May 17, 2007 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Giving by corporations to arts groups dropped
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ALSO SEE: CHARTS: Giving to Arts and Cultural Causes |
by 65 percent from 2000 to 2005, a sharp indicator of a widespread trend of eroding philanthropic support for arts and cultural organizations, says a new report. And while giving to all charities increased 6.1 percent from 2004 to 2005, giving to the arts decreased 3.4 percent over the same period.
Those figures were included a report issued by a group of 29 people, including grant makers, philanthropists, business leaders, government officials, and artists organized by Americans for the Arts, in Washington, and the Sundance Preserve, a nonprofit group in Utah. The report was sponsored by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, in Los Altos, Calif., and the Rockefeller Foundation, in New York.
“In the last decade there have been a number of challenges to arts philanthropy,” said Robert L. Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts. “It is a slippery slope and unless you do something about it, it could become an avalanche.”
Individuals, corporations, and foundations all favor putting charitable contributions toward education, health, and human services instead of the arts, says the report.
Americans for the Arts commissioned new research as well as gathered data from the Conference Board, in Washington, the Foundation Center, in New York, and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, in Indianapolis. The group also conducted 100 forums and three focus groups with a wide range of participants from business, philanthropy, arts, and government to gather opinions about current support for the arts.
Among the report’s findings:
- In 1992, the arts received 8.4 percent of all charitable contributions; in 2005 that number fell to 5.2 percent.
- Among the 67 percent of households that contribute to charity, 8 percent report giving to an arts group. Still, giving to the arts by individuals has increased 2 percent from 2000 to 2005.
- Foundations have given the same amount to the arts each year from 2000 to 2005; community and family foundations give a larger share of their annual gifts to the arts than national foundations.
Strategies to Spur Giving
To turn the tide toward more arts support, the report outlined specific approaches to promote the value of the arts to the public; to encourage philanthropists to use the arts to solve problems in health, education, and other areas; and to back more arts education in schools.
“The arts gets reduced to something that is considered a luxury or a throwaway,” said Robert Redford, the actor who founded Sundance, one of the organizers of the study, in an interview. “I see it as something far more integral. When you stop and think about innovation and stop and think about things that create new ideas that could lead to new industries and new jobs, it’s usually the creative that starts it, so putting art at the front rather than the back of things is sort of a goal of mine. Art should be put in a broader context.”
Mr. Redford said he would continue to be actively involved in working on the ideas presented in the report.
The report includes recommendations for how to increase support for the arts.
- Encourage national businesses to give local or regional offices the ability to make gifts to arts groups.
- Urge governments to adopt more legislation that supports the arts.
- Ask individuals who give big gifts to support the arts to take a more “high-profile role in championing the public value of the arts,” and ask them to make sure their advisers are offering options to support the arts.
- Get foundations involved in working with schools, parents, and government officials to create a tool, such as a National Report Card on Arts Literacy, that would help elevate students’ proficiency in the arts to the same level of importance as their reading, math, and science skills.
- Persuade grant makers to “adopt policies and develop funding strategies” that include the arts as part of every school curriculum, the report says, and organize and underwrite regional gatherings of grant makers, charities, and government and business leaders to map a plan for a “civic and cultural agenda.”
A Call for Engagement
While arts groups have been successful in raising money in some areas, such as through payroll-deduction efforts, their leaders also need to recognize that they can no longer merely passively receive money, but instead need to engage more with donors and work together to achieve common goals, says the report.
“The arts have not done as good as job as we could do about making the case of the relevance of the arts for their own sake, and how the arts are a partner on working on and solving other community issues,” says Mr. Lynch.
The report recommended that Americans for the Arts develop a national campaign that would help carry out the recommendations and generally encourage more philanthropy among all types of donors.
It urged the group to identify business leaders who would give speeches, write editorials, and speak to their peers about the importance of the arts; investigate the potential for more employers to run campaigns to solicit donations to arts groups from their employees; and provide training to local arts leaders on how to approach local businesses for support.
The report’s authors also acknowledged a need for additional research about arts giving, and recommended that Americans for the Arts, by itself or in concert with other groups, undertake additional research about the difference the arts make to the economy, and track how donors use different tools such as tax laws to make gifts to arts groups. It also suggested the group commission a study to examine the role of the arts in developing skills people use on the job, the topic the 29-member committee plans to discuss next when it meets again in October.
Copies of the report, “The Future of Private Sector Giving to the Arts in America,” are available free on Americans for the Arts’ Web site.
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GIVING TO ARTS AND CULTURAL CAUSES
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