Next Tues, April 13, is National Arts Advocacy Day, when more than 500 arts advocates will be going to Capital Hill in Washington, D.C. to talk to their government officials about the power of the arts and the need for arts education and arts funding. If you can't join us in D.C. on April 13, please take the time to create a tweet that day featuring the hashtag #arts on your Twitter accounts and tell you friends to do the same.

Welcome to the Green Paper discussion on Private Sector Support for the Arts. As a way to celebrate the successes of the past 50 years, Americans for the Arts has partnered with over twenty arts service organizations and peer groups to collect Green Papers. And most importantly, we want your feedback!

I’m proud to serve as an Ambassador to the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties’ Green Paper on Private Sector Support for the Arts. This short vision of the future is meant to inspire a dialogue on the future of the arts, so I invite you to comment, make suggestions, and offer alternative visions in this virtual exchange of ideas through the ARTSblog Green Papers.

Andy Witt is the Executive Director of the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties. I encourage you to read Andy’s Green Paper on Private Sector Support for the Arts in its entirety, but here is a quick summary with questions at the end:

Marete Wester

I love the spring for many reasons. For one, it often marks the start when the Americans for the Arts staff members begin receiving requests to meet with international visitors who are traveling in the United States. I love the visits, because it is always a fascinating opportunity to learn about cultural policy across the globe—from Iraq to South Korea to Germany.

In addition to government support in the United States, the question we are asked most often is, “How does our private sector model of support for the arts work?” It is no secret that in other countries throughout the world it is usually the government that is the largest patron of arts and culture. However, it is fair to say that many countries are putting increasing pressure on their cultural sector to think about how businesses and corporations and philanthropy can play a greater role in their support.

For better or worse, because the public/private sector support system is firmly embedded in our cultural DNA, we are the model the rest of the world comes here to learn more about.

I have just had the pleasure of attending the “Great Ideas Conference” sponsored by ASAE and the Center of Association Leadership.  While the main focus of the conference was sharing new and exciting ideas in the association world, a lot of attention was focused to online giving and fundraising strategies.  Not only the importance of embracing these new methods of giving through mobile texting and social media, but also how businesses should link these fundraising efforts with their marketing plan.  So, you have implemented these great tools and strategies (Blog, Facebook, Twitter etc.) to cultivate a broad base of donors, now what?  Don’t stop there!  It is just as important to close the loop on these efforts by tracking your new media efforts regularly.   Sure, we can do the basic math and compare the monetary contribution as it relates to each social tool but what will this tell you about the leads you have created?  Who are the donors going to your site and how are they getting there?  Here is a collection of free tools from Hubspot that evaluate the effectiveness of various marketing initiatives which will hopefully guide you in this final step of your new media fundraising strategy.

The vision of the future of music education, as it relates to string instruments and orchestras, has been succinctly stated in five points by the American String Teachers’ Association.  Let’s take a look at these points and see in what direction they are pointing us.

First, ASTA’s vision includes “providing access to strings and orchestra for all children, protecting these programs from economic uncertainty, and teaching members how to advocate for these programs.”  That’s a tall order.  It’s not that string music educators aren’t up to the task, and it’s not that it’s too much to ask.  Those of us in the profession are doing this every day, to a certain extent.  Some of us are doing more than others – but that’s not the fault of those who are doing less.  The truth of the matter is that many younger members of our profession aren’t being taught how to advocate and how to fight for our programs.