Americans for the Arts

George Patrick McLeer

As we sat down with our Congressmen this past March during National Arts Advocacy Day, one message kept coming out of my mouth, “In my community, we don't just 'fund' the arts, we use the arts.” I didn't arrive in Washington with that phrase in my mind. I didn't even think about it until after our “advocacy sessions,” the day before we visited Capitol Hill.

What alarms me the most about our annual trek to Capitol Hill is that our ask never seems to change— “We would like our Representative/Senator to support funding the NEA/Arts Education at this specific level.” We mention the ability to leverage the arts for economic impact, improve education, and make our lives more fulfilling, but at the end of the day we ask for money—either from the federal government or private citizens via tax policy shifts.

We need to stop asking for money and instead ask for a new vantage point.

Context is king.  I know, I know.  You thought content was king. Nope, it’s context.

It’s an honest mistake.  Content is incredibly important to arts marketing.  But context makes sure that we’re getting the right message (and content) to the right patrons via the right medium at the right time.

Jeff Poulin

Americans for the Arts has long been a national leader in the arts in America. For decades, the organization, too, has been involved in the advocacy of the inclusion of the arts as part of a quality education for all students in the United States.  Today, we work to ensure that all Americans have access to quality arts education in school, out of school, and throughout adulthood.

What makes this possible, you ask?

My answer: when people who care about arts education speak up and are heard.

The Arts Education Council of Americans for the Arts has crafted an event to help people like you from across the country build the skills necessary to speak up (advocate) and be heard (by elected officials, decision makers, the media or whoever you like!)

Every empty seat in a theatre isn't simply lost revenue; it's a lost opportunity to tackle one of the biggest challenges we can expect to face in the arts and culture business today - talent development.

I am not an expert by any means on the process or state of arts funding in America, but I can clearly see the dysfunction in our government at all levels. In today’s education system, there is a significant lack of equity regarding access to a quality arts education, often due to the location of the school. 

Norie Sato receiving the 2014 Public Art Network Award at Annual Convention

The Nashville PAN Preconference has come and gone, sniff sniff, I miss seeing everyone already. I was thrilled to be able to speak to so many of you and to be with smart, hard working people in the field. The PAN preconference is such a great time to reconnect with old colleagues and meet new people as well as to learn. And so many issues and things to learn just to keep up or to innovate do not fit into the time we had. A special thanks to those who worked so hard for us to organize the conference.

But in the spirit of constructive feedback and reflections back on the precon, I offer the following:

1)  The Preconference is TOO short. We had essentially only 1 day. 2 panel session slots do not give us enough time for the various issues that need covering. At least another half day would have allowed us at least another session slot to allow for some more breadth and depth would truly be desirable. The Nashville team worked hard to showcase their city…and maybe we (I) could have spent more time in it, as well.

Your users are telling you that your website is broken. They’re telling you what content they like and what they don’t. They tell you who they are and what they need. They’re even telling you how to prioritize your web initiatives. You have their stories and the ability to listen to them. Those stories, of course, are contained in your data.

Web analytics is often defined and accepted as measurement and reporting – numbers that tell us about traffic volumes and website performance. Although measurement is one of the more powerful components of digital (the ability to cheaply measure things in fine detail, with high accuracy, and in a real-time basis should not be overlooked), that on its own does not define analytics.