Peter Donnelly, Corporate Council for the Arts
| Brief
Biography |
Note: Peter Donnelly's wrap up comments were largely extemporaneous. He focused on entrepreneurial experiences of various arts organizations in the region. These notes are drawn from several sources and give a good summary but are not a transcript of what he said. --Putnam Barber
Non-profit arts organizations in this country have always been entrepreneurial. They earn between 50 and 60 percent of budget from ticket sales and operate in an increasingly competitive environment. They experience competition from other non-profits, of course, and -- as always -- from movies, television, the Internet, and many other ways people can spend discretionary time and money.
As in any entrepreneurial venture the arts must: first understand the people they're serving and what they need - in the arts case - our constituents include both audiences and the broader community and artists. Second, understanding their needs, we must then develop the "products" to serve them and develop effective ways to market to the consumers.
Arts organizations are becoming increasingly entrepreneurial, and, as the competition continues to grow, and will become more so we still can never lose sight of mission of producing and presenting first-quality art experiences - which means serving the artist and thereby the public.
As government funding has declined, arts are becoming more entrepreneurial in such areas as in their marketing to reach new, younger and ever-busier audiences. But working entrepreneurially requires a real vigilance. we know, for instance, that arts still have a significant unsold inventory. We're working to help devise ways for that inventory to gather full market value - perhaps by tapping contributed sources for the payment and giving the tickets to children at a steep discount.
In fundraising, too, we are becoming more entrepreneurial by creating innovative partnerships with both philanthropic and marketing arms of businesses.
My organization, the Corporate Council for the Arts, which is a united arts fund that raises about $4 million annually and makes operating-fund grants to more than 60 non-profit arts groups, has also needed to become entrepreneurial.
A decade ago it became clear to us that the pattern of corporate fundraising would never keep pace with growth in arts budgets and we simply had to broaden our revenue streams. What we did looks in retrospect like a very well conceived plan. In reality, though, much of it was having a clear vision of what we wanted to accomplish and then seizing opportunities whenever we could grab them.
While not business ventures, our endowments provided important expansion of our funding capability. The Ned Skinner Fund was our first such opportunity. Because of that start, several more endowments followed. When people started to see our organization's capacity for grantmaking from different funding sources, other opportunities opened up that are truly entrepreneurial. This demonstrates the maxim that success is rewarded:
One success worth mentioning again is the innovative, entrepreneurial gift by Priscilla Bullitt Collins and Harriet Stimson Bullitt of Classic KING-FM radio to CCA, Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera. KING-FM continues to operate as a commercial station. After-tax profits are distributed one-third each to the three non-profit owners. CCA distributes its share in grants to non-profit music groups in King and Pierce Counties.
Another is the 1999 Kreielsheimer Foundation gift of the Century Building to CCA. Through this gift, the Foundation provided not only a permanent home for CCA, but a steady stream of revenue. CCA occupies one floor of the building. The other three floors and adjacent parking - just one-half block from KeyArena - generate lease revenues which CCA uses for grants. As fate would have it, KING-FM needed to
find new space and moved its studios and offices into the first floor of the
building on a long-term lease.
These examples show how an entrepreneurial approach can work inside the commercial marketplace to come up with steady and reliable streams of revenue for operations.
Now where do you go from here?
First, look around you. In this room are some of the best resources you can find in pursuing social entrepreneurism; some of the best practitioners, some of the best ideas. You've met some of them already. The connections you have and can make will provide an enormous amount of technical assistance. These people will be great partners.
Be sure also to tap all the other resources that are out there at the other end of an internet connection. At this stage ideas are plentiful and a big share of being an effective entrepreneur is in the application of other people's experience and ideas to the solutions to your most pressing problems.
One thing that a day like today proves is that we'll all work better when we work together. The intellectual and creative capital in this room is enormous. Use it effectively and the entire community will see enormous returns.
