Arts Intranet

Amena Brown

I live my life as a full-time poet, writer, performer, speaker, typist, errand runner…depending on which day you catch me. This life is not as freewheeling as it seems. It is a tenuous balance and juggle of many different opportunities that somehow add up to not quite having to eat ramen noodles for every meal. A couple of years ago, I had a full-time gig writing for a Fortune 500 company, editing and composing documents geared towards employees. I was a poser: a creative brain who had seemingly by some fluke been hired to work for a company that achieved its bottom line via left brain initiatives. As a right brain thinker in a left-brain corporate world, I felt as if my creative thinking skills set could not help me win my boss’ approval or a promotion.

According to Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, right-brain skills sets will be a commodity in what is becoming the new marketplace. This means a couple of things: there are right-brain thinkers currently feeling stifled at jobs where there skills and talent will soon be of immense value and there are left-brain executives who will need to know the tools to manage right-brain ideas while completing left-brain agendas. Therein lies the rub.

Katherine Mooring

In thinking of “closing thoughts” for this most excellent round of online opinionating, I am wondering if anyone else has read Carol Mase’s fascinating paper, “The Adaptive Organization.” If not, you can download it online from Mase’s Cairn Consulting site (embed link: http://cairnconsultants.com/index.php). The piece is all about how we deal with change, both as individuals and as organizations. Mase’s theories have been percolating in my brain since I began writing the Monograph because, fundamentally, that’s also what the BCA findings invite us to consider.

“The Adaptive Organization” explores the effects of “destabilizing events” that disrupt organizations, diverting them from a comfortable status quo and directing them toward some unknown (often scary) future state.  As arts organizations, we might see such “events” as the economic recession, declining corporate support, fewer human resources…or, as it’s often seemed over the past few years, the perfect storm of all of these realities coming together at once. As many in our field have suggested, steering our way through the aftermath requires creativity and innovation. “Unfortunately,” as Mase writes, when “faced with the need for widespread institutional change, we resist, preferring, either consciously or unconsciously, to wait until destabilizing external forces beyond our control impose change upon us. We hold tight to the existing status quo, continually reinforcing what isn’t working.” Recognize anyone in that boat these days?

Andrew Witt

I recently had a conversation with one of our board members on how we (LAA’s and UAF’s) were addressing the economic issues that were forcing us (locally and nationally) to take a hard look at the traditional business model.

Over the past two years, and really well before that, the UAF field has seen reductions in traditional corporate philanthropy in favor of sponsorship marketing.  Coupled with that, constituent arts groups (grantees) have taken advantage of that shift to solicit and receive funding from the same corporate sources that were the major donors to united arts funds.

This was noted in the Triennial survey results as business advertising budgets and marketing/sponsorship budget support roughly equaled annual contributions budgets.  Further proof was noted in the Areas of Giving section that theatres and non-symphonic music received the largest percentage of support.  From these two findings, I see two main opportunities for our field:

• Sponsorship and Marketing support is here to stay and the associated benefits such as comp tickets, program recognition, VIP sponsor receptions and the like will continue to be a strong draw.
• Theatres and non-symphonic music have multiple performance runs and therefore more opportunities for exposure – more reach as the ad world says.  A three week 20 performance run even with fewer seats, has a greater impact than a one night concert in a large hall.

Indeed, I have a question to pose to the field.  Since this is a blog and we are asking for your comments, how about responding to this situation?

Megan Van Voorhis

I read a lot. And mostly, I read books and publications that fall outside of the arts and culture arena. For me, this practice helps me find new ideas from other fields that might be of value to my work. Perhaps it could also be considered my protection against paradigms. I first started examining paradigms in business school. My professor, Richard Osborne – aka “The Gorilla,” brought them to our attention in a case study. We noted that while paradigms can provide a framework for thinking about issues, they can also be a barrier to creative problem solving. The takeaway from that discussion was this: if you reach a block in solving a problem, or for that matter identifying a problem for a client, ask yourself what paradigms the organization is operating under and then ask yourself how the problem and solution would look if you changed the paradigm.

In reviewing the blog posts from my peers about business support of the arts, I almost wonder if we need a paradigm shift. It seems we might be heading in that direction, as many bloggers have commented on how the arts are helping business as a means to reinvigorate support for the arts. I wonder, however, if we could take that a step further. Instead of asking "How and why are businesses supporting the arts and how can we get them to do more of that?" Perhaps we should be asking "How can the arts and business work together for mutual gain?" How would that change our dialogue and the nature of our collaborations?

Since 1968, the Business Committee for the Arts (BCA) has conducted a field-wide survey of businesses to determine why they support the arts, to what extent they support the arts, and how they support the arts. Conducted by Shugoll Research, the 2010 BCA Triennial Survey of Business Support to the Arts is the only survey in the United States that tracks support from small, midsize, and large companies to provide the most complete view of the arts funding landscape from businesses nationwide.

Why Business Supports the Arts

What’s the most important determinant of why a business that gives to the arts might increase its support? Profitability. Businesses make decisions based on bottom line. After profitability, respondents chose a “link to social causes or education” as the next most important factor in deciding to support the arts.

For example, Northeast Utilities, a 2010 BCA 10 award recipient, has an ongoing partnership with one Hartford area elementary school.  A $500,000 grant from the NU Foundation provided funding to enable The R.J. Kinsella Elementary School to transform itself into a K-8 arts-based magnet school.  According to Northeast Utilities Chairman, President and CEO, Charles W. Shivery, “Northeast Utilities and its companies embrace the important role played by the arts in energizing the social, economic and educational fabric of our communities.”

It’s great to see so much discussion around the purpose of arts in the workplace, and also watching people speak out on how creativity has affected their professional lives. Especially in these times it is important to remember that the arts help businesses and communities flourish.

As we’ve all been watching funding steadily decline, it is important to talk about how we can resolve this. I think it is important to look to companies that are leading by example, companies that understand the importance of keeping the arts in their giving guidelines through these tough times.

Devon Energy Corporation, located in Oklahoma City, OK, is a great example of this. Company wide there is a deep understanding of the benefits of the arts.  John Richels, president and CEO of Devon Energy Corporation said “Arts organizations play an important role in our communities. The arts inspire innovation, promote creativity and foster collaboration – all qualities that are also important in business.” This sentiment is felt through out the entire company, from employee volunteerism to work place giving campaigns and board leadership.