Five ways CAA-funded community foundations grew arts funds in the worst year since the Depression

Most nonprofit fundraisers are glad to see the calendar turn to 2010—personal donations in 2009 declined while social needs skyrocketed. During this tumultuous time, the arts giving landscape might have been bleak, but it was far from barren.

Lessons in success

Here are five lessons in success, based on wins in 2009, that point the way to more giving in the new year.

1.  Donors value leadership—and collaboration—in the arts.

Community Foundation Sonoma County connected five arts nonprofits with new and prospective donors through An Evening of Song & Poetry. This approach featured unprecedented local cooperation: each arts organization in effect introduced its largest donors to other nonprofits celebrated at an intimate evening event. The community foundation provided plenty of incentive for everyone—offering $50,000 as a match for any event attendees who chose to contribute funds to one or more of the arts organizations feted. Donors responded enthusiastically. Nearly 60 people contributed $90,000 through this appeal, representing nearly two dollars for every one pledged by the community foundation, and generating $140,000 in immediate support for these five organizations. Read more about this remarkable fundraising event.

2.  Artists have networks of new donors at the grassroots level.

An innovative matching commissions program, started by East Bay Community Foundation and picked up by The San Francisco Foundation as well as the Marin Arts Council, continues to gain steam. The program, more fully described here, provides matching grants—typically $5,000 or $10,000—to artists. To date, the artists who received matching grants have, in turn, generated contributions from 2,588 donors. This donor giving has provided $615,000 in new support for 182 artist-run organizations and artist-driven projects in the five-county Bay Area.

3.  Many donors know that now is the time to stand for arts, and to stand with their community foundation.

The East Bay Fund for Artists, which supplies the matching grants for the commissions program above, received a total of $75,000 from four donor advised funds in 2009. Diane Sanchez, Director of Grantmaking and Donor Services, is thrilled: “I feel very good about this because in a difficult year these donor advisors could have let this community foundation program slip off their list.” Only one of the donors sustains a dedicated focus on giving in the arts; the others had many appeals to consider for use of their funds. Plus, all these donors were working with lower fund balances than normal due to the loss of investment assets. “Their commitment in these tough times is a validation of our work,” adds Diane.

4.  Giving circles invite a welcome degree of donor engagement.

Sacramento Region Community Foundation knows that many arts donors appreciate connections. This notion has special meaning in a down economy, as pooling funds helps donors do more with their individual gifts. Plus, donor circles bring a social aspect to giving, helping individual givers learn from each other and share pride in the stories created through their collective support. There’s additional appeal when these groups of donors receive special access to arts experiences and face time with artists. All this adds up to success with the recent launch of donor circles in Sacramento. One circle is forming now with a lead giver at the $25,000 level, and other donors entering with a minimum contribution of $5,000.

5.  Long-term thinking still matters—so don’t give up on endowment building!

Orange County Community Foundation received a $250,000 contribution to its Arts Endowment Fund in late 2009. It’s the largest gift to the fund to date. Listen to Keith Swayne speaking about this decision by he and his wife: “Judy and I are delighted to make this gift, not only as a reflection of our belief in the importance of the arts to a thriving community, but as a challenge to other local philanthropists to do their part in strengthening the arts and cultural sector in Orange County.”
The Swayne’s action is creating buzz. Says Todd Hanson, Vice President of Donor Relations and Programs, “This gift gives confidence to other potential donors. It helps them see how they can help the fund grow quickly and become a cornerstone of stability in our arts sector.” Read more about this community foundation’s commitment to the arts.

Toward the new year

These five success stories remind us that the case for arts remains strong in spite of (perhaps even because of!) a poor economy. As always, the task is to connect to donor motivations, offer the giving options people want, and be confident in making the ask.

A year-end bonus: One of our most popular posts of 2009 is a feature on deepening relationships and understanding motivations by conducting personal interviews with arts donors. Materials and questions created by Alan Brown, an innovator in this field, are available here.

All activities reported here were conducted as part of Communities Advancing the Arts, a major funding initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.

What can a community do when economic recession threatens local arts organizations and makes donors cautious about their giving? In Sonoma County, these scary circumstances led to a strategy for showcasing local arts—while helping donors reconnect to their passion for creativity in community.

If you’re looking for ways to make the case for arts in a community suffering hard times, you won’t want to miss the appeal of Dana Gioia. Dana is an internationally acclaimed poet and the recent Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. His 13-minute talk is powerful, moving and funny.

Dana’s remarks were a big part of an even bigger event that generated $130,000 in crucial arts funding.

Sonoma’s recipe for success

• Select five local arts nonprofits to feature, drawing from both proven and promising organizations. Make sure all are in tune with a spirit of cooperation—this event was about celebrating community arts, not competing for arts dollars!
• Recruit three world-class artists to perform in an intimate setting, accompanied by wonderful food, great local wine and beautiful scenery. The venue was an area winery with an impressive art collection and sweeping views of the Sonoma valley.
• Make it easy for each nonprofit, as well as the community foundation, to engage a set of its donors and prospective donors. The community foundation underwrote the event, so there was no cost to the participating nonprofits. These arts organizations were encouraged to position the event with their invitees in the manner they deemed best. Most asked attendees to make a donation as part of the invitation process—and received amounts ranging from $250 to $1,000. Others positioned this as a no-admission-fee event honoring invitees for their support.
• Announce that the community foundation is providing $50,000 as an incentive match for any attendees interested in contributing funds to the arts organizations feted at the event. This message was delivered as part of the invitation process, and reiterated at the event.
• Treat the audience to a profound artistic experience, featuring musical inspiration from baritone Rod Gilfry and pianist Jeffrey Kahane, plus Dana’s poetry.
• Deliver (via Dana) a passionate address connecting vibrant arts to community vitality, and issue a call for local philanthropists to step forward at this time of economic challenge.
• Combine this strong call with a soft ask. Attendees knew they were welcome to contribute and take advantage of community foundation matching funds (which applied to gifts made before, during or after the event), but no specific amounts were requested, and no “hard sell” was conducted. The tone for the evening was that of a thank you more so than a fundraiser. Donors responded positively, writing checks and making pledges for nearly $80,000 in new funds.

This video below documenting the development and presentation of the event performance provides a wonderfully produced example for community foundations interested in implementing similar programs locally.

Both videos referenced in this post have an ongoing life—each is being used in the context of small group donor parties.

Breaking new ground

The strategy for An Evening of Song & Poetry involved some first steps with lasting benefits. It brought about productive collaboration among five arts organizations—including the first-ever sharing of donor lists. It helped a key group of local arts donors gain a broader perspective on the arts community. And it placed the community foundation squarely in a leadership role, together with its partner, the Arts Council of Sonoma County.

Community Foundation Sonoma County is a participant in Communities Advancing the Arts, a major funding initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.

Art brings people together. So it’s natural for community foundations to place art—and artists—at the center of events intended to deepen donor engagement. The opportunities for creativity are endless. Receptions in private sculpture gardens, intimate readings by award-winning authors, road trips to major galleries, dinners celebrating up-and-coming artists, and behind-the-scenes tours are just a few ways donor events are taking place around California.

Through this experience, community arts leaders are learning that there is a big difference between a good event and a strategic event. The former is marked by smooth logistics and smiling participants. The second features both these attributes—plus a purposeful evolution in each attendee’s commitment to funding arts.

It’s about moving along

According to an event guide developed by and for community foundations, strategic events are part of a process designed to move donors along a continuum of involvement in funding local arts. Some have virtually no awareness of the need for community arts support. Others are steady arts givers. Most are somewhere in between.

The guide includes a set of tips for treating each event strategically: identifying your audience, defining a specific objective for each participant, clarifying a method for achieving the objective, and measuring results. It emphasizes the need to make sure that each event is part of a process that involves pre- and post-event action. And it features a week-by-week event planning checklist that can be adapted for local use.

This guide was developed through Communities Advancing the Arts, a major funding initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.

It’s one program with two benefits. The Sonoma County Artist Awards boost the reputations of working artists early in their careers, and raise public awareness of local arts. The awards are a collaboration of the arts community, with leadership from the county’s Arts Council and Community Foundation.

A stunning catalog showcases the 2008 visual arts award winners. They were drawn from a cadre of nearly 100 eligible artists. A panel of area curators and art professionals narrowed the list of applicants before a set of outside experts from the Bay Area chose the three winners: Julie Cavaz, Sarah Frieberg and Geirrod Van Dyke. Each received a $5,000 award—the largest available to individual artists in Sonoma County.

A public celebration of arts and artists

In Sonoma County fashion, the artists were celebrated in a creative light. The three award winners enjoyed their first museum opening on a spring Saturday evening. Earlier that day, 32 of the nominated artists were honored through an invitational exhibit sponsored by the City of Santa Rosa. It took place in Courthouse Square.

“It was accompanied by wild and wooly entertainment—stilt walkers, fire dancers, hip-hop demonstrations,” reported Melissa Kester, Arts Development Officer for Community Foundation Sonoma County. “A marching band then led the way to the Sonoma County Museum reception two blocks away, where the three winners’ work was being shown.”

The biennial Artist Awards have been so well received that, in 2009, the Community Foundation and Arts Council of Sonoma County are adding another award to encompass performing, music and literary arts.

This program was begun through Communities Advancing the Arts, a major funding initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.

It’s a communications conundrum. Community arts leaders have plenty to say about why donors should invest in this arena, but it can be challenging to find the best ways to express these messages.

There’s the question of what to state first. Some professionals say lead with instrumental benefits—the role arts play in boosting economic development or helping kids learn, for example—and establish these bottom-line societal advantages right up front. Others say it’s better to promote intrinsic benefits—the ways arts evoke an emotive response—and get started by making a more intimate human connection.

Then there’s the need to establish urgency for private donor support of arts. In California, state funding declined precipitously in recent years, reaching a low of 3 cents per person in 2005.

In 2006, a set of California community foundations and their local arts partners took this dilemma to heart, and mind. Sharing and assessing arts messages, they joined to create and test an approach that is now being used in several communities—and communications.

What makes for effective messaging?

These participants in the Irvine initiative, Communities Advancing the Arts, set out to develop messaging that was clear, consumable, and comprehensive. Specifically, they wanted to reach out to new donors in a manner that:

• Uses simple language and concepts
• Is easily remembered and presented by staff and volunteers
• Features a flexible structure—so main messages can be mixed and matched to specific communication opportunities
• Translates into a variety of looks and media

A modular messaging structure

They devised a solution that is straightforward and sophisticated. It uses three main messages to answer one core question:

Why support the arts?

• It feels good.
• It does good.
• It’s time now.

Each of these primary messages sits atop a set of secondary messages that present a complete case for the arts. And this approach is inherently modular—some community foundations prefer to lead with intrinsic benefits (it feels good), others with instrumental benefits (it does good). The third major message (it’s time now) helps establish the urgent need for individual donors to invest in arts.

Multiple media

This messaging is being applied in a number of media.

• Orange County Community Foundation, together with Arts Orange County (the area’s arts council) co-branded these messages, as shown on this print ad.
• Community Foundation Silicon Valley (since merged with the Peninsula Foundation to create Silicon Valley Community Foundation) built a comprehensive set of materials to advance the arts using these messages.
• California Community Foundation incorporates these messages to help open its brochure promoting its Arts & Culture Fund.
• Community Foundation Sonoma County features these messages in banners and a brochure supporting its Emerging Artists Endowment Fund.
• Community Foundation for Monterey County organized a public service announcement based on these messages.

These messages and communications were created through Communities Advancing the Arts, a major funding initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.

Raising permanent funds for arts and helping local artists launch careers are two challenges faced by many communities. Both led to one solution in Sonoma County: an Emerging Artists Fund. It connects the power of endowment giving to the value of providing early support to artists. And it has real appeal for arts donors.

The fund was created by the Community Foundation Sonoma County in partnership with the Arts Council of Sonoma County.

An Emerging Artists Award was developed to bring visibility to this fund. In its first year, a panel of well-known local artists, gallery owners and curators reviewed the work of 78 artists. They narrowed the pool down to 25. A small team of respected curators from outside the area then chose three winners featured at a special awards event.

Event objective

Illustrate the benefits of, and great need for, an Emerging Artist Fund by introducing it in an inspired way.

Recipe for success

• Invite a diverse group of arts enthusiasts—both experienced and new to arts philanthropy—to a light dinner and refreshments
• Combine with emerging artists as well as leaders of local arts organizations
• Add a tour of the hosts’ sculpture-filled home, including a sneak-peek of public art prior to its debut
• Mix in intriguing speakers: Katharine DeShaw, Executive Director of United States Artists, to describe national arts funding streams; Ned Kahn, an internationally known local artist, to tell how an emerging artist grant changed his life; Steve Oliver, Board Chair of San Francisco MOMA, to share his personal commitment to supporting artists and the Emerging Artist Fund
• Award three new artists each with $5,000 to advance their work and community contributions
• Top off with stories of how relatively small levels of financial support have made a big difference in the careers of art creators

Results

New connections—between arts supporters, artists, and the fund that helps fulfill the greatest aspirations of all. And new resources—the community foundation is well on the way toward hitting its initial goal of gaining $300,000 in new community support for the Emerging Artists Fund.

This activity was conducted as part of Communities Advancing the Arts, a major funding initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.

“The arts are common ground for community, a meeting ground,” says Melissa Kester, Arts Development Officer for Community Foundation Sonoma County. “It’s about expressing different points of view, understanding things in new ways, and coming together around shared experiences.” This insight opens a window for viewing the foundation’s partnership with its local arts sector.

“It is a relationship that began in 1989,” reports CEO Kay Marquet, “with an initial grant made possible through the National Endowment for the Arts. And it is a relationship that has blossomed in recent years through a creative, collaborative focus on the arts.”

Making connections

This focus involves connecting with individual artists, arts nonprofits (ranging from grassroots organizations to nationally recognized arts centers), donors and other funders who seek to build community through arts. At the center of this network is a strategic partnership between Community Foundation Sonoma County and the Arts Council of Sonoma County.

“The Arts Council is a wonderful resource to, and an effective champion for, this region’s diverse, dynamic arts sector,” adds Robert Judd, Community Foundation Sonoma County Vice President for Programs. “Together with a cadre of local arts organizations, we are able to present a united sector. This in turn allows us to invite a wider base of donors and public leaders to step forward—and add to an ever-greater vision for what arts can achieve in and for this community.”

Some big steps forward

Recent results of this approach have been encouraging, to say the least. Between 2005 and 2007, with support from The James Irvine Foundation’s Communities Advancing the Arts initiative, the Community Foundation and Arts Council worked with local leaders to establish a Santa Rosa Arts District in the center of the county’s largest city. Three popular, countywide projects were initiated as well: an Artist Awards program, Sculpture Sonoma, and Performance Sonoma.

As part of the Performance Sonoma festival, 12 local performing arts organizations put on productions related to the featured theme, Crossing Borders. In Healdsburg, The Imaginists Theatre Collective created an original production, “The Divide/La División,” which explored issues of immigration and the challenges in finding common ground between local immigrant Latinos and resident Anglos in the area. The bilingual production led to an opening in community dialogue around these challenges (view a video documentary on YouTube).

“Participating in Performance Sonoma allowed our company to explore issues that influence everyday life in our community,” said Brent Lindsay, The Imaginists’ Executive Director.

Community Foundation Sonoma County also launched an Artists Award as a way to raise the visibility of budding local visual artists. Six award winners selected by a panel of highly-regarded independent judges have received unrestricted grants of $5,000 each. In addition to the grant funds, the winning artists have enjoyed growing recognition within Sonoma County and beyond. For example, Seth Minor, a 2006 award winner, is commissioned to create public artwork for the City of Santa Rosa. Complementing these efforts to support local artists, the foundation also worked with Sonoma State University to conduct a series of public discussions for artists on navigating “the business” of the arts.

A growth agenda

Community Foundation Sonoma County and its partners aim to double the nearly $300,000 already raised to endow the Artists Award Fund, with the goal of expanding awards to include performing and literary artists. Near-term plans involve further engaging with the City of Santa Rosa around its newly-established Arts District—and working collaboratively with private donors and public officials to create a lasting and vibrant downtown arts area.

Also on the drawing board are plans to explore creating a signature festival that would invigorate local arts audiences and attract tourists to the region’s arts scene. And an exciting project is well underway, led by the Arts Council, to provide a centralized online portal for arts information and access throughout Sonoma County.

Lessons learned

What have Community Foundation leaders learned so far? Three major lessons stand out. For one, creating partnerships is worthwhile work—but takes time. “We probably underestimated this point as we got started on a more earnest approach to arts outreach three years ago,” says Melissa Kester, who also emphasizes the importance of carefully assessing and understanding the capacity of key partner organizations.

Second, deeper engagement with the arts sector—nonprofits, government, and donors—can be a model opportunity for community foundations to explore new ways of working. According to Paul DeMarco, Finance and Administration Vice President, “In many ways this program is serving as a prototype for our role in community leadership… providing us with new ways to interact with donors… and helping us demonstrate high levels of value through our work convening others.”

Third, and perhaps most important, says Kay Marquet, “We are proving that arts are as good for community as community is for arts.”

Community Foundation Sonoma County is a participant in Communities Advancing the Arts, a major funding initiative of The James Irvine Foundation.