Arts Advocacy Wrap Up

x

Wow, we had some really fantastic bloggers for Arts Advocacy Month.

We started out with a bang with Will Maitland Weiss from The Arts & Business Council of New York [ABC/NY], who gave us some important tips on dealing with our city and state representatives and helped us craft our message when communicating with those representatives.

Next Adam Huttler, Executive Director of Fractured Atlas told us that our community can be a powerful special interest group.

Norma P. Munn, Steering Committee Member for the One Percent for Culture Campaign and Chair of the NY City Arts Coalition covered the basics of Arts Advocacy 101.

 

And our key note blogger, Paul Nagle, Executive Director for Institute for Culture in the Service of Community Sustainability (ICSCS) covered some important changes in international arts policy that we should all be aware of. He also shared some of the platforms and programs that ICSCS is developing that surrounds some of those policy changes.

There was also a lot of feedback from our community, who left some really good questions and comments.

Thank you all for contributing and we hope to be able to continue these important discussions.

Some Advocacy Items to be aware of:

•  You can still email to your elected officials about the city and state budgets (or consider sending a letter)
• American Alliance for Theatre & Education's Awareness project that asks us all to help spread the word about Theatre In Our Schools Month
• The NEA's recently released Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 
• National Arts Advocacy Day April 4–5, 2011 
• Check to see if your performance venue would qualify for the Tax Abatement proposal and help us gather some important information to help that move on to the next step

In honor of World Theatre Day (March 27th) we are dedicating March to the International Theatre community. We have some great bloggers lined up.  Please stop by, ask questions and share your thoughts about how the OOB/Indie theatre community can be a part of the international theatre community. And check out the NYC World Theatre Day blog.

x

Ask Not…

x

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Will Maitland Weiss. 

My last blog on advocacy: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Ask what you can do for your elected officials. Ask what you can do for your funding source. Ask what you can do for your potential business partner. Ask what you can do for another theater company, other theater artists.

I’m not talking about inviting your subscribers (or your nonprofit board) to pick your 2011-2012 season or help with casting. I do think that the phenomenon of letting the audience choose the encore at concerts is cool and will grow. Everyone’s a critic/producer/curator/YouTube genius, and everyone wants the art they want when and where they want it. (Remember voting on the whodunit ending to Edwin Drood? A generation later, I’m pretty impressed with what Situation Marketing did with Next to Normal…  There are ARTISTS who can and do make better artistic decisions.

I am talking about developing relationships that bring you resources. The Arts & Business Council has respect from the business community because we try to help them with what THEY need. We don’t tell them that they have to give to the arts. That is not their mission. I happen to believe that artistic endeavor defines humanity, but that doesn’t entitle me, or any arts organization I’ve ever worked for, to one cent from any business. I get companies and business individuals to invest their time and money by asking them what THEY want. Employee engagement? Revitalization of neighborhoods? Reaching new markets? Branding with elegance/grace/high-net-worth/families/20-somethings/cutting edge (since ABC/NY represents hundreds of different arts organizations, I can go pretty broad here!)? Something more meaningful and fulfilling than what they do 9:00-to-5:00? A reconnection to the art they participated in as a kid or in college? Something! And when I find that something, now we can figure out a win/win partnership.

(By the way: sponsorships are NOT just for Lincoln Center or the Met Museum, not just about seven-figure gifts from Amex or Target or Time Warner. Every year, ABC/NY celebrates arts/business partnerships at its annual Encore Awards. Sometimes big names, sometimes hidden gems. Check out some of these stories. Nurturing these shared agendas is what we do all year long.)

Artists’ collaborations? When someone’s out to take advantage—disaster. When there is a shared goal, whether it’s co-producing a play you couldn’t otherwise afford or co-producing a marketing campaign you couldn’t otherwise afford—that’s worth getting together over a few beers to try and figure out.

The same is true with government. We have to find the intersection of our arts agenda and their agenda. Reaching loyal constituents with credibility? You’re already better at that than they are; is there a way to share your stage (literally or figuratively)?  Creating jobs, generating economic impact, serving children, helping at-risk or special needs populations? About what cause are they passionate? You do this! Tell them your success story, see if they want to be a part of it.

Invite them to experience what you are doing for your community, your city, your state, your country, your world. Invite them to share in your success. And then invite them again, and again, and again.

Thanks, NY Innovative Theatre Foundation, for allowing me to share points of view and experience with your community. Any of whom is welcome to agree/disagree and/or ask/answer me directly at wmweiss [at] artsandbusiness-ny [dot] org. And to every one of whom I wish a creative 2011.

x

Think Global/Act Local

x

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Will Maitland Weiss. 
 

What I really want to suggest is Act Local/Act National. Both/And.

Even though I am rightly accused of being provincial. I live the infamous Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover—that one where Chicago and LA and China are bumps on a sort of meaningless horizon, beyond the Hudson. I actually do think UP sometimes—as in Upstate New York, where there are artists and arts organizations I know and admire—but rarely right, left, or down, beyond New York City. Hey: it’s the Arts & Business Council of New York! Elsewhere, fuhgeddaboudit.

How can you think globally when you’re so busy running your company as it is?! Scale back from five hours of sleep a night to four? Cut out between-meal snacks and between-snack meals? Stop reading blogs? But I’m urging you, in addition to staying in touch with your City Council member, your State Senator, and your State Assembly Member, to make time to be a part of the national voice for the arts as well.

A couple of thoughts on the Bigger Advocacy Picture:
There are a lot of new people in DC; some of whom are scary. Will the “new” Congress shut down the National Endowment for the Arts? I don’t think so. But how sad that we live in a place/time where this debate exists. The DC-based Americans for the Arts (AFTA) is in front of our federal elected representatives (and their staffs, and the NEA and other agency staffs) all year long.

One day a year, you can join AFTA. Arts Advocacy Day(s), April 4-5. There’s a great, rallying forum at the Kennedy Center on Monday evening with Kevin Spacey. There’s a Congressional Arts Kick Off Event on Tuesday morning.  Then you and 500+ other people, from all over the country, clog-the-elevators and impress the arts value on every congressman/woman.

The other 364 days a year, you can join their Arts Action Fund. No, I don’t get a cut for promoting it—because it’s FREE. It costs you no $$; you don’t have to budge from NYC. You get a ton of useful updates all year and—as with the sharp question Denny asked of an earlier blog—it makes the message for arts support strongest, by consolidating the concerns of hundreds of thousands of us in one voice.

Also, let’s not ignore that the guy who heads the NEA is a New Yorker and a theater person. (I’ll ignore Rocco Landesman’s mistaken allegiance to the St. Louis Cardinals.) I happen to think he’s smart and right as well as brash; check out the current buzz on other sites: You’ve Cott Mail; Diane Ragsdale’s blog, Jumper; Ken Davenport’s The Producer’s Perspective; and Fractured Atlas blog posts by my pal Adam Huttler, who will be gracing this blog later this month. Rocco’s team has coined the multi-entendre ART WORKS, to remind his government bosses not just is our field about jobs, it is about SOLVING SOCIETAL PROBLEMS, not causing or ignoring them. Check out the NEA’s Our Town grant program, all about the power of the arts to lift up communities.

And, yes, I think he’s right on supply-and-demand. There ARE too many arts organizations. NOT TOO MUCH ART. Never too much creativity, but lots of duplicative, wasteful, inefficient, 501(c)(3) infrastructures, squabbling over the supply of funding and the supply of audience.  “More Creative Partnerships” is the Arts & Business Council’s tagline—it’s where we live. (This is a whole other blog…)

Do you want to be in this conversation? Think and act locally and nationally.

x

Call Cuomo, Now

x

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Will Maitland Weiss. 

You probably voted for the guy (considering the alternatives!). You probably don’t want his job (theater companies have all kinds of challenges, but I don’t know of one whose new executive director, his/her first day on the job, has a $10 billion budget deficit).

No surprise, in his budget presentation a couple of hours ago, Governor Cuomo proposed a ten percent cut to the NY State Council on the Arts.

Bad:  we’ve been suffering the death-by-a-thousand-cuts over several years; NYSCA’s funding budget continues to dwindle.
Good:  the arts were not singled out for punitive action; eliminating the State Council was not on the table—as it is right now in several other states. Cuomo did not speak of NYSCA or the arts specifically.
Bad:  where’s the message that he cares about this sector?
Good:  NYSCA was not among the agencies singled out for cost-cutting mergers. Cuomo says he won’t raise taxes; he has to cut billions; some were predicting much more draconian measures.

And now you have to send a message back:
Thank you for caring about keeping New York great. I live here. I work here. I pay taxes here. I vote here. I choose to do this in New York BECAUSE IT A STATE THAT NOURISHES CREATIVITY. As you continue to negotiate the budget, please show me you agree.

(By the way, I still totally believe NY is the CENTER of the arts universe. Check out the exponential growth of arts majors among CUNY, SUNY, and private college/university undergraduates and grad students. Why does ABC/NY get ten applications, from all over the country and abroad, for every Multicultural Summer Internship position we offer? Check out the growth of ABC/NY’s Emerging Leaders of New York Arts network. But even if you think Berlin or Beijing can rival our artfulness, what governor would propose that his State not nurture creativity?)

Our friends at the Arts NYS Coalition have a link to Write-Cuomo-Now, which is great, but I’ll suggest you consider the following embellishments—all suggestions from pro-arts elected officials and staff:

• Don’t use a canned message. Write your own. One sentence is enough; clear and short is better than anything and long.
• E-mail is how we all communicate. But if you take the additional time and stamp to go postal, it does have more impact. Again, it can be one sentence.
• Be sure to include your name and address. No, they do not want to engage in deep dialogue. Yes, they want to add you to their e- and postal distributions lists. They also want evidence you are a real person (voter), and they care where you live/work.
• Give them an objective (not a tirade):  tell them specifically what you would like them to do, e.g. please consider more support for NY’s creativity.

Even better idea #1:  contact Cuomo—and your other elected representatives—now and throughout the year. NOT just at budget time, or at NYSCA or DCA funding time. Same message, 24/7/365:  I don’t have to live/work in NY, I do so because of the arts.

Even better idea #2:  get someone else to contact Cuomo and your other elected representatives. What my government friends call a “diversity of voices.” Even better than you, who gets paid (maybe) to Make Art:  board members, audience members. The manager of the restaurant down the block that survives because of your audience. The hardware store/lumber yard/dry cleaner/printer to whom you give some of your operating budget. The parents whose kids are inspired by your classes.

“Hey! This theater, this dance company, this gallery is how I stay in business! It’s what provides jobs in my community! It’s what makes me want to live in my community. It’s what makes New York New York!”

x

Clog The Elevators

x

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Will Maitland Weiss.

My arts advocacy advice: clog the elevators—in Albany, in DC, wherever arts policy and arts funding are decided. Based on 30 years in the field? On having managed an off-B’way theater (in part by laying off all of its company and staff, myself included, ouch, but it survives today)? On running a place called the Arts & Business Council for the last five years, where we bring business skills, interns, volunteers, board members, executive education, and other resources to the arts community? Not so much.

It’s my advice based on what the legislators whose elevators we might clog told our audience last week at our free panel discussion at the Foundation Center on working with government and getting our nonprofit arts voices heard. City Council member Jimmy Van Bramer, who chairs the Culture Committee; State Assembly member Deborah Glick, who supports the arts in Chelsea, the Villages, and downtown; and State Senator Liz Krueger, who does the same in midtown and up and down the east side impressed on us again and again the need for us to get organized and get ourselves heard above the din of competing special interests. The issue of NY State Arts Advocacy Day came up—Tuesday, February 8; for more information click here  or here. Hundreds of people ride planes, trains, automobiles, and other forms of transportation (a chartered bus leaves from W. 125^th St. in Manhattan at 6:45 a.m. and costs $10 or $15) and descend on Albany like righteous locusts. The goal is to impress upon each and every legislator (and/or his/her hard-working staff, who, we learned, absolutely have their bosses’ ears) the value proposition of the arts:

• job creation: theater, music, dance, and even visual arts are labor-intensive, and these jobs will not be replaced by automation or outsourced to Asia (we represented about 200,000 NY State jobs in 2005, stats from the Alliance for the Arts Arts as an Industry study);
• economic impact: put on a show, and your audience will buy tickets, eat in restaurants, park, go shopping, pay babysitters ($20 billion in NY State in 2005);
• nothing draws more tourists to the State, or encourages them to part with more money (tourism accounted for another $6 billion in 2005);
• creativity in the workforce is employers’ #1 concern in the 21^st century; ABC/NY’s parent company, Americans for the Arts, has coined a great new tagline: “Inspired employees bring creativity to work.” I’m rolling that over on my tongue and liking it a lot. Dairy farming and apple picking are not the future growth industries for NY State. You want to attract smart, “creative industries” types? You want kids to stay in your community after college? You want families to move in, businesses to open up a branch in your upstate town? You’d better offer something creatively stimulating after work.
• this doesn’t even touch on the power of the arts to stimulate and motivate kids’ expression, collaboration, discipline, innovation in pre-K—12;
• and—hello!—truth, beauty, meaning, aesthetics, and fulfillment aren’t bad either.

But, per my friends Glick and Krueger (who are already pro-arts, and trying along with you and me to sell it to the less informed), on February 8, we’ll reach who we reach. Some yes, some no. Every Tuesday, some interest group is lobbying in Albany. Whether they meet or listen, the legislators get the message: our voters want ________ (something). Education. Security. Healthcare. Parks. Tax incentives. Clean water. Children; puppies and kittens… With all of which it is still, despite my list above, so hard for the arts to compete. These other guys all vote and they all clog the elevators. The arts must clog the elevators, too.

Looking ahead to February 8, and also to Americans for the Arts’ national Arts Advocacy Day, I have two other pieces of advice. But—just like you—I have to go out now and forage for money. Contributions, “earned” (please!) revenue, change from the sofa cushions; you name it. At least I don’t also have to get elected/re-elected. Small mercies. Clog the elevators; more to follow.

Photo L to R: Glick, Krueger, Glick, Van Bramer, Krueger

photo credit: ABC/NY

x

Guest Blogger: Will Maitland Weiss

x

February is dedicated to Arts Advocacy here on the IT Foundation blog. We are so excited to introduce our first guest blogger this month, Will Maitland Weiss.

Will Maitland Weiss is the executive director of the Arts & Business Council of New York [ABC/NY], which serves the field with volunteer development, professional development, and leadership development.  Since 1965, ABC/NY has worked to foster “more creative partnerships” between the arts and business communities; since 2005, ABC/NY has itself partnered with the country’s leading national arts advocacy organization, Americans for the Arts. Weiss served for five years as VP for development and communications for NY City Center; he spent ten years in development at with NY City Opera; and for five years he was marketing director, then development director, then managing director of the Off-Broadway CSC Repertory.  He has lectured or consulted on development, marketing, nonprofit management, and/or career development at the City University of NY graduate program in arts administration, and at Brown, NYU, Seton Hall, the University of the Virgin Islands, and his alma mater, Williams College.

x