thought the convention was a great success. I was especially pleased with how the new track structure worked. For the first couple of conventions after the Arts & Business Council merger, I was not sure we had really delivered on the promise of the convention adequately representing the addition of a Private-Sector focus. I really feel this convention began to get where we want to be in this area. Sessions on voluntarism, the National Arts Policy Roundtable, corporate arts support and young philanthropists, just to name a few, were reasonably to very well-attended, and the participants seemed to cover the spectrum of Americans for the Arts constituencies. The MetLife National Arts Forum, which featured SirKen Robinson, and was a collaboration with the arts education track, seemed to be a smashing success, had a packed house, and also incorporated a lively panel conversation and an interactive working session facilitiated by Eric Booth. Mark Brewer, the Private-Sector Innovator, also delivered a great talk, briskly and entertainingly presented, with refreshingly light and effective use of the dreaded PowerPoint. Of course, he was essentially telling us our model of fundraising is dead in the water, so it was a good thing the news was delivered in a manner that allowed for no slumber. So, let’s make the 2008Â Annual Convention even better than 2007 - please contribute session and speaker ideas! (One more comment - thanks to the Private-Sector Staff, especially Julie Peeler, Jay House and Valerie Beaman, for a job well done.)
Tagged with: AdvocacyBusinessEventsFundraisingVolunteerism
June 13th, 2007 at 09:18am
Gary Steuer
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