Mr. Jay H. Dick

From Mayors to the PTA, Americans for the Arts Strategically Partners

Posted by Mr. Jay H. Dick, Mar 28, 2019 0 comments


Mr. Jay H. Dick

Americans for the Arts, like any national nonprofit advocacy and research organization, is a complex, multifaceted smorgasbord of programs, activities, and goals. Our modest number of employees not only work to make fundamental changes to society using the arts and culture, but we also work to change how people view the arts and culture by getting them to recognize its value to the economy, education, and to the health and wellbeing of our nation and its communities. For a nonprofit of our size, we often do the work or see successes similar to much larger nonprofits or even for-profit companies.

Americans for the Arts and the Arts Action Fund—Americans for the Arts’ affiliated 501(c)(4) organization—were recently honored with the Public Affairs Council’s (PAC) Lobbying Strategy Innovation Award in recognition of our work in helping save the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The PAC Innovation Award is a gold standard in our field. Past winners include Toyota, the American Bar Association, the American Cancer Society, and Novo Nordisk—which goes to show that we are playing above our level given that these organizations are multi-million or billion-dollar groups.

We owe this success to our members and the thousands of arts organizations across the country who work with us to accomplish our goals. But, there is another group of organizations that Americans for the Arts partners with who also help us accomplish our goals. These organizations are not arts-centric groups, but they do see the value of the arts and culture in accomplishing their goals. We call this group of organizations our Strategic Partners.

Americans for the Arts’ Strategic Partners normally fall into one of several categories: Business/Private Sector Partners, Government/Public Partners, Educational Partners, and Military Partners.

Each general group of partners works with leading organizations in that arena to advance Americans for the Arts’ goals and mission. Americans for the Arts has the largest number of these strategic partnerships compared to any other similar organization. These are decades-long partnerships whose relationships we work to leverage in order to educate more people about the value of the arts and culture.

Every so often, I get the question, Why bother with these partnerships? They take a lot of time and energy to manage, maintain, and grow. The answer is simple: if Americans for the Arts wants to be successful, we need to have arts advocates who are not employed in the arts. While there are millions of people employed by creative organizations, and tens of millions more who are supportive of the arts in their private lives, that still leaves tens of millions of more people—who are often key decision makers—outside our family of arts advocates. To be truly successful, we need to have as many people as possible understand and advocate for the arts and culture. That is where our partnerships shine.

As an example, I manage Americans for the Arts’ Government/Public Partnerships. Every group has an association—even elected officials. Governors have the National Governors Association; lieutenant governors have the National Lieutenant Governors Association; state legislatures have the National Conference of State Legislatures; counties have the National Association of Counties; and mayors have The United States Conference of Mayors.

While it might be possible for me to get to know all 50 governors, it is not possible for me to get to know each of the 7,383 state legislators. What’s more, elected officials are busy, so it is difficult to get their attention. But, if their affiliated association sends out our information, that elected official is 1) more apt to see and read the information and 2) more likely to believe it since is it coming from their trusted association. A great example is our Arts and Economic Prosperity reports. Each report has a page showing the logos of various partners including our governmental partners. So when I meet any county official, I can show them our study and their association’s logo which is a sort of stamp of approval. This allows me to jump right to the legislative ask, as Americans for the Arts has been vouched for by their association. I have actually seen a legislator’s attitude change from cautious to warm and friendly once they realize that their association partners with us, and I can mention those association staff that I personally work with. This is unbelievably valuable and key in forming long-term relationships. 

Americans for the Arts also works with each partner to holistically incorporate the arts and culture into their mission and activities. Some examples of our activities include Americans for the Arts staff speaking at the partners’ conferences, arranging for cultural field trips for their members or receptions to be held at arts venues, writing posts for their blogs or social media platforms, or presenting awards honoring their leaders. We also bring them into our world by inviting them to Americans for the Arts’ conferences and events and spotlighting their participation.

We do these activities with the end goal of educating these key thought- and decision-leaders, which empowers them to adopt our messages, issues, and goals. When we are successful, great things happen for arts and culture in America.

Please login to post comments.