When I envisioned Rollie from the very beginning, I aspired to create a brand that was bigger than me, a brand for the people, and designed alongside other creatives to challenge myself and what is the norm in the industry. This allowed us to create our own unique point of view and USP (unique selling proposition). Being a creative business owner, working with other creatives, felt very natural and empowering to me and the value in doing so was immediate. Our first collaboration came two days after launching the brand; it was with the founder of an award-winning design agency who was simply fascinated by the product and brand story. We collaborated despite not having the funds, with the common understanding to create something we were both proud of; we came runners up for Australian Print ad of the year with our first campaign. The lesson here is that there are other currencies than money.

First launched in 2012, the pARTnership Movement is a program and online platform of Americans for the Arts which demonstrates that by partnering with the arts, businesses can gain a competitive edge. Over the past seven years, Americans for the Arts has developed toolkits, shared stories of success, published how-to workbooks to engage employees, and continued to celebrate America’s best businesses supporting the arts—all for the purpose of supporting the work of local arts organizations and businesses as they seek to build creative relationships. Our goal has always been two-fold: build the capacity of the arts field to cultivate and sustain mutually beneficial partnerships with business; and make the case to businesses why partnering with the arts is good for their people, their companies, and their communities. We are pleased to introduce a new pARTnership Movement website to help us (and you) further this work.

I was recently awarded the Champion of Arts Education Award by the Center for Arts Education in New York City. As the owner of a business that relies on artists, I am deeply committed to supporting arts education initiatives. The arts bring so much joy both to adults and children alike, but this rarely translates to encouragement to follow artistic passions. This raises the question: Why do parents do so much to dissuade their children from pursuing an arts career? We celebrate our children’s work on the refrigerator until something happens that begins to make us shudder with fear. When our child comes to us and says, “I think I want to be an artist,” we try to avoid showing our panic right away—knowing that this might just be a passing notion for the day. Then comes a day, as you begin to plan for your college visits, that your son or daughter says to you, “I want to go to an art school,” or they might couch it with, “Yes, I’d like a school that has an art program … and of course a strong biomedical program.” But, whether your child ends up in an art career or related art career, or does get that biomedical engineering degree, what you’ve supported through their school career is an incredible gift. At Golden Artists Colors, we support arts education because having a creative life is a something that will benefit and last an entire lifetime.

Last week, we celebrated arts and business partnerships at our annual BCA 10: Best Businesses Partnering with the Arts gala. We heard inspiring stories about why businesses value the arts. BCA Leadership Award winner Chandrika Tandon shared how her passion for music provided passion and engagement at her job. Fifth Third Bank spoke about how the arts helped them heal and respond after a mass shooting at their headquarters. Phillips66 shared how the arts create a strong company culture. These stories align with the data from the just released Business Contributions to the Arts survey, which found, among other positive results, that business support for the arts is on the rise. 

Like many social areas, the arts have struggled to reach consensus on impact measurement metrics. Certainly, considerable progress has been made in terms of measuring economic impact as a result of the arts, led by Americans for the Arts and its Arts and Economic Prosperity series of research reports. But, as Business Contributions to the Arts: 2018 Edition reiterates, most companies are not measuring a standard set of social outcomes when it comes to the arts—and that could be holding the sector back. Our data also show that corporate funding for the arts is in a strong position. That means that now is the time to take on the challenge of being more rigorous in the measurement of arts programs to help ensure sustained contributions over the long term. Companies would benefit from stepping up to the plate.

Each fall, many of us in the arts world look forward to hearing the names of the National Medal of Arts recipients for the year. Awarded annually since 1985, this highly anticipated honor seems to have been put on hold beginning in 2016. Similarly, the National Humanities Medal ended a 26-year-long streak with their slate of 2015 honorees, and October’s National Arts & Humanities Month—which expanded from a week-long celebration proclaimed by President Reagan in 1985, to a month-long celebration of the arts and humanities in 1993—has yet to see a presidential proclamation since October 2016. Americans for decades have appreciated nationally recognized awards and a presidential proclamation every year as a show of support and encouragement to unleash creativity and reach for new heights. This year that hope was no different and I have been asked again and again for my thoughts on what has become of these high-profile awards.