There is no “one size fits all” model when it comes to arts organizations. From performing arts, to museums, and arts education, our structures and operations vary widely; yet we often are melded into one pool of “arts organizations” when it comes to checking boxes for funding and other nonprofit classifications. As the Executive Director of COCA – Center of Creative Arts, a multifaceted, hybrid organization, I know first-hand how difficult and unhelpful it can be to benchmark our organization against others with different approaches and measures of success. One such benchmark is the ratio of earned to contributed revenue. Our operating budget is approximately 42% earned to 58% contributed revenue. Is our earned revenue too high? Too low? What should it be? The verdict is still out. Even when you encounter information on financial health of arts organizations, it tends to be more diagnostic than prescriptive. Despite the lack of definitive benchmarking data, I think most of us would agree that a diversified revenue portfolio is a positive step toward sustainability.

Recently I’ve been reflecting on my long career in education and am grateful for the many and varied opportunities. I’ve always been intrigued by collaboration in education, and if I had to select something that has the greatest influence on my work, intertwined with every job, it has been collaboration. About 10 years ago, I realized how much focus is put on collaboration and how little intentional action/planning/understanding is put into it. We expect adults and students to collaborate, but we don’t unpack that as a group or individually to make a greater impact on the success of the work. One guide for preparing students for the world is most often directed today by “the 4C’s” which includes critical thinking & problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication, and collaboration. I think it’s time to put some effort into unpacking collaboration before jumping into a partnership or expecting students to work in a group.

Yesterday, an Education Commission of the States staff member with the memorable name of Claus von Zastrow published a blog reporting the findings of an art education question included in the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Math. It’s a substantial discovery—akin to when new stars are detected in a constellation, or a new species of insect is identified. His blog post and the accompanying data tables are a must-read. Longtime Department of Education watchers know that since 1995, there have been just two kinds of arts education research by the federal government, and not one of these tests over 25 years has ever captured arts education data on a state-by-state basis. So when eagle-eyed Claus spotted in the Math NAEP released in October 2019, among the 40 multi-part questions asked of the eighth grade test takers, that Question #21 was about art education—he must have been floored. As I am. This question, put to the 147,000 students that were a part of the 2019 Math NAEP sample, must be the single largest arts education data point in the history of federal education research.

I attended the 2019 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was amazing to be in a place with thousands of other arts supporters and enthusiasts. I was among artists, researchers, educators, community organizations, politicians, board members, and so many others. All of us came together to learn, share, network, and champion the cause of elevating the arts in our communities. There was power in the sheer number of people who traveled from all over the country to be in attendance. All of us traveled individually—one by one, to come to one place for one reason: the arts. We came together to advocate, connect, and support the power of the arts in America. I believe the African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” In those simple words, the proverb teaches us the blueprint for monumental progress. 

Arts education certainly doesn’t have to (and really shouldn’t) end after high school. At least that’s our belief at COCAbiz, the arts-based business training division of COCA-Center of Creative Arts in St. Louis. COCAbiz provides immersive arts-based training, programming, and consulting for business professionals. We are constantly exploring how to unlock creative energy and build skills to meet today’s business challenges by providing leaders with new tools, techniques, and perspectives from the arts. COCA’s Executive Director, Kelly Pollock, wrote about COCAbiz for Americans for the Arts back in 2011, suggesting “businesses might be more innovative and achieve greater success when they give their employees all of the tools that the arts and the creative process have to offer.” She’s right. As we round out our first decade of COCAbiz, we have learned that arts learning is powerful and needed with business professionals. In a world where automation and technological dependence are becoming the norm, human creativity still reigns as the ultimate competitive advantage.

“You mean an artist made this for us?” A student with a visual impairment is seeing a work of art for the first time at an art museum. The student had just been told that a visual artist recreated Native American on Horseback by Ronald Lockett for their group especially. The group is part of a program called STARS (Social, Therapeutic, Academic and Recreational Services) at the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta, Georgia. This year-long program is for students with visual impairments and helps them “gain the self-confidence and skills necessary to thrive.” The Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) is in Midtown Atlanta, less than two miles from the High Museum of Art. CVI and the High officially began a partnership in 2016 through a Museum Access for Kids contract from the Kennedy Center VSA. Through this partnership and others, High Museum staff have received training on working with visitors with various abilities.