Arts Intranet

Located in the historic 1850s gold rush town of Jacksonville, Oregon, Britt Music & Arts Festival is the Pacific Northwest's premier outdoor summer performing arts festival. Since 1963, Britt has annually presented dozens of summer concerts, featuring world-class artists in classical music, jazz, blues, folk, bluegrass, world, pop, and country music. President and CEO Donna Briggs oversees a full-time staff of 14 and seasonal staff of 45, manages the operations of a four-month summer music festival, and maintains relationships with internal and external stakeholders along with future supporters.

As the 2020 election gets closer and many voters are already voting by mail or in-person, arts organizations around the country are doing their part to help voters make their vote count. This election is crucial to electing leaders at each level of government who will ensure that funding for the arts is protected and accessible for all. In this month’s Member Briefing, Americans for the Arts members Sheila Smith, executive director of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, and Nate McGaha, executive director of Arts North Carolina, discussed using the arts to Get Out the Vote. They shared their experiences conducting voter outreach in their communities including their candidate forums, messaging about important voting deadlines, and partnership with other local, and national organizations including ArtsVote. If you missed the briefing live, a recording of the event is available now on ArtsU. Member Briefings are our quarterly opportunity to talk to you about what’s happening now, so mark your calendars to stay up-to-date on what’s happening at Americans for the Arts and across the sector. 

This piece by Laura Bruney of the Arts & Business Council of Miami was originally published on their blog, www.artsbizmiami.org/ArtsBizBlog.

Alyce Robertson is Executive Director of Miami’s Downtown Development Authority. The Great Recession wreaked havoc on downtown Miami, with empty condos and a surplus of office space that even the most bullish economists thought would take a decade to absorb. But the turn-around has been quicker and better than imagined. A 24-7 community has emerged as thousands of new residents and business professionals flood the district seeking a more urban lifestyle. Today, Miami has reversed course and emerged as a true metropolis and international destination for commerce, tourism, and arts & culture. Alyce shares her views with us on the value of the arts to downtown Miami.

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.

Welcome to Americans for the Arts’ latest blog salon, hosted by a hybrid of development and private sector partners. “Giving Time and Treasure to the Arts” can be interpreted in many ways depending on who’s doing the talking. It can mean raising support from corporate partners, building relationships with passionate individual philanthropists, engaging employee volunteers, or harnessing the power of creativity to increase productivity and happiness in the workplace. We welcome you to join us throughout the week to learn what “giving time and treasure to the arts” means to our members around the country, as well as some of our sector’s greatest supporters.

The role played by volunteers and philanthropists from the largest city to the smallest town is key to fostering a thriving arts sector in America. Both elements that this blog salon focuses on are important: the time and talent of volunteers provide capabilities and experiences that many arts organizations do not have the resources to procure; and the donation of funds, services, and other “treasures” allows the field not only to produce great art, but also to be the economic drivers and job creators that we know the arts to be. The decision to give to the arts is essential, and we make that choice and encourage others to make the same one because the arts themselves are essential.

This blog post is an extended interview from the Spring issue of Americans for the Arts member magazine Arts Link. Americans for the Arts’ Emerging Leader program celebrates its 15^th anniversary this year in 2015. Leslie Ito was one of the founding members and she is interviewed by another founding member, Graham Dunstan, Americans for the Arts vice president of marketing and communications.

Featured Americans for the Arts member: Leslie Ito

Position: president and CEO, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center

Please tell our readers about your organization.

The Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) was founded in 1972 and is a two-acre campus in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles. We have a five-story building that houses different nonprofit organizations, but we also manage a professional gallery space, a tea room, a ukulele café and store, a large plaza designed by renowned artist Isamu Noguchi, and the 880-seat Aratani Theatre.