ARTSblog

Tim McClimon

Historic Preservation may not be the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of the arts or corporate philanthropy, but the preservation, restoration, and reuse of cultural assets like historic buildings, monuments, and parks can revitalize neighborhoods, stimulate tourism and local economies, and preserve our natural resources by conserving energy and reducing our carbon footprint.

American Express has a long history of partnerships in historic preservation.

We made our first historic preservation grant in 1974 to the National Park Service to assist with the planning for the renovation and restoration of the Statue of Liberty as part of the U.S. Bicentennial Celebration in 1976.

The company went on to sponsor the first national cause-related marketing campaign aimed at restoring the Statue of Liberty in 1983. (Our first corporate involvement with the Statue of Liberty actually dates back to 1885 when American Express asked company employees to contribute money toward the construction of the Statue’s pedestal–our first employee giving campaign!)

Our first international grant in historic preservation was made in 1977 to help save the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. American Express was the first private organization to donate funds to UNESCO for this restoration. We went on to work with the World Monuments Fund in the establishment of the Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in 1996, and we were the corporate sponsor of this list for the next ten years, helping to preserve 126 historic sites in 62 countries. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6%

Kristen Engebretsen

Our patchwork approach to providing arts education has gotta stop!

I recently read an article about a school that won a $25,000 contest by HGTV to redesign their arts room, and it actually left me upset. Why, you ask?

The short answer? I’m tired of the band-aid approach. The stop gap measures.

It’s the same reason I had to stop watching Oprah’s Favorite Things and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. For every deserving person that is honored on these shows, I know someone who is just as needy and just as deserving.

As I watched the following video about makeovers, I couldn’t help but wonder if that money could be put to better use:

What would I do with $25,000? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%

Throughout the country, many performing groups have taken to public forums to display Random Acts of Culture™ (supported generously by the Knight Foundation) covering all art forms including music, dance, and theater.

Just a few weeks ago, the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte captured this dance performance from their local airport:

But there are so many other examples to choose highlight including a string quartet at an outlet mall in Georgia:

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 13%

Mary-Helen Rossi

Anyone with their eyes open today can’t help but wonder if those “gloom and doomers” might at least be partly right — should we be worried for our organizations’ survival?

And if so, with many arts organizations closing their doors, what we do to keep ours open?

CREATIVE PRAGMATISM

For decades now, arts programs have gotten funded based on their case studies (we all have terrific stories, don’t we?) and assertions as to the benefits of the arts. And why not? Those benefits are real, and incredibly valuable. But case studies and avowals aren’t exactly tangible and they just aren’t cutting it any more.

TIME FOR A CHANGE?

Let’s face it — human beings do not like to change, but I’m not willing to bet I’ll be okay if I don’t, are you?

Well then, how can we change — what’s the direction to head in? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 16%

Merit, Aesthetic and Ethical by Marcia Muelder Eaton

“Great art rewards sustained attention.” This simple theory comes from philosopher Marcia Muelder Eaton, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota.

In my personal experience, it is true. Eaton has been considering art and writing about aesthetics for a few decades. Her early publications get to the heart of this definition but a later book, Merit, Aesthetic and Ethical (Oxford Press 2001) offers an inclusive concept of art, aesthetics, and value that is very relevant to the themes of Fusing Arts Culture and Social Change.

In that book, Eaton suggests that “formalists in the world of aesthetics ignore the roles that artworks play in the life of community and conversely, ignore the ways in which communities determine the very nature of what counts as artistic or aesthetic experiences that exist within them.” I recommend her writings in general and this book specifically.

I share Eaton’s work here because my enthusiasm for the conversation raised by Fusing Arts Culture and Social Change is not to call out the major institutions and question whether they deserve support, but rather to encourage sustained attention for small, mid-size, and community-based arts groups that are rooted in communities, neighborhoods, ethnic, and tribal traditions. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%

Barbara Schaffer Bacon

Grantmakers in the Arts asks, “What can private foundations learn from public funders who are working with marginalized communities?”

I think public support programs, some old, and some more current have a few lessons to offer. Though neither was without problems or controversy, both Roosevelt’s Federal Arts Projects in the 1930s and The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) in the 1970s suggest that light structure can produce great results.

They provide evidence that talented artists will answer the call and can produce great works that are relevant to and reflective of the communities for which they are created. While the Federal Art Project was more prescriptive, artists had a very public platform and some latitude to create their work. The public works created and the artist’s interaction with the public is credited with stimulating national interest in American art and laying the groundwork for the National Endowment for the Arts to be established.

As a jobs (not an arts) program, CETA had a looser structure. Artists and creative administrators were deployed, often creating their own job descriptions as they went to work in neighborhoods and community centers around the country; but they found their way and many of the programs created had staying power. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9%

Libby Maynard

There is a movement afoot for which I’ve been waiting for a long time.

Here in California in the last several years, the James Irvine Foundation conducted several studies and issued reports about arts ecology in California and engagement in the arts by diverse audiences, including folk and traditional arts.

The data was so powerful that Irvine is refocusing its grantmaking efforts “to promote engagement in the arts for all Californians, the kind that embraces and advances the diverse ways that we experience the arts, and that strengthens our ability to thrive together in a dynamic and complex social environment.”

The most exciting report is Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation, by WolfBrown.

They are specifically talking about active engagement, not passive, such as attending a concert. By no means is the Irvine Foundation abandoning the concept of excellence in the arts, but recognizing that there is a broad range of accomplishment that is equally relevant, perhaps more so to community vitality. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6%

Richard Stein

When government support is reduced or non-existent, when philanthropic support wanes due to the sagging stock market, and when corporate support is increasingly tied to direct shareholder interests, the local arts agency funding model is in jeopardy.

Unlike the organizations we serve—the producers and presenters of art—arts services organizations don’t typically incite passion for the cause the way a love for Mozart, Mondrian, or Mamet will. The major gift model of cultivating members up the ladder into large donors is far more difficult when your product is a grantwriting workshop as opposed to an opera production.

A trending topic in recent years is “social enterprise.” The term means something slightly different to different people. It often reflects the creation of a for-profit company to serves philanthropic goals.

Social enterprises may also be adjunct funding mechanisms to traditional nonprofit organizations or agencies. One of the biggest examples of this in the arts world is the California Arts Council.

When its general fund allocation was eliminated by the state legislature (except for the $1 million required match to its National Endowment for the Arts block grant), the council was forced to rely entirely upon the proceeds from selling its “arts license plate,” designed by famous California pop-artist Wayne Thiebaud, and introduced in 1994. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6%

Bruce Whitacre

“Our projects have to have a beginning, a middle and an end.”

“Don’t bring me your menu of options, A-level for $10,000, B-level for $15,000. Let’s just talk about what you’re doing and let me figure out how we can be part of it.”

“We’ve been tasked to put the A for Arts into STEM for the next Clinton Global Initiative meeting.”

These are not foundation executives or nonprofit executive directors talking. These are community relations executives at three Fortune 500 companies.

I also saw this phenomenon at the IEG sponsorship conference last spring, when GE and Xerox explained how they are using sponsorship to enter a new country or demonstrate logistics prowess through a sports franchise. Or a company that uses its pro bono work on behalf of a nonprofit to develop in-house expertise that will be resold to the commercial market.

What does all this mean to me? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10%

Krista Lang Blackwood

How often do we artists walk into a company supportive of the arts and ask, “What can we do for you?”

Do I hear crickets?

Yep. Those are definitely crickets.

Here’s how it usually happens; we walk in and immediately start defending our existence, and then we ask for money. We tell companies what kind of a public relations boon it will be to give to the arts, outline how we’ll use the logo in our materials, talk about wording for sponsorship, and then wait for them to write the check.

If they don’t write the check, we grumble about how they just don’t understand. Then we come back in a couple of months and try again.

What we should do is find a way to serve the businesses who serve us with sponsorships. The former mayor of Kansas City, where I live, commenting on nonprofit/city government partnerships, said, “I love nonprofits and think they deserve city support. But only if they provide a service better than the city can.”

So how can we provide a service? And if we start to think along those lines, will we lose our art? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 8%

Bruce Whitacre

In this economic climate, reaching out to high-net-worth individuals, or the companies that seek to engage them, can be a touchy subject for the arts.

The fact is, income inequality and the incredible wealth accumulated by a small percentage of our population have created great opportunities in terms of prospects and their passions. But we must temper our pursuit of these individuals with an appreciation of our broader public purpose. It can be challenging to face these facts and see an opportunity in them without losing our focus.

First, the facts: arts audiences are substantially wealthier, more influential, and better educated than the population as a whole.

At the recent Innovators Forum, organized by the National Corporate Theatre Fund (NCTF) and The Nederlander Organization for theatre marketers and corporate relations staffs, we heard from two experts in the luxury marketing field, the incredible Jim Taylor of The Harrison Group and Greg Furman, founder and president of the Luxury Marketing Council.

We sought their views on the perspective of the affluent on theatre, and their observations were quite insightful. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9%

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6%

Founded by Steve Orr back in 1994, a former Wall Street dude and co-founder of his own consulting firm Orr Associates, Inc. (OAI); he saw the critical need for infrastructure support for New York City’s youth organizations. Since its’ creation, Steve has helped raise over $37 million for NYC youth!

How do they do it?

“By applying best practices from the corporate and nonprofit sectors we empower our partner nonprofits with the tools to achieve sustainable growth.”

It’s a multi-layered board structure at Youth, I.N.C. which includes a formal Board of Directors (governs the organization, providing financial oversight and strategic direction); the Consulting Advisory Board (recruits corporate professionals to serve on the boards of our nonprofit partners); the Sustaining Board (designed to leverage the experiences, insight, and expertise of former board members still committed to building and investing in the future of Youth, I.N.C.); and the Young Professionals Committee (organizes fundraising events, learning opportunities, and volunteer projects for young professionals). Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10%

"The Art of Education" Facebook App

Nothing inspires that good ol’ American competitive spirit like the smell of fall. Football games, World Series fanatics, and chili cook-offs are around every corner and on every television channel.

And it’s always a good day when we can take that internal drive to win and put it towards something good – like raising money for arts education. Winning this game is even more important as students and teachers across the country continue to face record budget cuts that threaten arts education programs.

As part of its second annual “Art of Education” program, KRIS Wine is teaming with Americans for the Arts to award 16 schools in the United States a total of $25,000 to improve academic achievement through arts education.

Why does KRIS Wine want to make a difference?

Seventh-generation KRIS winemaker, Franz Haas, is passionate about the arts. He brings art to the exterior of his wines with labels designed by Italian artist, Riccardo Schweizer (1925-2004) who studied with both Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró.

From now until November 30, 2011, you can join KRIS Wine’s efforts to help support arts education programs in America’s K-12 public schools. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 12%

Gladstone Payton

On October 18, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee held a hearing titled “Tax Reform Options: Incentives for Charitable Giving” partially in response to the ever-changing dynamics regarding proposals for tax reform, job creation, and deficit reduction swirling around the Nation’s Capital.

Lowering and capping the value of tax deduction to charities for the top wage earners under the tax code has been proposed by the Obama Administration in recent years to help raise revenue to help curb national deficits, pay for the health care reform and fund the now scaled-down American Jobs Act.

Since being removed from the jobs bill, treatment of itemized deductions such as the charitable deduction has become part of the growing dialogue about tax reform, sparking heated debates on whether a cap on such deductions would have a negative effect on the giving patterns of donors to charity and giving rise to the committee hearing.

The nonprofit arts sector (including Americans for the Arts) has been working closely with such organizations as Independent Sector, the Alliance for Charitable Reform and the Council of Nonprofits to ensure that any changes to charitable giving not be negatively impacted especially during the economic downturn. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7%