An Anemic Arts and Culture Plan

A friend passed on this link in leesburgtoday.com regarding the Arts And Culture District Overlay in Leesburg, Virginia. The Leesburg town council voted to create the overlaly district in March of 2011.

From the Article:

In 2009, the Virginia General Assembly passed enabling legislation to give cities and towns in the state the authority to create boundaries for their own arts and cultural districts and offer tax incentives in doing so. The council voted to create the Arts & Cultural District in March 2011, and the ordinance was enacted that July.

The incentives created for artists to move to the overlay district are listed as:

Both BPOL and real estate tax rebates are offered to the qualifying organizations over a 10-year period. If 50 percent or more of the gross receipts of the Qualified Arts Organization are generated from an activity that qualifies the business for the incentives, the business would be eligible for a 100 percent BPOL rebate in year one; 90 percent in year two; 80 percent in year three; and the number would continue to decrease by 10 percent each year. The same rebate schedule would be true for town real estate tax rebates. Qualifying businesses are also entitled to zoning fee exemptions. To receive the incentives, qualified businesses, whether new or existing, must apply to the town manager to be eligible.

Now I don't know about you, but not many artists I know of are in the market to purchase the buildings their studios are located in. So real estate taxes aren't much of an incentive to the average artist. As for BPOL, the tax rate in Leesburg for retail merchants is .1%, so if you do say, $30,000 worth of business (which many artists would love to have), the tax rate is $30.00

Think about that... the artist's incentive to move to the arts and culture district is $30.00. But this peters down by $3 per year... $27 in year two, $24 in year three, etc..

To qualify for this whopping $30, applicants had to submit a five year business plan! Again from the site:

"We hadn't really gotten any applications to apply for the district," she said. "We found that local arts organizations found the application to be a bit cumbersome, specially in the area of the requirement for [submitting] a five-year business plan and pro forma."

These folks sound honestly surprised that their incentives didn't work. Arts and Culture Districts are being hawked as the savior of economic development in small towns and neighborhoods across the country. And they think artists are going to come running for $30?

The article concludes:

Outreach to community partners and businesses will continue, and a future meeting with the recently-established Friends of Leesburg Public Arts 501(c)(3) is planned. In looking at ways to continue to open up the district to new businesses, and to make the application process easier, the task force proposed three amendments to the Town Code, which the council initiated this week. These include: amending the code to extend the period of time that existing businesses have to apply to six months; amending the code to eliminate the need for a five-year business plan if a business has been in continuous operation within the district for five or more years; and amending the code to include graphic art design within the definition of a Qualified Arts Organization. These Town Code amendments will come back to the council for review and a vote.

If any of you have been reading this blog for any period of time, can I just say "I told you so"? Anyone want a friendly wager that revision 1 won't work?

A New Paradigm in Corporate Philanthropy

Forbes published a study on Forbes.com called

Corporate Philanthropy
The New Paradigm: Volunteerism. Competence. Results.

Click above for link.

Among the key findings:

• The motivation behind corporate philanthropy has an impact on giving and volunteering. More respondents from corporations that are motivated by social benefits in their philanthropy—the latter defined as betterment of the community and world—report giving and volunteering, as compared with respondents from corporations motivated by a commercial benefit, defined here as betterment of the company’s brand and bottom line.

Basically what they are saying here is that corporations aren't into putting out money just to make themselves look good. They really want to make a difference. Making them look good is an added benefit.

• Social and health services, community development, and the environment are the issues most respondents say are addressed by corporate philanthropy. Over the next three years, the biggest increases in priorities should come in fostering entrepreneurship, higher education and K-12 education.

There you have it. Social and health services, community development, and the environment. Also education. If you want to attract corporate dollars... it helps if you can tie it into some of these goals.

In response to the question "What issues does your company currently address through its philanthropy community involvement program?", responses broke down like this:

• Social Services 45%
• Environment 44%
• Community Development 40%
• Health Services 40%
• Economic Development 39%
• Disaster Relief 37%
• Local Needs 37%
• Education K-12 34%
• Civic and Public Affairs 32%
• Education (higher) 32%
• Arts and Culture 25%
• Fostering Entrepreneurship 20%
• The Military and their Families 17%
• Religion 12%
• Other 1%

As you can see, "arts and culture" are down there towards the bottom. So if you are looking to get corporate support for said arts and culture, you have a much better chance if you can tie it into some of the things that are higher on the list.

I like the idea of arts and culture as part of community development, but in order to attract dollars you better have a pretty good plan and argument for how your particular project is going to help develop the community. Education is far more approachable. You stand a better chance of getting funds if you are using art to teach. Use your art to teach about the environment, health, or local needs, and you score higher. Art for arts sake has long taken a back seat to other priorities. One way to fight back is to work the system to your advantage.

I actually do this myself. I present educational shows in the Virginia area on behalf of Great Big Planet.  Just last week I presented a rainforest show at Sunnyside Elementary School in McKenny, Virginia, for K-5 kids. I had a blast, and the kids learned something. And I made a little money.