Americans for the Arts is pleased to announce the release of the 2020 Statistical Report on Campaign Revenues of the Nation’s United Arts Funds during the Fiscal Years 2019 and 2020. During a singularly difficult year, UAFs rose to the challenge to secure needed funds for their communities, reporting aggregate 2020 campaign revenue of $73.9 million.
Christen Boone is the President & CEO of the Fund for the Arts in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the country’s largest privately funded regional arts agencies. She has developed thousands of unique partnerships between the creative and private sectors, driving workplace culture, client cultivation, project innovation, DEI initiatives, and social impact.
Tulsa has a storied history in the arts. As the one-time oil capital of the world, arts and cultural enterprises have been prevalent in our community for well over a century. We are still the smallest large city in the U.S. that maintains an opera company, a ballet company, and a symphony orchestra. Add to that renowned museums like Gilcrease and Philbrook, along with unique offerings like the Woody Guthrie Center, the Bob Dylan Archives, and the future OK Pop Museum, and you have the ingredients for a cultural tourism mecca. Despite a strong cultural community, when we started Arts Alliance Tulsa in 2012, local corporate giving was stuck at an average of 3% to the arts, while it was at 58% nationally if you combined corporate and workplace giving. After the first two years of AAT’s existence, overall giving to our individual member organizations (not including what AAT allocates) grew by 18%. We are a living example of a city that has seen all the boats rise with the tide as a result of the presence of our United Arts Fund.
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Art is a fundamental commodity of humanity. The arts and business are intricately linked and I firmly believe that one does not exist without the other. As an artist, arts entrepreneur, curator, and arts administrator who grew up and remains immersed in the economic and community development and small business world, I clearly see this truth which has played out in many ways in my lifetime.
“I believe Art has the power to change lives. The Arts breathe color and passion into cities and in Louisville, Kentucky that vibrancy is made possible through strong corporate partnerships. Corporate and creative find a unified voice, a more educated workforce, and a growing economy through collaboration and investment. In short, when business values the Arts, communities thrive.”
Allied Arts is Oklahoma’s only United Arts Fund (UAF), and is dedicated to raising financial support and advancing the arts in central Oklahoma. Since 1971 Allied Arts has raised more than $54 million in support for the community’s arts and cultural organizations. It funds 64 agencies whose work impacts more than 1 million people annually.
“My parents signed me up for violin lessons when I was six years old, and since that time the arts have been one of the most powerful and meaningful influences in my life. The arts inspire, provoke, heal, and educate - challenging us to think and act in new ways. In the Puget Sound, arts and business are inextricably linked at the core of the innovation and creativity for which the region is renowned. Each sector supports the other, and together make this community an extraordinary place to live, work, and play.”
“As CEO of the Arts & Business Council of Miami, it energizes me every day to serve as a thought leader and guide to link business with the arts, inspire creativity, and develop innovations for profitable partnerships with the 500+ arts groups we serve. For 30 years the Arts & Business Council has made Miami’s art scene bigger, better, and more professional by delivering sustainable solutions to keep the arts in business.
Throughout the summer of 2017, the Americans for the Arts Private Sector Initiatives department solicited responses to the FY2016 United Arts Fund Campaign Survey. In FY 2016, the 37 participating UAFs reported aggregate campaign revenue of $85.5 million during their campaigns that ended during 2016. These findings suggest that the united arts fundraising sector is continuing its recovery from the Great Recession.
Work for Art, the United Arts Fund campaign of Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), is hosting its first ever corporate battle of the bands. A celebration of employee creativity, the event will feature employee bands from some of Work for Art’s partner companies who will perform for family, friends, and co-workers.
Today, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) withdrew a misguided proposal, after receiving nearly 38,000 public comments—including joint comments signed by Americans for the Arts and 206 nonprofit organizations from across the sector.
The proposal would have permitted, but not required, charitable nonprofits to file a new, separate information return with the IRS by February 28 every year to “substantiate” contributions made to their organization of more than $250.
After 29 years of Army service, veteran Fred Johnson is leading efforts in a different kind of community building. Thanks to the veteran re-integration services of Where Opportunity Knox, Johnson found an exciting position as Director of Workplace Giving for Fund for The Arts. The organization, a United Arts Fund, raises money from the corporate community and elsewhere to support arts organizations in the Louisville area.
As part of its recently released Blueprint for Collective Action for the Arts initiative, Cincinnati-based United Arts Fund, ArtsWave, has announced its’ new strategy will allocate funding based on five community goals.
The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg recently received a significant grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to execute a public art project with a purpose as part of Bloomberg’s Public Art Challenge.
Last week, ArtsWave hosted the 2nd annual CincySings, a Cincinnati region-wide choral event that pits corporate choirs against one another in a friendly competition. For the second year in a row, Drew Lachey, a celebrity Cincinnati native and arts supporter, hosted the event. Lachey is best known for being a member of the pop group 98 Degrees and as the crowned champion of season two of Dancing with the Stars.
United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF) recently held its 35th annual Ride for the Arts in the city of Milwaukee. The event, which supports UPAF's United Arts Fund campaign, has become one of the largest one-day recreational bike rides, with major sponsors like MillerCoors. This year, over 5,000 riders raised more than $550,000 as part of the United Performing Arts Fund campaign.
ArtsWave, one of the longest running United Arts Funds (UAF) in the country, recently announced that it exceeded its 2015 campaign goal of $12.2 million to support arts organizations across Cincinnati and the region. A particular success of the campaign is the number of people in the region who support it–most contributions to the annual campaign are individual gifts in amounts less than $150. In 2015, ArtsWave added more than 7,660 new donors to the campaign.
In late December, Americans for the Arts released two reports that showcase the enduring strength and impact of United Arts Funds and Business Volunteers for the Arts® programs around the country. These programs focus on encouraging partnerships with the private sector through a mix of activities.
Americans for the Arts has just released its 2015-2017 strategic plan with a key focus on building recognition for the transformative power of the arts in all of our lives and communities in new ways.
October is the month to #ShowYourArt, meet up for Creative Conversations, and celebrate the role the arts and humanities have in shaping and improving our communities - it's National Arts and Humanities Month (NAHM)!
Bonita Coleman Stewart discusses the merits of ballet as a business metaphor, and credits her one-a-week ballet lessons with teaching her skills that helped her advance in the ranks at Google from a national industry director of automotive to her role today as Vice President of Partner Business Solutions. Ballet's training, choreography, the ensemble, and "preparing to jump" all offer their respective lessons and preperation for career challenges that Stewart has been able to face head-on. Read the full Fast Company article at the link below!
ArtsWave, one of the nation’s oldest united arts funds based in Cincinnati, announced that their recently completed 2014 campaign has been the most successful to date.
The Fund for the Arts, Louisville’s united arts fund, has announced that Christen Boone will replace Barbara Sexton Smith as President & CEO upon her retirement in August 2014.
In March 2014, the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) published its annual State of the Nonprofit Sector. Our VP of Research, Randy Cohen, breaks down the findings for us on ARTSBlog.
With less than 30 days left to reach its $1.70 million Campaign for the Arts goal, United Arts of Central Florida announced that it has attained 77 percent or $1.31 million. This places them ahead of last year’s campaign by 9.7 percent. Additionally, United Arts is expanding its United ArtsCard donor benefit, a buy-one-ticket-get-one-free and discount card, to include Broadway Across America.
United Arts Funds (UAFs) are private organizations that raise money in a combined effort, much like United Way, to broaden support for the arts. There are 59 UAFs nationwide, a decrease from 2003 when there were 66. Americans for the Arts' 2012-13 UAF Statistical Research and Revenue Trends provides the most currently available campaign totals for the nation's United Arts Funds. The 50 UAFs that participated reported aggregate FY2012 campaign totals of 97.5 million.
Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education, announced today that it is presenting the 2012 Michael Newton Award to Scott Provancher, president of the Arts & Science Council. Given annually since 1991, the Michael Newton Award recognizes exemplary leadership skills and extraordinary dedication to supporting the arts through a united arts fund, which is a combined effort to raise money on behalf of multiple arts institutions in the community.
