
Mr. Todd Cunningham
Out of the Mouths of Babes: The Nation’s Youngest United Arts Fund Speaks to a Winning Tradition
Posted by Jun 04, 2019

Mr. Todd Cunningham
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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