The Private Sector Initiatives department of Americans for the Arts is leading efforts to stimulate additional support from the three major areas of the private sector: business, foundations, and individuals. This support, which accounts for 40 percent of an arts organization’s budget, occurs across a broad spectrum of engagements from audience participation to volunteerism to board service and leadership to arts-based corporate training to sponsorship and funding. This work includes promoting partnership between the arts and business, in part through the national network of Arts & Business Councils, Business Committee for the Arts, Business Volunteers for the Arts affiliates, United Arts Funds (UAFs) and the Private Sector Council.
The Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts
The Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts supports national programs that build stronger private-sector support for the arts. In addition to working to stimulate more financial support for the arts, efforts are also made to stimulate and support voluntarism, services the arts can offer to business, the transfer of management expertise from business to the arts, and sharing of knowledge and best practices. Local Arts & Business Council chapters also pursue this mission at a local level. The Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts serves as their “national headquarters." For more information, view a brief history on The Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts.
Programs:
- Arts Based Corporate Training
Arts Based Corporate Training helps corporations to surface creativity through high-quality learning programs, custom-designed, and delivered by the world's leading experts. - Business Volunteers for the Arts
A program that connects business professionals with nonprofit arts organizations. - MetLife Foundation National Arts Forum Series
The MetLife Foundation National Arts Forum Series brings together nonprofit and private-sector professionals to examine pressing issues facing arts organizations around the country. - National Arts Marketing Project
National Arts Marketing Project is designed to help arts organizations better understand the marketplace in which they operate and recognize the benefits of an aggressive, outward-looking audience development effort.
Affiliates | Events | Get Involved | BVA Managers
Business Committee for the Arts
The mission of the Business Committee for the Arts (BCA) is to ensure that the arts flourish in America by encouraging, inspiring, and stimulating businesses to support the arts in the workplace, in education, and in the community. The Business Committee for the Arts, founded in 1967 by David Rockefeller, provides businesses of all sizes with the services and resources necessary to develop and advance partnerships with the arts that benefit business, the arts, and the community.
Get started now, click here, to read the simple things your company can do to support the arts!
- THE BCA TEN: Best Companies Supporting the Arts in America
A national list created by the Business Committee for the Arts (BCA) to recognize businesses of all sizes for their exceptional involvement with the arts that enrich the workplace, education, and the community. These companies set the standard of excellence and serve as role models for others to follow. - Forum for New Ideas
The Forum for New Ideas is designed to bring about ideas that transcend traditional boundaries when thinking about the connection between business and the arts.
A United Arts Fund (UAF) is a combined or federated appeal for arts funding conducted annually to raise unrestricted money on behalf of three or more arts, culture, and/or science organizations. While these campaigns traditionally focus on corporate, individual, and workplace giving, they also may include government support. Traditionally, distribution of the pooled funds has been for unrestricted operating support, but options for special projects and donor designated funding are increasingly being included. United Arts Funds are community-specific fundraising organizations that distribute earned funds to the arts organizations in their communities. For more information, view a brief history on the United Arts Fund.
Created in 2009, the Private Sector Council combines the efforts of the Arts & Business Councils, the Business Committee for the Arts and the United Arts Funds, along with other local arts agencies that have as their goal increased private sector support for the arts. The Council is an elected body designed to provide advice and guidance to Americans for the Arts on the design and execution of programs and services that advance private sector support for the arts in America.
Strategic Focus:- Identify and develop leaders from the Private Sector for the arts.
- Assist with the development and implementation of a national campaign aimed at communicating the value of the arts to the private sector in an effort to increase private sector support for the arts.
- Increase resources for the arts from the Private Sector.
Jim Clark, President & CEO, LexArts, Lexington, KY, chair
Deborah Jordy, Executive Director, Colorado BCA, Denver, CO, vice-chair
Council Bios | Resources