In this newsletter 4Culture announces the 2009 Arts Sustained Support awards. When we reviewed applications in this cycle, we discovered many things that speak to the strength and resilience of our field. The real surprise to us is that we received a record number of applications in both the arts and heritage categories. We were half expecting that we’d see fewer applications, that surely, the economy had made victims of more than a few organizations. But that’s not what we saw.

Here are a few observations on the state of the field in these trying times, as revealed by the Sustained Support applications:

  • Cultural organizations adapt. Almost every applicant arts organization had a budget that was lower in 2009 than in 2008, but in most cases, lower budgets did not cause organizations to abandon education outreach programs, implement mass layoffs or substantially reduce programs and productions. Management skillfully and strategically made hard choices to ensure operations would continue. Many arts and heritage groups have always had few resources and have learned a multitude of ways to cope.
  • The field of culture has dedicated volunteers, who respond to financial challenges by increasing their participation. Every group needs more of them. If volunteers don’t have money to contribute, they do have time. Board members are particularly stepping up to help fill part-time staff positions at many organizations.
  • Individuals are still the most potent and reliable source of contributed income. Always have been, always will be. Courting individual donors is hard work, but it pays off long and short-term. One organization tripled its number of individual givers, albeit with many making smaller donations.   But when the economy turns around, and it will, those new donors may be a bonanza.
  • Audience behavior has changed. Subscriptions are down, single ticket buying is up.  Audiences are purchasing tickets closer to dates of performances or exhibitions. Organizations are responding to the challenge, by adapting their marketing and budgeting processes to follow buying trends.
  • Optimism triumphs. The economy is in the pits. That’s a given. Hardly worth a mention. And many applicants hardly mentioned it. They focused instead on the many positive adjustments they were making and the efficiencies they were implementing and wondered why they hadn’t explored these opportunities earlier. No one is throwing in the towel.

If the economic crisis has a silver lining, it’s that it released the creativity of management, staff, boards, artists and heritage specialists to figure out how to best serve audiences. Every administrative, production or exhibition expense is under the microscope. In the long run, that’s not an altogether bad thing.

Jim Kelly