Americans for the Arts

The 'cast' of "The Adventures of Little Noodle."

Collectively, we know the arts accomplish more than what meets the eye (or the ear), but sometimes there are partnerships which are attention grabbing for their creative approach.

The collaboration between Aetna and the Center for Puppetry Arts is one of those partnerships.

Well...whose attention wouldn’t be pulled towards a puppet called ‘Little Noodle’?

'Little Noodle' is a new puppet created by Atlanta-based Center for Puppetry Arts in collaboration with Aetna. The Adventures of Little Noodle is one of the Center’s plays addressing health and wellness, as part of their Healthy Children/Prevent Childhood Obesity Initiative.

Aetna has been committed to being at the forefront of this issue in the healthcare field and sees a strong tie to the effectiveness of messaging through the arts.

The arts can be a strong vehicle for a business’s message and the strength of programs like Aetna’s, is built on the power and reach of the arts.

Tim McClimon

Much has been written about the current state of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and depending on your point of view, its waxing or waning influence inside the world’s largest corporations.

While it may be true that some companies have de-emphasized their CSR programs while they were fighting for survival or focused on maintaining some semblance of order, I think corporate social responsibility will continue to grow in importance inside most major publicly traded companies – particularly those who are interested in enhancing their reputations with stakeholders (and isn’t that just about every company?).

Here are five trends in CSR that I think are worth watching in 2011 and 2012. These aren’t new – most of them have been around for years – but I think they will gain more attention in the coming year.

1. Responsibility as a company value

While you would expect to see words like “responsibility,” “sustainability,” “respect,” and “citizenship” in mission statements and corporate values at companies like Ben & Jerry’s, Tom’s of Maine, and Starbucks, these concepts are showing up in statements of companies like Adobe, PepsiCo, and Walmart as well.

Olga Garay

The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) is pleased to announce that we have received an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), one of only 51 grants awarded nationwide.

DCA will receive a $250,000 award, the largest grant amount available, to support the design of the Watts Historic Train Station Visitors Center and Artist Pathways. Principal partners are the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC), as well as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which is already providing preservation services for the Watts Towers.

Our Town is the NEA’s new leadership initiative focused on creative placemaking projects. In creative placemaking, partners from both public and private sectors come together to strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region around arts and cultural activities.

We all know we should be doing more of it—heading down to the local soup kitchen to ladle some cream of potato or signing up for a Habitat for Humanity build to put our hammering skills to good use. Sure, volunteering is great for society, but besides leaving us with that warm and fuzzy feeling, what are the benefits?

According to a recent study published by the large accounting firm Deloitte, many workers ages 21-35 (or “millennials”) are willingly volunteering their time. The millennials who volunteer are overall more likely to be: optimistic about their work environment, proud to work for their employer, satisfied with their career progression and more likely to recommend their company to a friend when compared to workers who volunteer very little or not at all.

If you’re picturing CPAs wearing aprons and hairnets at the soup kitchen, it’s time to rethink your definition of the word “volunteering.”

Blogger Hoong Yee's sketch of Stephanie Madden.

Does this happen to you at a convention?

I find myself feeling being swept under by the torrent of talk, ideas, cool people to follow up with, session after session of topics I am intrigued by and of course, the beautiful San Diego weather, and views of the bay are a constant distraction as well.

The fear pounding in my heart is, “What difference can I make now, right now?”

Where to start, who to talk to, what part of the world first?

I hate when this happens. So bad for the skin.

So I was delighted to hear a poetic piece of advice cut through a cavernous ballroom, something that Stephanie A. Madden, the Arts and Cultural Manager of Bank of America, shared with us in answer to this very sentiment at a conference session at the Americans for the Arts 2011 Annual Convention in San Diego.

A sketch of Jean by blog post author Hoong Yee.

I love listening to smart women and being surrounded by many of them this weekend at the Americans for the Arts Convention in San Diego. There are ballrooms filled with people who are committed to working in the arts and with the arts to make life better.

Of course we know how the arts affect how we live together in this world. We are the arts people. However, I often forget that sometimes we need to think of ourselves as creative industries and creative exports especially when working in a global mindset.

After I stumbled out of the sunlight, properly caffeinated and ready to begin my conference blogging for the day, I  found myself in a session entitled, "Building Bridges: International Cultural Exchange" featuring two innovators, Jean A. Bonilla and Stephanie A. Madden. 

Adriane Fink

Social Media. We know we need it. But are we really getting the most out of our Facebook accounts and Twitter feeds?

Corporations across the country are paying close attention to the online craze and have discovered that using social media to partner with nonprofits allows them to reach the broadest possible audience in a cost-effective way. The results show a stunning use of creativity benefiting the nonprofit world. Let me share a few statistics with you.

With over 500 million active users, one in every 13 people on earth now uses Facebook. Over 50 percent log in every day. 48 percent of 18-34 year olds check Facebook when they wake up, and 28 percent do so before getting out of bed. Not to be left behind, Twitter has also rapidly expanded, with over 200 million registered accounts and 155 million tweets per day.

Emily Peck

At last fall’s Independent Sector Conference, more than 900 leaders from the foundation world, corporate philanthropy programs, and nonprofit organizations were moved by the arts...literally, as choreographer Liz Lerman had conference attendees out of their seats reenacting conference highlights through dance (Check out the video below!).

Inviting Ms. Lerman to bring her magic to the conference was just one of the ways that Americans with the Arts partnered with Independent Sector to infuse the event with the arts.

Americans for the Arts President & CEO Bob Lynch explained why Americans for the Arts was ensuring that the arts were woven throughout the conference in his presentation at the opening plenary session: 

Spain's Landarbaso Choir

As this title suggests, corporations ARE still funding the arts, and they’re finding creative ways to do so.

Recent funding cuts have hit mid-sized and small cities throughout the country particularly hard. This is especially true in rural and underserved areas.

Although not quite underserved/rural, Cincinnati has become a great example of how cultural events, festivals, concerts, and competitions bring visibility, income, and fun to communities throughout the country.

Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G) recognizes the unique influence of the arts as well. The company has become the first major corporate sponsor for the World Choir Games 2012. The biennial choral music competition is the largest of its kind in the world and is expected to draw some 90,000 people to the Cincinnati area next summer. 

Visitors enjoy "the party on the painting."

One night in mid-May, the coolest place in Cincinnati was a party on top of a painting.

It was Cincinnati Fashion Week and we were all smack in the intersection of art and business. We went to parties celebrating Andy Warhol in the former Contemporary Arts Center, talks about fashion art at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and more.

Thursday night, on a beautiful summer evening, Landor Associates (a global branding and design firm with offices in London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, Cincinnati and more) hosted a party celebrating graphic fashion.

Landor Cincinnati is perfectly positioned to host a fashion party because it’s located in one of our city’s iconic department store buildings. Built in 1878, the Shillito’s Department Store location was a premiere shopping destination for the local business that became Macy’s (also headquartered here in Cincinnati). 

Adam Huttler

[During last week’s Private Sector Blog Salon], fellow guest blogger Diane Ragsdale got me thinking after she posed the question: what would have happened if the nonprofit regional theatre movement had embraced (and had the opportunity to embrace) the L3C instead of the 501(c)(3) corporation?

This is an interesting and subtly radical thought experiment. Diane is effectively proposing that we rewind history and build what we now think of as the nonprofit arts sector as a socially-conscious for-profit arts sector instead. Has the horse left the barn or is it really possible to reinvent ourselves at such a fundamental level?

In truth, I’ve always believed that the alleged conflict between artistic purity and commercial success was largely overblown. If anything it’s a healthy tension, not an insurmountable chasm. Certainly there are arts organizations whose missions are to push aesthetic envelopes and operate at the leading edge of craft and artistry. They will always need philanthropic subsidy to survive, and so they should probably be 501(c)(3)s regardless. But these brave, unpopular pioneers are the exception, not the rule. Most of us operate in the vast middle ground between Broadway and The Wooster Group. 

Adam Huttler

The L3C (low-profit limited liability company) construct has been getting a ton of virtual ink lately. As a way of establishing my dubious credentials, I’ll note that I was among the first in our field to note the arrival of the L3C, and I’ve written and debated about it quite a bit since then. Fractured Atlas formed an L3C subsidiary for our insurance program back in 2008.

All of that is just to establish why I’m having trouble thinking of something new and inspiring to say about the L3C. I suppose it also explains why I’m interviewed on the subject frequently enough that I can confidently lump the questioners into two categories: (1) big thinkers – often grad students or consultants - who see tremendous potential in the L3C but have only a vague concept of its real legal and financial contours, and (2) jaded skeptics – often professors or attorneys – who know just enough about the L3C to have serious doubts about its applicability to the arts. 

Margy Waller

Before we start developing the public policy campaign to maintain status quo for charitable status and deductions, let’s make sure we know why we are doing it – and that it’s really a good fit for us.

Reviewing all the blog posts in this Salon in one read, I’m struck by the number of writers pointing out limitations of the special status that makes donors to nonprofit arts organizations eligible for a tax deduction.

Patricia Martin encourages us to rethink the slavish devotion to 501(c)(3) status if we want our organizational structure to keep up with the “rising generation [that] has already changed how it consumes culture and interacts with institutions." 

While the official Private Sector Blog Salon concluded on Friday (5/20), the conversations and debates were so lively that we will continue to add more posts throughout the week here on ARTSblog.

Some of our dedicated bloggers from last week were willing to respond and add to the conversation beyond the week, so who are we to stop them?

In addition to our regular content, you'll see new blogs discussing new business models, fundraising, and other subjects from the Salon posted almost everyday.

Feel free to continue the dialogue in the comment section of the new posts or go back and read the old ones. 

Helena Fruscio

In The Arts & New Philanthropy, James Underclofer’s states that “philanthropy/investor sites such as Kickstarter are revolutionizing giving.”

Delegation of an individual’s dollars is less tethered to incorporation status, and more to the donor/investor/client’s “personal motivations” - as Underclofer noted in his students.

So how do both for-profit and nonprofits adjust to this new climate?

They must change the way they communicate their message and engage potential donor/investor/clients.

So what is that change that equals success in this shifting environment? 

Valerie Beaman

What an astonishingly great group of bloggers and commentators!

Thanks to bloggers Rebecca Novick, Colin Tweedy, James Undercofler, Marc Vogl, Margy Waller, Claudia Bach, Adam Huttler, Janet Brown, Christy Bolingbroke, Helena Fruscio, Scott Provancher, Paul Miller, Kate Marquez, Patricia Martin, Diane Ragsdale, Jeanie Duncan, and Maud Lyon for writing such thoughtful and provocative pieces!

Thanks are also due to Andrew Taylor and The Artful Manager, and all the other commentators, Tweeters, and Facebook friends.

It seems to me that the focus on new entities actually represents growing pains; a wake-up call to re-examine what you really want to accomplish – not what your funders want, not the areas your business entity mandates. 

Claudia Bach

I was at a civic leadership gathering yesterday that focused on issues of community. A couple of things mentioned got me trying to connect ideas I’ve not thought of as being interconnected and trying to imagine how they might play out in support of smaller arts organizations. Since these are just percolating ideas – or really questions – bear with me.

Cooperatives, as a business model, have been around for over 150 years. Here in the Northwest we have a nurtured a number of interesting cooperatives including the hugely successful REI, Group Health (one of the first health care cooperatives), as well as a strong array of food co-ops, some apartments that use that structure, and a smattering of artists’ co-ops including the stalwart Soil Gallery. 

Margy Waller

We’ve all been reading about suggestions for policies to address federal budget issues – including possible big changes to the tax deductibility of contributions to nonprofits. Scary, right? Opportunity, maybe!

Setting aside for a moment the structural and legal issues regarding tax status, nonprofit arts and culture organizations are struggling on the fundraising playing field. Plus, arts organizations are challenged by public perception about the role of arts and charities in community.

We know that when people think about the arts, they’re likely to think first of entertainment. That’s cool – when we are looking for consumers and trying to sell tickets or memberships.

But, when we’re seeking contributions for day-to-day operations - this perception makes our work a lot harder. 

Jeanie Duncan

(Note: This post is a continuation of Part 1 and Part 2 posted earlier this week)

Implementation: A Strategy-Focused Business Model

Our closest stakeholders and constituents had been a part of the research and discovery process with us along the way, participating in information gathering and report-out sessions. While we had been together through this process, changes were going to be significant, and nothing makes reality more sobering than implementation. The change, while it wasn’t easy, was supported by the voice of our community-at-large.

We rolled out our new plan and its supporting tactics beginning in spring 2009. Most notably, we:

•    Recruited new leadership reflecting the diversity of our community.
•    Formed teams to work on launching advisory groups for Hispanic/Latino, African American, and young adults with the goal of building relationships and engaging people in these sectors. 

Marc Vogl

Does anyone play fantasy sports?

I was in a fantasy basketball league last year. I did terribly - came in last place, a very distant last place.

I got into it partly because I have some interest in following the NBA, mostly because a friend of mine needed a 12th person for his league. But there was a little part of me that decided to try it because I thought I could learn something about how using data can drive decision making and, hopefully, result in success.

For those that haven’t played fantasy sports, it’s a game played with data (or so I thought). The fantasy is that one pretends to be the general manager for a team – hiring and firing players throughout the course of a season. One gains points and competes with others in the fantasy league by selecting real-live players and adding up the various statistics they collect in a week of real-live playing. So, for example (and I promise that I will bring this back to the business of the arts topic that I was asked to write about), if I have Lebron James on my team (you’ve heard of Lebron, right?) I collect points not just for every basket he makes, but for every assist, every steal, every three-pointer, blocked shot, and free throw. 

Diane Ragsdale

People have been talking about the blurring line between the commercial and nonprofit arts sectors (and related mission/market tradeoffs) for decades. Some see this line blurring and become concerned; others seem to see it as a natural progression and even a step forward for nonprofits. I’d venture to say that Patron Technology CEO Eugene Carr is in the second camp, based on his recent blog post, "What’s the Secret Sauce Today?"

Here are a few excerpts from his post:

“… more and more, Artistic Directors need to realize they must balance audience needs with the financial needs and mission of the organization, and in these economic times, the mission may have to bend a bit.

Frankly, it’s always a balancing act, but if you’re too mission-oriented, you can end up with something like what we’re witnessing at the City Opera, which essentially abandoned any vestige of its old mission … and instead decided on a radically new approach with nothing but daring new operas.