Clint Eastwood was remarkable in the halftime Chrysler Commercial. Wow. So, what’s our strategy, America, for the second half?

Is it going to be about accepting and learning from a new breed of leader?

One who is socially conscious ethically bound creatively fueled and astonishingly- efficient?

The not for-profit-world, and the creative industries especially, are a gold mine for recruiting talent.  All NFP leaders need is some for-profit entrepreneurial training to become REAL CHANGE AGENTS to fortune 1000. And to all you hard core NFP leaders- we need to fight for some funding innovation. Look what happened in Detroit. A big government INVESTMENT came along for our auto industry at the RIGHT TIME (aka now) and  RAPID GROWTH and RECOVERY occurred.

And to all you foundations who don’t know how to deal with us up starts in your space? Not everything has to be old and established to be your next best investment. Get better at taking a few risks.  We all have to.

And more government bailouts are not the answer either. How many gazillions pf dollars is Fortune 1000 sitting on overseas that is not being used productively? What our government needs to do is let some of that money come back home free of charge to fuel growth that emanates from the creative industries.

The creative not-for-profit industries have some remarkable people who with a little investment and a little education, and a ‘herd’ building mentality, could do a lot for our economic recovery while they change the world. It’s time America.

While it is easy to look at this cartoon strip created by Norwegian artist, Ida Eva Margrethe Neverdahl, and see it for its “face” value, I would encourage you to look deeper. Ida shares a great visual story, in my opinion, about how we discover our “emotional” elephant and learn to ride it. ( For more explicate training instructions read How to train your elephant to increase whole brain thinking.)

You see, we all have an elephant inside of us. And none of us has an easy time, at first, getting on its back- as this cartoon strip illustrates.  But when you learn how to, your life will magically begin to flow. And you too will be able to “ride your artwave and show off its fun“ quite easily, successfully and profitably.

So often you’ll hear an artist say.. “becoming an artist wasn’t a choice but a gift”.  And yet, with as short as life is, sometimes we need to be reminded why this particular gift was selected for us to receive in the first place.

Our gifts were not given to us for our self serving pleasures. Nor to torment us. Or to use for the sole purpose of competing to win a place at the top of the art circle.

And our gifts were also not given for us to pit one against the other. Nor to leave us broken, miserable, or questioning our purpose here on earth. And they certainly were not given to us to leave us alone, homeless or starving.

Our gifts, of not just a vivid imagination but the ability to render it into productive creativity, were given to us because of the profound impact we can make helping another become the best version of the person he or she truly can be. Our creative gifts were given to awaken the inner lives of others. To touch their spirit, to speak where there are no words. To help another gleam the strength, insight, humility, integrity and values from our gifts to move themselves and our world positively onward.

Let this forward below, from my friend Robert Fishbone– a remarkably creative artist in his own right– about his journey finishing his wife, Sarah’s, book Onward is Best, serve as a reminder to us all.

Onward my friends. May this inspire you to continue to step outside of yourself and use your creative gifts to increasingly find a way to be of service, through your artistry, to others. The world needs your creativity more than ever.

Lisa Canning

An Introduction by Robert Fishbone, Sarah’s husband

It was a blustery December evening in 1958. Little Sarah Jean Linquist stood with her face pressed up against a large window at Marshall Field’s department store in Chicago. Sarah, already an aspiring young artist, was swept away by a magical holiday scene created by some unknown designer. “I want to do that some day!” she exclaimed. That desire resurfaced decades later as this amazing book and as one of the ways Sarah dealt with a life-changing event.

In 2006, in the midst of a long career as a prolific painter and well-respected scenic artist, my beloved wife Sarah was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer. As someone who courageously and delightfully made every situation her own, even ones that seemed adversarial, she did not let this “new reality,” as she called it, detract from her personal mission: to nurture our family, to spend time with loving friends, to create art, and to wear cool clothes.

In our home, we have often referred to life as the Great Mystery, and mysterious and grand was how Sarah looked at the world. She really wasn’t trying to figure life out or even unravel it…she just wanted to dance with it.

Her first chemo treatments left her with peripheral neuropathy. Her hands and feet became numb, so much that she not only had some difficulty walking, but with her eyes closed she couldn’t feel the difference between sand paper or silk, a real challenge for an artist who draws and paints. To regain her fine motor skills Sarah began cutting up paper and assembling the pieces into shapes and objects. And then she remembered gazing into those Christmas windows at Marshall Field’s. With this Aha! moment she began this wondrous book.

Sarah wrote a classic journey tale. Her story combines foolishness, bravery, loyalty, risk taking and the need to count on others to help you push through the unknown. To illustrate her story, Sarah created a series of 3-D sets, each a miniature landscape through which her characters journeyed. She constructed her Paper Land, Popcorn Land, Metal Land, Teddy Bear Land, Wood Land, and Desolation Land using different materials and found objects. For her heroine she fashioned Dolly, a small wooden doll with wild red hair. She set her story within the context of her favorite time of year: Christmas.

Making landscapes became a wonderful adventure. Sarah was determined to find just the right pieces for her “Lands.” She borrowed heavily from her own giant stash of “arty stuff” collected over many years; she also loved to cruise garage sales and auction web sites. She invited family and friends to donate mini Teddy bears, stuffed crows, and small wooden doors or to help make a whole garden of cloth flowers. Sarah had so much fun explaining her story and giving tours of her evolving sets to the steady stream of visitors who passed through our house.

Sarah worked on her book project whenever she had time, even after two major surgeries and during four different chemo regimens. I figure she averaged four hours a day for four years. That’s almost 6,000 hours devoted to her vision: a new Christmas classic that parents and grandparents would read to their children in the days leading up to Christmas.

Very sadly though, Sarah died in June, 2010, before she could finish her book.

Soon after her passing, ten family members and close friends, each one committed to Sarah’s mantra of “Ain’t Life Grand,” agreed to complete Sarah’s project and make her dream a reality. Working together for over a year, we have grown closer as friends, and as family. We have gained new insights into Sarah’s extraordinary artwork and how she looked at the world she had created. And just as working on her book was a way for Sarah to find greater purpose in her life, to keep pushing forward, our efforts to complete her book have helped us all heal.

Sarah’s book is part of her legacy to us all. She has given us amazing landscapes to journey through, a tale to help us to experience the magic of Christmas, and a memory of her hard work that empowers each of us to reach for something beyond our daily lives, to probe the Great Mystery even more deeply.

This book is a testament to Sarah’s abilities as an artist, to her devotion as a wife, mother, sister, daughter and friend, and to her delightful spirit. I hope you have enjoyed reading and sharing this book as much as she loved creating it.

How can we improve the chances that productivity will flow from our imagination or our creativity?  For starters we need to think of imagination and creativity as distinctively different. These two words should not be used interchangeably.

Think of it like this. If you can visualize something in your mind- the famous person you hope to marry, your first house, the new car you want to buy or your first trip to a new planet in the solar system, then you are a living breathing IMAGINATIVE human being. All humans posses and can access this amazing power in various strengths.

However,  accessing this power source-while an INCREDIBLY important 1st step- does not require action. We can dream all day and visualize whatever we wish without obligation to render what we see. Here is where the next step comes. To transform our imagination into creativity requires a far more complicated ability-  to transform what we envision in our heads into a reality. This requires a sequence of steps that move our thought processes back and forth between our left ” hard skills” and our right “soft skills”.

Helping individuals transform their active imaginations into productive and hopefully innovative creativity is certainly a lot harder to do. It’s no wonder 60%’s of CEO’s surveyed by IBM in 2010 are concerned about developing a more creative work force to help them  innovate their organizations, huh?

But the real dilemma is how are we suppose to help our world become more creative when there are SO many theorists who have written their own theory about how to sequence the steps between right and left to access one’s creativity?

Let’s see, you have Osborn’s 7 stage model in 1953, and Koberg and Bagnall in 1976. Parnes model in 1977, Amabile’s in 1988 and Mumford’s in 1991. And before them, there was Wallas, Dewey, Rossman, Guilford, Stanislawski, Gordon, Kepner-Tregoe, Arnold, Churchman,  and Zwicky. This is starting to look like the cereal aisle. Confusing! Which “theory” is the right one to help me be more creative?

Some researchers have attempted to identify creativity through cognitive aptitude and personality tests like  MacKinnon 1962, Guilford 1967; and Torrance in  1974. Others have isolated personal creative characteristics described as “cognitive styles” – Kirton did in 1976 in his “problem solving styles” -Basadur 1990 and Selby wrote their own in 2004, as did Prather in  2008.  And if that’s not enough to confuse you, then look at Csikszentmihalyi 1996 assertion that it is complexity, not specific traits or following a thought process, that is the discerning factor in producing a creative personality. Here is his list.

With so many theories about how to ignite creativity, the water seems terribly murky as to exactly how best to generate more of it productively. And so, yet another researcher enters the picture. It’s Ned Herrmann who introduced his whole brain theory model back in 1998 that has become quite popular now-especially as an employee assessment tool.

According to Herrmann, 5% of the population uses one of the 4 quadrants in their brain. 55% use two quadrants. 35% use three quadrants and only 5% use all four quadrants.  Herrmann’s research shows that the more of our brain we use- the closer to “whole brain thinking” we achieve- the more we are able to synthesize information CREATIVELY into productive outcomes. The data reveals that both the right (creative) and the left (linear) need to be full activated to produce the greatest level of productivity.  According to Herrmann’s research this can be developed through synthesis of skills across right and left.  Senior and “C-level” executives tend to be more whole brained in their thinking.

And these are exactly the kind of leaders we need more of to solve our worlds problems.

Lisa Canning

We have lost our imagination. That’s what’s wrong with America. The leaders (or want to be’s) of our great country have no vision or language to help us reimagine our world. Our founding fathers envisioned what America could be and devised a language- our constitution-  for it. It was a brave imaginative act. It was through new shared language that America came alive.

We need more bravery.  Bravery to defend our ideas and to stand up for what we believe in. There is no better example of what bravery means than those who serve in our military. It is disgusting how we throw our military men and women in the trash and leave them jobless, emotionally bankrupt and hopeless after they protect and serve us all. What are we transmitting to ourselves about the value of bravery?

We need action not reactions. How many committees do we need to form?  How much consensus must we build to know what to do and when to do it? How many studies must we undertake?  How much talk, talk, talk, talk, talk must occur before we come to a NEW LEVEL of consciousness that simply and clearly informs us to ACT?

We need to value honor. It’s hard to get anything done in life without it. We need to honor our words and back them with actions. How often do you find a lack of consistency between words and actions with loved ones, friends, co-workers, and leaders? How can we trust each other without this basic form of respect and shared understanding? How can we play together or stand up tall and proud together without honor really?

And for that matter, where did our drive go?  It takes determination, sweat and commitment to create an amazing life, a business, a legacy. Instant gratification is a sugar high compared to the sustainable energy that flows from committing and investing into your life’s work. And yet, sympathetically, I can understand how most people I know get to the point where they say ” It’s too much trouble. Life is too unstable.  It’s like a continuous walk uphill in the sleeting cold rain, gale winds blowing without an umbrella or a raincoat. I don’t care enough to risk it. Go ahead, you do it. I’ll watch and see how well it works for you”. Yah. This is what’s wrong with America.

We have lost our confidence. Our ideas are shot down, our brave acts thrown out with the trash and our trust in mankind chipped away at slowly until our confidence is shaken. It takes confidence in ourselves to make a difference, confidence from our communities to make change happen and confidence in our government for each of us to steward our slice of the world with integrity and make the world a better place.

So where does this leave us? Stalled and alone with our selfish selves. Seems like not the best premise to restore hope or build something to believe in, does it?

What makes life worth living is the joy of helping others. At least that’s what life in America means to me. There IS A WAY to do good and do well at the same time here at home. I find it simply bizarre how often my purest desire and sincerity is called into question. What does that say really about America and her people? Do we really SH*T where we eat or have we just grown so accustom to others doing it that it seems normal and acceptable that we do it too?

We have only one life to live America. Use your One voice to make a difference. Find a sisterhood or brotherhood of believers just like you.  Make a tribe with them. And when you do?  Be LOYAL and KIND and GIVING towards them. WITH THEM use your imagination.  BE brave, ACT, and do it with HONOR. If you do, you will rise above adversity together and your confidence will grow together.

Let us  be brave enough to reimagine our futures together FIRST with our truest of true friends and then expand from there. Those who really believe and VALUE the same things we do. Let’s hold each other accountable in the name of progress and honor. Gosh. Imagine that. Now find the language you need to make it come true in your family, in your community and in this lifetime.

We can restore America into all things possible again.

This list was posted on Don Griesmann Nonprofit Blog on 7/12, 2011

How can the arts grow outside into other sectors and strands of society?  One way is by finding new sources of funding from new sectors outside of the arts who can appreciate and understand the value we can bring to other subject matter.

• no fees
• open to all
• meaningful list
• broadly based
• user friendly
• timely

The Foundation Center has an excellent Guide to Funding Research for grantseekers that should be read by everyone, staff, consultant, volunteer or board member, starting out for the first or 30^th time searching for grants – http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/tutorials/gfr/ According to the Foundation Center there were over $7.6 billion in grants given to 15,675 international recipients in 42,169 foundation grants. http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/maps/

1. ·  Grants.gov is an excellent source for timely notice of federal grants, sorted by opening or closing date over the past 7 days. It includes domestic and international grants. I suggest this should be a “favorite” if you are interested in federal grants because it changes regularly  http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=Search&dates=7&docs1=doc_open_checked
2. ·  Federal Grants Wire, a useful search tool for finding federal grants, government grants and loans. They currently index 2,481 federal grants and loans organized by sponsoring agency, applicant type, subject area http://www.federalgrantswire.com/
3. ·  Federal Business Opportunities (Fed Biz Ops) with 25,000 – 32,000 contract opportunities, some for nonprofits. This is not an easy site to navigate but if you are looking for business contracts rather than grants this where you can start https://www.fbo.gov/?s=home&tab=list&mode=list
4. ·  NonProfitExpert.com, detailed listing of grants and good information for grant seekers; review the categories listed on the left hand side.    http://www.nonprofitexpert.com/federal_grants.htm
5. ·  Jon Harrison and Michigan State University have a comprehensive list of funders alphabetized by subject http://staff.lib.msu.edu/harris23/grants/2sgalpha.htm
6. ·  Youth Grants for NPOs working  in that service area http://www.youthtoday.org/grants.cfm
7. ·  Rural Assistance Center has an excellent directory of foundations with funding links by topics, and links to state resources http://www.raconline.org/funding/funding_topic.php
8. ·  Common Grants material has a list of foundations that accept their universal grant application form. The list of foundations is in alphabetical order and is searchable by location, program type and beneficiary http://www.commongrants.com/participating-funders
9. ·  Meyer Foundation’s list about funding opportunities, outside Meyer, includes information on ways to strengthen nonprofit organizations, research about people and communities that Meyer cares about, and useful links for nonprofits and grantmakers
   http://www.meyerfoundation.org/resources/Other+Funding+Opportunities/
10. ·  FundsNet Services.com has excellent information about grants and you can browse through categories of grants from Animal & Wildlife Grants to Women Grants – http://www.fundsnetservices.com/
11. ·  Women’s Funding Network connects and strengthens more than 160 organizations that fund women’s solutions across the globe http://www.wfnet.org/the-network/member-directory
12. ·  Grant Makers in Health has partners listed and linked alphabetically -http://www.gih.org/link_no_cat2664/link_no_cat.htm
13. ·  Environmental Grantmaker Association has an alphabetical list and links – http://www.ega.org/funders/funder.php?op=list
14. ·  Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation funders are listed at the University of Wisconsin grants’ library http://grants.library.wisc.edu/organizations/animals.html
15. ·  California Polytechnic State University, listed by subject in alphabetical order -   http://www.calpoly.edu/~grants/3_FoundSubj.html
16. ·  Foundation Center has a list of the 100 largest U.S. grantmaking foundations ranked by the market value of their assets, based on the most current audited financial data in the Foundation Center’s database as of April 27, 2011. http://fdncenter.org/findfunders/topfunders/top100assets.html
17. ·  ChristianGrants.com features links by key words and by work projects including building campaigns, program support, outreach ministries and more http://www.christiangrants.com/
18. ·  National Association for the Exchange of Industrial Resources (NAEIR) features a catalog of donated merchandise for supplies http://www.naeir.org/
19. ·  A reader suggested – ScanGrants™ is designed to facilitate the search for funding sources to enhance individual and community health – medical researchers, social workers, nurses, students, community-based health educators, academics and others
    http://www.scangrants.com/

1. Canada’s CharityVillage has a section with a list of grantors in alphabetical order, searchable by categories http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/nonpr/nonpr17.asp
2. Canada funders can be found on FundsNet Services.com http://www.fundsnetservices.com/searchresult.php?sbcat_id=29
3. Nobel Peace Prize has a list of international foundations http://www.nobelpeaceforum.org/grantsandrelatedresources.htm
4. Grants from foundations aimed at United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and other international funders at Fundsnet Services.com http://www.fundsnetservices.com/showcats.php?sbcat_id=10
5. Jon Harrison’s list of Women in International Development, a compilation of web pages of potential interest to NGOs seeking funding opportunities related to women in international development- http://staff.lib.msu.edu/harris23/grants/2wid.htm
6. The International Human Rights Funders Group has a grants tool designed to enable both grantmakers and grantseekers to search for human rights funders by several key criteria: areas of rights funding, activities supported and geographic focus at http://ihrfg.org/funder-directory-search
7. Grant Makers without Borders does not provide grants but does have an excellent directory of foundations and other organizations interested in international grantmaking http://www.internationaldonors.org/advicegs/index.htm
8. LGBTQ Funders Directory provides information on funders of organizations and projects working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities. All of the groups included in the directory have provided financial support, of varying types, to LGBTQ programs. http://www.lgbtfunders.org/seekers/directory.cfm
9. ChristianGrants.com features international opportunities with links by key words and by work projects including building campaigns, program support, outreach ministries and more http://www.christiangrants.com/
10. Grantmakers Online.com, an interactive database of world-wide funders, in Beta form, and a little clumsy but highly useful, http://www.grantmakersonline.com/

What kinds of new jobs in the arts can we create?  What combination of skills do we need to unlock new economic opportunities for us and to change society’s perceptions of what value the arts deliver? How can we add more to GDP by building hybrid careers that transmit and translate all of our skills across all sectors and strands?

Below are two lists that I think are valuable to creatively thinking through the possibilities.  The first are interdisciplinary sites focused on the development of leadership skills through emotional intelligence building.  Embedding emotional intelligence training as part of an arts based venture can have many applications across many disciplines outside of the arts.

The second list is a list of performing artists who have already figured out how to fine-tune their artistic and creative competencies to provide experience-based learning alternatives to traditional leadership training and development. This list might provide some reflection and generate some ideas for those of you who are interested.

Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

• About Learning Styles
• Breakthrough Creativity-Achieving Top Performance Using the Eight Creative Talents
• Center for Creative Leadership
• Change Leaders, Inc. – Board Development, CEO Coaching, and Executive Team Development
• Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations
• Human Capital Institute
• Integral Leadership Review
• New Horizons for Learning-Learning in the Workplace
• What Make’s a Leader?-Harvard Business Review Article on Emotionally-Intelligent Leadership

Performing Arts-based Leadership Training

• Ariel Group-Leadership Presence
• Banff Centre – Inspiring Creative Leadership
• Being and Living Enterprises – Creatively Optimizing Purpose & Performance
• Brian Tate Productions – The Voice of Leadership
• Business as Performance Art
• Colorado Business Committee for the Arts
• Creative Skills Training Council-Asia Pacific & Australia
• Creative Leaps International
• Leadership for Lawyers
• Learning Innovations Laboratory-Harvard Graduate School of Education
• PianoScapes – Awakening the Commons of the Imagination
• Society for Arts in Healthcare
• Theatre4Business – Play Hard; Work Well
• The Art of Possibilities
• The International Forum – Leadership Through Music
• The Maestro Effect
• Music and Management – Music Provides Excellent Metaphor for Business Climate
• Viva La Voice – Celebrate the Power of Your Full Expression

Written by Peter Spellman, Berklee College of Music

First, let’s dispel of some myths. Musicians sometimes fall victim to the notion they are doing something so precious and valuable that they can’t understand why the world isn’t shoving money in their pockets and adulation on their heads. “Why am I not famous yet?”– a question rarely asked out loud but certainly poking around inside many musicians – especially those aspiring to the heights of pop fame and worldly success.

Is it me, or is there a bit of an entitlement mentality here – that the world owes you a living, or something?

Well, surprise, your “work” is no more valuable than the auto mechanic’s and the zookeeper’s. Let that sink in.

Reality check: The “culture industries” we play in perpetuate the myth by allowing the marginalization of “art” on the one hand, and the divinization of the same on the other. “Art,” according to this view, is created by the very few and must be protected behind marble and glass in buildings resembling temples of old. The message is clear: Look, but don’t touch. At the same time, “art” is elbowed out of reach of the common man, and the training of the same must happen in credentialed institutions of “higher learning,” else you may not wear the badge of “Artist”.

This might seem odd coming from someone employed by the world’s top contemporary music college, but I base it on observation of hundreds of music careerists over many years. While most musicians I know take a humble stance in relation to their work, the myth persists and can affect musicians’ inner lives to a great degree, sometimes without them even knowing it.

Let’s face it. The upward climb can seem to last forever. In reality, it is never-ending — unless you are planning on hitting some pre-determined plateau and squatting there.

Don’t fall into the trap of feeling that the race is not going well just because you’re not at the finish line yet.  The race has something to celebrate all along its track. What becomes tiresome to the aspiring musician is not achieving some significant milestones. We’ll address that later.

Perhaps it’s helpful to remember all those ten year “overnight” successes. Indie rockers Death Cab for Cutie released their first record in 1998 and didn’t get their wider recognition until their first Grammy nomination in 2008. It took almost ten years of total immersion into his craft as a songwriter and vocalist for John Stephens to make the transition to Grammy-winning John Legend.

And, lest we forget, when the Beatles landed in NYC in 1964 for their first U.S. appearance, they had already been together since 1957 and had clocked an estimated 1,200 gigs, many consisting of eight hour sets at Hamburg and Liverpool clubs!

Here’s the reality: A full-time performing (or, songwriting, or recording, or what have you) career may not be in the cards for you. The unrelenting laws of supply and demand are real, and are being felt more today than ever before. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try for it. Of course you should, and many will achieve it. But musicians need to give themselves permission to be weekend warriors with non-music day jobs too.

That’s OK, ok?

Being a full-time “artist” is a fine goal, but try seeing that goal in light of Meister Eckhart’s words: “An artist is not a special kind of person. Rather, every person is a special kind of artist.” A business meeting is a jazz jam; a DIY rock band is a management team. Don’t let industrial age divisions of labor blind you to the possibilities for creative engagement everywhere and anywhere. You can create in myriad ways with myriad means in myriad venues.

“Be a Picasso of production, a Rembrandt of the receiving department, a Michelangelo of management, or a Gauguin of gofering,” writes career expert Lee Silber. “Life is art, and even the bad times are part of the experience that will contribute to your creativity in the future.”

It’s all mind set, IMHO.

Adapted from, Musician 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…Developing Music Careers in Uncertain Times. Get the whole enchilada here

About Peter Spellman
Peter Spellman found his way into music as a guitarist in various New York bands and then switched to drums after seeing the Police perform in the late 1970s. Since then he’s performed and recorded with reggae outfit, The Mighty Charge, world music ensemble Friend Planet, and now with the Underwater Airport crew. He’s scored films for the National Science Foundation, composed video games for Massachusetts General Hospital, and coaches music entrepreneurs at Berklee College of Music. He is author of “The Self Promoting Musician” and “Indie Business Power: A Step by Step Guide for 21st Century Music Entrepreneurs”. Find him at mcareerjuice.com

Written by Aimee Groth | Jul. 3, 2011, 6:08 PM |

From Open Forum: With all the press coverage devoted to new high tech company founders, you’d think that young entrepreneurs are the only successful entrepreneurs. But the latest research suggests otherwise. 

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, people over the age of 35 made up 80 percent of the total entrepreneurship activity in 2009. That same year, the Kauffman Foundation conducted a survey of 549 startups operating in “high-growth” industries — including aerospace, defense, health care, and computer and electronics — and found that people over 55 are nearly twice as likely to launch startups in these industries.

There are several reasons for this. First, older entrepreneurs have more life and work experience. In some cases, they have decades of industry expertise — and a better understanding of what it truly takes to compete, and succeed, in the business world. Second, they also have much broader and vaster networks. Even if an older entrepreneur is seeking to start a business in an entirely different industry, they have deep connections from all walks of life — for example, a brother-in-law could be the perfect COO. Third, those over 50 have acquired more wealth, a better credit history (which helps with securing loans), and are smarter with their finances.

It’s true that the older you get, the more risk-averse you become, but the Great Recession has changed that. Many older workers who lost their jobs have decided it was finally time to launch the business they’ve been talking about for years.

As for why older entrepreneurs don’t get as much press coverage? Stefan Theil of Newsweek puts it this way:

“Part of the reason that companies started by older workers don’t get much recognition is because they don’t generally produce hot Web apps or other easily understood products. Instead, they tend to involve more complex technologies like biotech, energy, or IT hardware. They also tend to sell products and services to other businesses, which consumers rarely see but which do most of the heavy lifting in powering innovation and economic growth.”

If you’re part of the Baby Boomer generation, and you’ve always dreamed about starting a business, remember that Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of America’s young tech entrepreneurs are anomalies. You’ve got wisdom and experience on your side.

Note: this article was previously published on The OPEN Forum.

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There is an unspoken social contract the world has made with artists. It goes something like this: “We love what you do, you inspire us. But you don’t live in the “real” world so you couldn’t possibly economically revive us.”

If your an artist reading this post, and you truly wish to enter into other sectors of society in meaningful ways to help our broken world, the reality of bumping into the invisible wall is real. Trust me. I am living the dream and working at the wall and focused on dismantling it one brick at a time.

And if you are one of those folks who might have made this social contract with us artists, knowingly or unconsciously, reading this post?  It’s time to let go of it and find some 21st century innovative artists who will offer you a far better ROI than you can imagine.

I was told the other day by a seasoned technology entrepreneur, venture capital and angel investor that “…people all the time lie to us- we expect it. One of the ingredients to becoming an entrepreneur is to thicken your skin and learn to ignore it and rise above it. It’s probably one of the reasons why so many entrepreneurs are assholes when they succeed really.”

I have to tell you this does not work for me. Imagine what would happen to our work and new businesses if the basis for all we do was built instead on trust and collaboration?

Get the picture?

Artists do you see the potency of the work in front of us to do?

If the world we live in now was built on a lack of trust and a lack of collaboration- which it has been- let’s create our own entrepreneurial opportunities to help ourselves and others prosper by teaching the virtue and benefits of ethical conduct and true collaboration through our artistry. Imagine just how vibrant our world would be.

This is what the arts have to offer IF we develop the skills to translate our creativity and standard of conduct into meaningful ways to others.

Who will join me at the invisible wall?

I need a dump truck now please. But I am in search of a fleet…

A new report from Dalberg Global Development Advisors argues that companies would achieve more social good by focusing on the bottom line rather than social responsibility programs, double- and triple-bottom-line accounting, and hybrid structures with nonprofit and for-profit arms, the New York Times reports.

Written by Daniel Altman and Jonathan Berman, The Single Bottom Line (PDF, 14 pages) contends that companies’ efforts to adopt double and triple bottom lines — which include measurements of a company’s social and environmental impact as well as profit when evaluating its overall performance — are distractions from their real business and not necessarily sustainable. “The real social value comes overwhelmingly from what companies do through their core business, the skills and supply chains built up around them, and then the revenue that comes into government as a result of their profitability,” said Berman.

The report highlights examples of how companies that focus on achieving profitability over the long term can generate public benefits as a byproduct. For instance, Minnesota-based Cargill, the largest privately held company in the country, has for years been giving African cotton farmers seeds to grow a second non-cotton crop, which is better for the soil and helps farmers affiliated with the company diversify their revenue stream.

“Again and again, we’ve seen the most efficient way to create social benefits is by looking at how those benefits redound to the bottom line,” Altman told the Times. But, he added, that doesn’t mean corporate giving or social responsibility programs should be abandoned. “I think they should simply be subjected to the same level of rigor as all other investments companies make with the aim of improving profitability.”

Strom, Stephanie. “To Be Good Citizens, Report Says, Companies Should Just Focus on Bottom Line.” New York Times 6/14/11.

Our 2010 most read posts are interestingly some oldies but goodies. From our top 25, 14 are from 2007 through 2009. Our oldest post from 2007, which also happens to be our #1 post, is about my  journey writing a book.

So for all you writers out there, this list just goes to show you that it’s important to get your writing our there because its more likely to become well read with the passage of time.

#1 Starving Artist Not
#2 The Four C’s of 21st Century Education
#3 Oh the places you’ll go by Dr Seuss
#4 Tongue twisters for actors and speakers
#5 Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs
#6 Ten steps to finding your artistic voice
#7 Best and worst marketing campaigns
#8 How to create a badge for your blog
#9 An artistic entrepreneurial case study: The story of blue man group
#10 Ben Cameron on change transformation and renewal in the arts
#11 One blank piece of paper
#12 Dinner in the sky
#13 Conservatory made me successful in business
#14 How to make your creativity explode create your own strategic implode
#15 North Africa Economic Partership announced between Aspen Institute and U.S. Department of State
#16 Top 20 arts entrepreneur blogs
#17 What does fame mean to you?
#18 I’m not an entertainer. I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker
#19 Artists as social entrepreneurs
#20 Our dirty little family secret
#21 The definition of a calculated risk
#22 Innovating through artistry
#23 Paradigm shifts build innovative companies
#24 Overcoming mediocrity
#25 What is your imagination worth to you?

Lisa Canning, Founder of EntrepreneurTheArts.com, TheIAE.com and LisasClarinetShop.com

Well, today I leave for Washington for my first PNB-NAPEO (Partners for a New Beginning- North Africa Partners for Economic Opportunity) Summit. Madeline Albright will kick off our meeting and then we will spend two days in meetings that range from a PNB overview from the ground to Entrepreneurship for Women in the Middle East to clean water initiatives. Great stuff.

IAE is supported by Partners for a New Beginning’s North Africa Partnership for Economic Opportunity (PNB-NAPEO), a public-private partnership created by the U.S. Department of State.  The mission of PNB-NAPEO is to build a network of entrepreneurs and business leaders in the United States and North Africa where both communities can identify projects that will foster entrepreneurship and job creation, especially for youth.

The meeting will be loaded with a lot of business folks interested in PNB’s mission from different vantage points. Gosh, what a big help this is going to be to The IAE. And what fun it is going to be attending such a high-voltage education oriented networking meeting. This will be a great opportunity to grow my network of support for The IAE and continue the transformation process- from idea into reality. Are YOU ready to transform from a caterpillar with 16 legs into a butterfly who, with just a single pair of wings, can fly?)

At the Summit, I am looking forward to meeting Naeem Zafar. Check out this blog post he wrote about the initiative.

Check out these ebooks that Naeem has written. I can’t wait to meet him. Imagine the possibilities for art and culture, as a ‘sector’, to create innovative new businesses and job strands in the U.S. and North Africa? I am.

Market Research on a Shoestring!

Get a Reality check on your big idea for under $100. By Naeem Zafar, University of California, Berkeley

Entrepreneurs don’t like to do market research. Whether they find it unnecessary, think it takes too much time and money, or are simply terrified by the idea, they often start up their businesses without the necessary preparation or understanding of exactly what they are getting into.

But market research doesn’t have to be an expensive, unbearably time-consuming nightmare. It is an essential aspect of starting a new business that can be conducted quickly and easily if you know what to look for and where to look. Market Research on a Shoestring is full of techniques, tricks, and secrets that will help you ask the right questions and find the answers you need to better understand your business and the market it faces. If you want to raise funds for your startup or simply maximize your chances of success, you need this book!

 

Get Funded!

A Definitive Guide to Seeking the right funding at the right time and from the right source
By Naeem Zafar, University of California, Berkeley

Entrepreneurs need funding at various stages of their companies’growth. This to-the-point book is your essential guide to the funding process. Organized into three sections, this book outlines the likely sources of funding and how they operate, how to approach investors, and the 12-step process of getting funded.

As a valuable bonus, Get Funded! includes the names of several hundred angel investors and venture capital firms.

If you are serious about seeking funding for your startup or simply want to know your options, you need this book! This book is the complete guide to seeking and getting funding that all entrepreneurs look for and seldom find.

 

The Entrepreneur’s Legal Guide to Starting Up

By Naeem Zafar, University of California, Berkeley

A simple, to-the-point guide that outlines the decisions all entrepreneurs must make when setting up a legal entity. This eBook is packed with practical, time-tested tips and suggestions about incorporation, hiring the right lawyer, registering patents, and
minimizing your legal bill. The eBook includes a step-by-step guide to finding and hiring the right lawyer for your company and offers proven strategies that will save you thousands on your legal bill. There’s also an easy-to-understand chart explaining the differences between the various corporate structures and offering a quick guide to the most common legal issues plaguing entrepreneurs, as well as effective methods for overcoming them.

Knowing the ins and outs of setting up a startup and picking the right lawyer isn’t a matter of intelligence—it’s about experience and expertise. You may have a great deal of both when it comes to your industry, but most entrepreneurs don’t know much about the law. Your strengths lie elsewhere. As a result, you may find yourself intimidated by the idea of selecting legal counsel.

 

The Definitive Entrepreneur’s Guide to Lawyers:

35 Little-known facts, secrets, techniques, and tricks to making sure you get every penny’s worth of value from your lawyer By Naeem Zafar, University of California, Berkeley

Containing nearly three dozen money-saving, angst-minimizing tips, The Definitive Entrepreneur’s Guide to Lawyers is a go-to resource for the entrepreneur who wants to streamline the budget while leveraging the most effective legal services available. The guide includes a step-by-step guide to finding and hiring the right lawyer for your company, an easy-to-understand chart explaining the differences between the various corporate structures, proven communication strategies that will slash your legal bill by half each month, and a quick guide to the most common legal issues plaguing entrepreneurs, as well as effective methods for overcoming them.

Knowing the ins and outs of picking the right lawyer isn’t a matter of intelligence—it’s about experience and expertise. You may have a great deal of both when it comes to your industry, but most entrepreneurs don’t know much about the law. Your strengths lie elsewhere. As a result, you may find yourself intimidated by the idea of selecting legal counsel.

 

Finance Essentials for entrepreneurs:
A Simple Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Statements for Your Business. By Naeem Zafar, University of California, Berkele

Finance Essentials for Entrepreneurs is a startup owner’s indispensable guide to basic finance. Zafar draws on two decades of entrepreneurial experience to create an eBook that offers a simple, proven method for understanding the most important elements of financial management for businesses. Zafar understands what entrepreneurs need to know about business finance. He also knows that their time is precious. In Finance Essentials for Entrepreneurs, he delivers that knowledge in practical, to-the-point language free of technical jargon and longwinded discourses. Spreadsheet examples
are clear and relevant.

 

About Naeem Zafar

• A member of the faculty of the Haas business school at the University of California Berkeley, Naeem teaches Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the MBA program. Naeem is the founder of Concordia Ventures and focuses on educating and advising entrepreneurs on all aspects of starting and running a company. Naeem’s entrepreneurial experience includes working directly with six startups, and he has extensive experience in mentoring and coaching founders and CEOs. Naeem is now the president and CEO of Bitzer Mobile, a company that simplifies enterprise mobility.
• Until 2007, Naeem was the president and CEO of Pyxis Technology Inc., a company specializing in advanced chip design software for nanometer technology. Naeem has also been president and CEO of two other high tech startups (Silicon Design Systems and Veridicom, a Bell Labs spin-off that invented the silicon fingerprint sensors today found on most laptops). Naeem has held senior marketing and engineering positions at several companies including Quickturn Design Systems that had an IPO in 1993 and grew to $125M in revenues.
• Naeem holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Brown University (magna cum laude), Rhode Island, and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota.
• Naeem is a charter member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs www.TiE.org ).He is also a charter member of OPEN (www.OPENSiliconValley.com ) where he serves as the president.

 

Where, in life, can you ‘win’ and truly be rewarded?

For the past 3 months I have been glued to my computer writing and revising grant applications. Except for my fingers flying over the keyboard, and my mind ablaze with word-smithing chatter, my body sits motionless for hours on end.  I go to sleep dreaming about sentences I have written and wake up with a cereal bowl full of alphabet letters giving me the chance to literally eat my words before it starts all over again.

You see, I have never written a grant before. Before now, I lived in the for profit world. The learning curve is steep and it’s a hard process trying to rise to the challenge.

The first grant I wrote took a 100 hours to develop. 3 days before it was due, Marete Wester, Dir of Arts Policy from Americans for The Arts gave it a read and quite frankly tore it apart. God Bless her. Really. Thank God she did.

I had asked a number of people if they would read it and give me feedback but she was the only one who did in earnest. I received the copy back with tons of notes in the margin. Marete focused constructively on what I did not write well.

I ‘listened’ carefully to every word she wrote- letting the lessons sink in.  And once I had, I followed every suggestion she made and re-wrote the grant entirely, in just three days, starting over from scratch. This proposal was for a 6 figure request for support. I needed to write an incredibly well polished proposal to have a chance. Period.

It’s been a month since I submitted the proposal. Yesterday I heard from the foundation. They have asked to read our full proposal as well as asked we increase the amount requested to include our research proposal.

Lesson learned: Ask the smartest person in a subject area you know- or wish you knew- for help. While not often, sometimes they just might help you. I live by this rule and I can’t even begin to tell you how many amazing people, over the years, have stepped forward and offered to help me, like Marete Wester.

Look, other than a little gumption, asking is free. And for that matter rejection is too. It’s the receiving help part , however, some regard as the real ‘problem’. Why? Because it will challenge you to be disciplined: to listen, learn from what you hear and not resist, and then do what is required to rise above yourself and improve. Quickly.

Have you ever been bribed? How did it happen? What lessons did you learn?

In 1974,when I was 10, my father offered me $100.00 to lose 10 pounds. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer  inflation calculator my dad was offering his 10 year old daughter the equivalent of $456.20 in today’s dollars. Yeah, what 10 year old wouldn’t be motivated by that?  And losing that 10 pounds he highly incentivized me to lose was as hard for me then to accomplish as it is for me now.

But I did it and it made a big impression on me to this day. I remember well the day I walked into the bike shop with my Dad and paid cash for a decked out girls brand new Hollywood Schwinn bicycle I was able to buy for myself with my very own stash.  This lesson stuck: Conquering hard stuff in life- the stuff that requires the most from us ever- and yet is really good for us – deserves a great reward.

And what if the reward, you ask, never comes?   Then the question you have to ask is: Are you sure your doing the right hard stuff?

There is still time to get your ticket to The Chicago Michigan Avenue TEDx on Saturday May 7th at Symphony Center in Chicago.

The big question: How can we make changes to our industry to support the arts? Where do we begin and what will that future industry look like? David Zoltan will play host to people from all over the arts industry to answer these questions and more. Join him on May 7th, 2011 at The Symphony Center, “Club 8″ for his TedX talk. Together we can
create solutions and evolve!

8:00am – Registration and Welcome

9:00am-10:30am – First Group
David Zoltan, Organizer – Welcome
Seth Boustead - Executive Director, Access Contemporary Music
Gwydion Suilebhan – Playwright
Drew McManus – Orchestra consultant

10:30am-11:00am – 30 minute break

11:00am-12:30pm – Second Group
David Dombrosky - Executive Director, Center for Arts Management and Technology
Scott Walters – Director, Center for Rural Arts Development and Leadership Education
Lisa Canning – Founder, The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship

12:30pm-1:30pm – 60 minute lunch break

1:30pm-3:00pm – Third Group
Ian David Moss – Arts Policy Wonk at Createquity.com
Crystal Hall, Adam Marks, Melissa Snoza – Fifth House Ensemble
Tom Tresser- arts and business consultant, arts policy activist
Adam Thurman – Director of Marketing, Court Theatre

3:00pm-3:30pm – 30 minute break

3:30pm-5:00pm – Fourth Group
David J. Loehr – Playwright and co-founder of 2amtheatre.com
Julie Ritchey - Artistic Director, Filament Theatre Ensemble
Eric Ziegenhagen – Artist and funding consultant

Click here to purchase tickets to this event!

A big shout out to the fabulous, one and only, Lisa Stamos who made my appearance possible on the cover of her absolutely DROP DEAD GORGEOUS  Quintessential magazine. And another to Angel Oakley for making it happen! And one more to Toni Antonetti who introduced me to Lisa Stamos in the first place last year.

Here is a link to the 3 amazing pages about The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship and our friends at  The Aspen Institute and Americans for The Arts.

Today and tomorrow, April 4th-5th, is the 24th annual Arts Advocacy Day in Washington DC. Organized by Americans for The Arts, Arts Advocacy Day is the only national event that brings together a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic organizations and grassroots advocates from across the country to underscore the importance of developing strong public policies and appropriating increased public funding for the arts.

Today and tomorrow I hope every ETA reader will get involved in Advocacy Day by underscoring where you see the arts currently thriving. With actors Kevin Spacey, and Hill Harper at the Congressional kick off, and Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey providing testimony at a special hearing of the house appropriations subcommittee, I hope these days are filled with bright spots and not the depressing news about funding cuts for the arts, and our fear, in some cases, of survival. None of this will help us make our point, really.

I know as an artist or an arts administrator it is pretty easy to focus on “the problem.” In fact, our arts training taught us well to quickly recognize “what’s broke”, and to ask and answer “how do I fix it?”  Except when the problem continues to grow in size, despite our focusing on it, like now, we need to change our approach.

So when you contribute your ideas and thoughts about what Arts Advocacy Day means to you on facebook and twitter, focus on providing the answer to this question alone: ‘What’s working and how can we do more of it?’

This question is rarely the one we ask first in life because it’s far more easy to focus on the problem. And yet, by focusing on the bright spot(s) we have a far greater chance of  transforming impossibly difficult situations.  If it seems hard for you to believe that this really works, read Chip Heath & Dan Heath’s book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. It is loaded with real world “bleak and seemingly hopeless” examples of how the impossible becomes possible when we do.

Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Foundation aka a Bright Spot

This past weekend I attended and presented  two workshops for Linda Essig, Arizona State University and P.A.V.E. Creating Infrastructure for Creativity Innovation Conference in Tempe, AZ. (P.A.V.E by the way stands for: performing arts venture experience)

Ben Cameron from the Doris Duke Foundation was the keynote and he both figuratively and literally illuminated beautifully the inherent undeniable power of focusing on a bright spot.

While it might be easy to imagine that this photo of Ben was “altered” to illustrate my point, it was not. I took 5 different pictures of Ben on stage, as he spoke, and in every one he only appeared surrounded by bright white light.  And the bright spots that exist in the arts right now are indeed this bright, magnetic and hard not to want to pay attention to.

Here are a few of Ben’s bright spots that he mentioned in his speech: The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Bill Rauch and The Cornerstone Theater Company in LA and The Trey McIntyre Project in Boise Idaho.

And here are a couple of other things Ben shared that really jumped out at me–  The first was ” What in the arts are we going to stop doing to change our circumstances?”  He went on to remind us all that the only constant in life is change itself and that we must learn how to, like hockey star Wayne Gretzky said about his success,  “skate to where the puck will be to score.”

So, where is your puck going that you need to skate to? What’s working for you artistry or arts organization? What artistically is resonating well within your community? How can you create more of the same?

I hope you will share your ” bright spot” ideas today. Get involved. We need you. It’s Arts Advocacy Day.

Help spread the word about Arts Advocacy Day!

Follow Arts Advocacy Day on Twitter. And use the tag, #AAD11, when spreading the word!

Find the latest happenings on the official Arts Advocacy Day page on Facebook.

About Deana McDonagh
Deana McDonagh is an Associate Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art + Design at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and faculty at the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology. Prior to joining the University of Illinois she was a Reader in User-Centred Design at Loughborough University in the UK. She is an Empathic Design Research Strategist who focuses on enhancing quality of life for all through more intuitive and meaningful products, leading to emotional sustainability. Her research concentrates on emotional user-product relationships and how empathy can bring the designer closer to users’ authentic needs.
http://www.beckman.illinois.edu/directory/mcdonagh

The arts are in a time of enormous transition and change. Look at the severe funding cuts threatening the already incredibly diminished National Endowment for the Arts?  It certainly can come as no surprise that state art agencies are facing elimination, or severe reductions too.

A sample of images used in an Arizona Commission on the Arts campaign to raise awareness about the importance of arts education, which is in peril in most states in the U.S. as state funding and assistance dries up as a result of state budget shortfalls. (Arizona Commission on the Arts)

The Arizona Commission on the Arts recently inaugurated a campaign to raise awareness about the importance of arts education. Fittingly, it features imagery that is imaginative, provocative and disturbing, including a paint brush that morphs into the type of needles junkies use to shoot up. The caption is concise and compelling: “Kids will leave their mark, with or without the arts.”

Artists, too, will leave their mark, with or without governmental support. They’ve been sketching, dancing and making music for thousands of years, and they’re not going to stop if — as governors around the United States are currently proposing — state arts agencies are either drastically curtailed or completely dismantled.

But advocacy campaigns like the one mentioned above? They’ll likely be a thing of the past. Student matinees, training programs for teachers and administrators, efforts to bring cultural events into inner cities and rural communities — all will be severely curtailed.

Wealthy patrons will still enjoy the cultural offerings they generously support. But less-glamorous projects, and those that require coordination or cooperation between organizations, will be fewer in number and lower in quality. And smaller organizations, which rely more heavily on public support, will be more likely to close their doors.

“It’s a basic idea of our democratic society that if something is really beneficial to people, we should do our best to give everybody access to it,” said Ken May, executive director of the South Carolina Arts Commission. “That’s the reasoning behind public education, public parks, public libraries, and public support for the arts.”

State arts agencies don’t attract the attention — positive or negative — of the National Endowment for the Arts, which is once again being threatened by congressional cutbacks, but they play an underappreciated role in the nation’s arts infrastructure. Funded by a mixture of state appropriations, matching grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and some private support, these agencies provide nonprofit arts organizations with advice, guidance, information — and grant money.

“Direct support for the arts at the state level is now — and has been for some time — a more important source of direct government aid to the arts than is direct support at the federal level,” J. Mark Shuster wrote in a 2003 report published by the Cultural Policy Center of the University of Chicago. NEA grants may be larger and more prestigious, but they’re also fewer and harder to get. State support, including both money and expertise, makes a bigger day-to-day difference.

In the half century or more they’ve been in existence (most were created as conduits to receive and administer federal arts money shortly after the NEA was founded in 1965), state arts agencies have seen their appropriations grow and shrink. State budgets inevitably reflect the ups and downs of tax revenues, and during down years, the arts get hurt along with everyone else.

California famously cut its arts commission budget from $38 million to just over $1 million during a budget crisis a decade ago; it is only now inching back, thanks in part to a license-plates-for-the-arts program promoted by former governor (and actor) Arnold Schwarzenegger. Many states have cut arts funding drastically over the past two years, as tax revenues have shrunk in the current recession: 60 percent in Arizona, 50 percent in Kansas, 48 percent in Washington state, for example.

Overall, state arts agencies have seen a 19 percent cut in funding from their legislatures since the start of the recession in 2008. According to a just-released report by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, they received a combined total of $272 million in state appropriations for fiscal year 2011. That amounts to 0.039 percent of state general fund expenditures, or 87 cents per capita on average.

Fiscally speaking, that’s small change, and arts agencies argue they provide a lot of bang — or, better, beauty — for the buck. But this year’s combination of dire fiscal conditions and newly elected, small-government-oriented politicians has left some commissions facing an existential threat. In at least four states — Texas, Kansas, Washington and South Carolina — the governor recently proposed an unprecedented action: eliminating the state arts agency entirely.

In Kansas, the administration’s proposal calls for the Arts Commission to transition into a private nonprofit organization. In Texas, the governor’s budget simply eliminates state funding for the Commission on the Arts.

In Arizona, the commission would lose all its money from the state’s general revenue fund. In Washington state, it would be shrunk dramatically and merged into the Commerce Department, its level of independence uncertain.

“So many things are affected by our small investments,” said Kris Tucker, executive director of the Washington State Arts Commission. “To not have arts education programs in the schools, free concerts in the parks, training for arts managers — all that will have an impact on our communities.”

She readily concedes that Washington state’s budget problems “are huge. They’re talking about eliminating basic health and dental care for children. Our million dollars is not going to make a big difference. But then, for $1 million, you can buy a lot of prenatal care.”

On the other hand, few states would want to lose federal funding at a time when dollars are scarce — which would be the result of the total-elimination scenarios. According to NEA bylaws, its funds are only distributed to the states through designated state agencies. In Kansas, for example, while eliminating the state agency would save $575,000, it would no longer qualify for federal matching funds of $1.2 million.

Ditto South Carolina. In her first State of the State address in January, newly elected South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley singled out two agencies for elimination: South Carolina Educational Television, and the state’s Arts Commission. The arts agency’s $2 million state appropriation this year represents “about four-one-hundredths of 1 percent of the state budget,” noted May. In exchange, the state would lose around $1 million in federal arts support.

Perhaps surprisingly, May believes Haley’s high-profile announcement was not entirely a bad thing.

“It may be she did us a favor,” he said. “We’ve known this would be a very difficult budget session. The state has an $850 million hole in its budget, and everybody knows a lot of cutting will go on. But this has made it a different cause. Cuts are one thing — elimination is another.

“We’ve had news coverage all over the state — it was on the front pages of the papers — and it has really rallied the troops. Because the battle is about elimination rather than cuts, it lets us make the case for why the state should provide some funding for the arts.”

That same battle is just getting underway in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry proposed cutting the arts agency’s entire $5 million appropriation. “We are a bit unclear on the details of the governor’s budget proposal,” said Gaye Greever McElwain, director of marketing and communications for the

Texas Commission on the Arts. “However, it appears we would not be able to continue operations.”

McElwain noted this is one step in a long process. The Texas state House and Senate have their own budget proposals on the table, and while they include massive cuts for the agency — a 50 percent budget cut, 30 percent staff cut and elimination of funding for advertising, promotion and cultural tourism — the agency would still exist and remain eligible for $1 million in NEA matching funds.

“We simply do not know what the final resolution will be,” McElwain said. “We will continue to work with the legislature [to explain why we deserve funding].”

“State arts agencies really like to explain what they do, why they exist and what happens as the result of their work,” noted Jonathan Katz, CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. “In this economic environment, we expect people to question the benefits of public support for the arts. Happily, there is really good evidence of what those benefits are.”

So what do they do?

“Our mission is to provide opportunities for the people of Kansas to experience the arts,” said Llewellyn Crain, director of the Kansas Arts Commission. “We have become expert in communications tools. We create a weekly e-blast: ‘This is stuff you need to know about,’ including funding opportunities and other information. We also do monthly e-blasts to artists and arts educators.

“We’re focused on helping artists and arts organizations understand they are part of a business community, and they need to understand business operating principles,” she added. “A nonprofit is a much more complicated business model than a for-profit business. You have to have a board. You have several different income streams. We try to help them navigate all that.”

“We have a very strong record of bringing the arts to places where they haven’t been so much before and in improving the basic curriculum for arts in the schools,” added South Carolina’s May. “We’ve gained national attention for that. That’s the kind of thing that nobody else is going to do other than a state agency that is looking strategically at important issues related to the arts.”

Couldn’t a private nonprofit organization do much of that work?

“In theory, absolutely,” said Crain. “In practical terms, it’d be very difficult. A private nonprofit would have to raise funds for its own operations. We’d be competing with our own constituents for a fairly small pool of money. There are wealthy people here who support the arts in their own communities, but what would be the compelling reason to support us?”

That raises an important point. When state arts agencies distribute grant money (some of it from state funds, the rest from the NEA), it is often for the sort of nuts-and-bolts needs that private donors find unattractive.

“The largest portion of money that goes out from a state agency, typically, is for general operating support,” noted Katz. “That’s what generally doesn’t get funded by corporations, foundations or individual donations, which are often project- or building-related.

“That’s one area where state arts agencies are distinctive in their giving. If you took them away as a funding entity, lots of organizations would notice it, but the mid-sized and smaller ones would notice it the most, because the grants make up a larger portion of their budget.”

But like her colleagues, she argues the seed money her agency distributes stimulates the state’s economy and ultimately increases tax revenues.

“A healthy arts economy, stimulated by a small bit of government investment, reaps huge rewards,” said Bob Lynch, president of the advocacy group Americans for the Arts. “We estimate the aggregate budget of the 109,000 nonprofit arts organizations in America adds up to about $66 billion. That spins off an economic impact of $166 billion, using a very conservative model.”

In an attempt to educate political leaders, Lynch and his colleagues have put together maps showing the economic impact of the arts on specific states and metropolitan areas. He reports they tend to make a strong impression on stage legislators, who, in his experience, are driven more by numbers than ideology.

“Often, arts organizations will suggest I make an argument for the inherent value of the arts,” he said. “When I am talking to legislators, about one-third of them will want to talk about that. They’ve had a moment in their lives when they saw how the arts changed their life or the life of their community. They get it.

“But that leaves the other two-thirds. They respond to a number of different arguments, depending upon their particular constituency. We are asked about things such as how the arts contribute to educational success, or how the arts could play a role in downtown revitalization. We have data on all that, but the issue we’re asked about most by state, federal and local legislators is jobs and the economic impact of the arts.”

And if budget-cutting legislators insist they’re merely responding to public opinion — well, there’s data on that topic as well.

“If we believe our polling, a large majority of the population thinks it’s a good idea for the state to invest in the arts,” said May. “The University of South Carolina conducts a general poll twice a year of the state’s population. It’s a good, reliable poll, demographically representative of the population.

“In the fall of 2009, (we arranged to have them) ask people if they were in favor of state government support of the arts. Ninety-two percent said they were. Forty percent favored increased funding. That’s pretty impressive when you consider the state was in economic freefall at that time.”

May reports that a grassroots effort to save his agency is already underway in South Carolina, as the budget moves through the legislature. “We are bringing the news to folks that it’s going to be a long fight, so get ready,” he said. “Facebook has brought in a lot of new people who are very interested in the arts and the government’s contributions to the arts. For getting a message out quickly, it’s a pretty amazing tool.”

“The dance right now is how to convince enough legislators to keep us in the game,” said Washington state’s Tucker. “We need to be far enough off the radar so that we don’t attract attention but enough on the radar so they don’t forget we need to be part of the future. It puts us in a tricky position. But I’m an optimist; I believe, at the end of the day, we’re going to survive.”

There certainly is precedent for survival. Katz notes that a number of states have considered eliminating state arts agencies in recent years, but after examining the evidence, they’ve all backed down.

“In New Jersey, they passed a new state occupancy tax, and they’re funding the arts through that,” he said. “In Massachusetts, the money for the arts comes from lottery funds. In South Dakota, they very quickly realized the arts were an asset in this economy, and they included the arts in a state sales tax increase. So in many cases, states realized they’d be doing harm by cutting or eliminating these agencies, and opted instead to find a dependable revenue source for them.”

Still, as Arizona’s Booker concedes, 2011 is going to be a very tough year. Antitax sentiment is high in many states (including his own), which suggests drastic cuts are the only way to balance the budget. The only reason his agency isn’t facing elimination is that in 1989, the legislature added $15 to the corporate filing fee and directed the money to an Arizona Arts Trust Fund.

The situation calls into his mind an image that is almost as disturbing as the syringe/paint brush mashup he proudly points to as an example of his agency’s work.

“The arts are the golden goose, and we lay some pretty great eggs for our communities: economic impact, education, tourism, cultural understanding, civic engagement,” he said. “At times I feel like our elected officials have their hands around the neck of the goose. They don’t realize they’re killing an industry that is forward-thinking, creative and helping our state recover.”