Arts Intranet

Americans for the Arts Annual Convention (AFTACON) regularly draws thousands of members of the arts world to one location for a whirlwind four days of workshops, recognition, plenaries, and arts excursions in some of the most incredible and dynamic cities in the country. There is never enough time to attend all the sessions I’m interested in. They all offer an insight into how art influences our economy, education, and communities – and how we visualize and interpret our world.

It’s safe to say the arts leadership landscape is changing. Given the external societal changes such as late-career professionals postponing retirement, highly-educated millennials entering the workforce poised to make meaningful contributions, and a more culturally diverse group of emerging leaders, arts organizations must recognize the urgency of these challenges and determine what structural changes or model implementations they will make to reconcile these forces impacting leadership in the arts sector.

In Moving Arts Leadership Forward, it is important for organizations not to remain stagnant. They must understand the state of the arts sector and realize that change is both imminent and inevitable. Working in stagnation will stunt the growth of the arts administration ecosystem, particularly if early- and mid-career leaders are underutilized and arts organizations are left unable to serve their constituents to their full capacity. How will these emerging leaders be able to have real impact within their organizations with limited influence in the workplace?

Elena Muslar

“We have got to diversify our audiences!” How many times can you recall hearing this phrase in meeting after meeting? And yes, of course, the mantra still rings true. But, what are the ways in which target marketing campaigns reach out to those diverse audiences?

“It’s Black History Month! Let’s offer a special on tickets to ‘A Raisin in the Sun’! The Latin show is coming to town; let’s advertise our banners along the streets of East LA.” I could go on, but now is not the time to dwell on past mechanisms of “outreach” done with fairly good intentions. This is the time to go beyond talking about these kinds of basic ideals of promotion and start changing our values towards active relations. It’s the time to chart the future and put models into play that not only shift, but flip, the paradigms set in place that don’t currently reflect expanding communities meant to be served by arts organizations.

As a young woman of mixed race, being half-Black/half-Belizean, I am a product of a community that was just “out of reach”; that desperately needed the “out-reaching”. When more criminals cross the threshold of your apartment complex than high school graduates, you learn early on that you have to be strong enough to stretch your reach further when that reach from the other side doesn't make it far enough. As a “Next Gen” arts leader, this has been a huge inspiration for me to have a voice that extends beyond my community and into those buildings laden with white walls. I see myself as a bridge between worlds and am committed to paving roads that provide better access to communities resembling mine.

Abe Flores

The future of art administration is in good, capable, and innovative hands. This week’s Emerging Leaders Blog salon demonstrated a commitment to art as a public good, as a solution to a myriad of social problems, and as an intrinsic piece to the full development of the self and community. The blog salon also gave us a peak into the future, introduced us to new models for the arts, and a new visions for arts leaders & their development. Most importantly the blog salon introduced us to exciting leaders – new, young, emerging, experienced, mid-career, seasoned (marinated?), established, and/or just plain awesome.

This month, Americans for the Arts releases its 2015-2017 strategic plan. For an organization that's been around 55 years you might wonder, so what? The truth is, Americans for the Arts actually lives by its strategic plan, and this one, more than ever, focuses on our number one priority: building recognition for the transformative power of the arts in all of our lives and communities in new ways.

We have always been working to help decision makers understand the impact of the arts in building better places to live and work. Through research, professional services, advocacy, visibility and policy development, Americans for the Arts has remained committed to educating decision makers about the impact of the arts, increasing resources and policies for the arts and arts education, and generating awareness that the arts are more than a great way to spend your Saturday night, and in fact, change lives.

There’s absolutely nothing revolutionary about leadership development. All across the country (and the world) opportunities to enhance and develop one’s professional skills seem to be popping up in every corner. But when the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia (ABC) won a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, we chose to take leadership development in a direction that encouraged arts administrators to not just think about themselves as nonprofit leaders but as Leaders, with a capital “L”.

According to Americans for the Art’s latest Creative Industries Report, the City of Philadelphia has the fifth highest percentage of arts-related jobs in a comparison of the 100 largest cities in nation (4.94%, including both for-profit and nonprofit creative industries). At number five, our creative community is both ahead of the pack and has room to grow, and what better way to grow this sector than to invest in its leaders.