A question came up in a QCAF information session for individual artist grants a few weeks ago (July 31st, 2008, at the Greater Astoria Historical Society—a special thanks to Bob Singleton for being a wonderful host!)
In our grants for individual artists, we require that applicants show 20% of their funding coming from sources other than the QCAF grant funds. There are many ways for artists to bring in additional money for their projects: donations from friends, fans, businesses, or wealthy donors, contributions from government, foundations or other grants. The question is: why should you (as an artist) be seeking money from other sources? Many artists feel that asking for money is like begging, or sullies the purity of their art or creative process, or that people should be offering them money (as proof or validation of their talent or success), rather than having to ask for it.
In this first blog post on the issue, I’d like to address the role of local businesses in potentially funding your art projects. But first, let’s briefly look at the issues just raised about why you should be asking for money in the first place. As a musician myself, I realize that this is a very loaded, emotional issue. Our identities as artists are in part constructed by the amount of accolade we receive, the audiences we draw, the amount of financial support we receive. We like to pretend that it’s all about the purity of the art, but we are human beings, and everyone needs some form of validation (I won’t go into the evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience here, but there is plenty of evidence for the innateness of some of these tendencies and needs in the human animal). I think that this is one of the reasons that asking for money feels dirty to us: we crave validation, but we have convinced ourselves that such craving is something shameful, and that validation isn’t really what the art is about.
In fact, if we can accept that the need for praise, validation, and financial support is a natural part of being an artist, rather than a separate, lower tendency than “pure” artistic creativity, we may be a few steps closer to liberating ourselves from some of the handicaps we have forced upon ourselves with respect to creating art in the world. The other aspect of this is, of course, the egoism involved in expecting others to offer us money, rather than in having to ask for it. As I’ll discuss later, this is an unkindness to our potential supporters… yet for many of us artists, it may be completely unconscious. But rather than dwelling on those issues here, I’d like to emphasize the positive aspects of asking for money, in the specific case of local businesses.
I believe that most people, all people really, have the capacity for generosity. People just sometimes need to be asked to give (rather than simply expected to give). This is one of the things I've learned from the various fundraising seminars I've attended over the past several months... I keep hearing the message "donors just need to be asked" and further, "donors like to be asked." Asking donors gives them a sense of empowerment, of decisionmaking in the funding process. Asking makes them feel wanted—and it is consequently a way that we can show them that we value their contributions. It makes anyone feel good to know that something beautiful couldn't have happened without them!
Asking also provides a much needed service to potential givers: it supplies them a specific focus for their altruistic, generous feelings. Many people would like to support something, yet they don’t know what’s the best cause to support, or even what all the available options are.
Businesses in particular are interested in helping the arts, in helping causes in general. We artists just need to give them a role to play, and a reason to care. Each one of us can give someone else a reason to care about art, simply by asking them; that request establishes a personal connection. If they care enough, that connection could give them a greater role in supporting your art and then, by extension, a role in caring about and supporting art in general.
There is a very concrete way of looking at this: if you get a business to support your artwork, you have just increased arts funding in your community! What starts as a personal connection extends into a broader benefit for your community and for other artists in that community. In this regard, why are businesses special? Because if they care, their support brings in even more of the community. A business has a visible presence in a community, every day interacting with some members of the community, and collectively influencing everyone who lives in any neighborhood. So a business that is visibly supporting the arts in the community draws in the interest of others in the community (in addition to receiving a benefit for itself in terms of community perception). It may lead to additional support, but at the very least, it leads to an increase in the audience and appreciation for the arts, starting with your project.
You can then develop a relationship with that business… and they will very likely be proud to support your art, and may continue to do so in the long run. (It becomes that much easier to ask the second time, but you may not even need to do that!) Relationships are what makes the art world, and the non-profit world, work. Relationships also serve to draw in the rest of the community.
There’s one more point to be aware of: it is a fact that the arts require donations to survive; there’s no way around it. So somebody has to ask for the money. That is our job here at the Queens Council on the Arts, and at other organizations like us. So we ask wealthy people who are philanthropically minded, large corporations like JPMorgan Chase, government agencies like the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, individual small contributors, and more—we ask them on your behalf, to support the arts.
But the separation between the fundraisers for art and the creators of art is not necessarily the best situation for all involved. We encourage you, of course, to develop relationships with us, but it is even better if you share in a little of the work yourselves. Every contribution you bring in to your project is an increase in overall arts funding. There are only so many of us working in arts administration (many fewer than there are artists), and the more people on the ground contributing to the work of fundraising (as well as the work of community outreach, media promotion, and developing relationships with venues), the more overall fundraising for the arts that happens. So by asking for funding for your own project, you are contributing more to the funding pool, and benefiting other artists in turn.
So there is no shame in asking for someone to support you (we arts administrators do it all the time, and we are people with integrity and a deep dedication to the arts). If you don't do it, someone else will have to do it for you, but if you do, you are performing a valuable service that benefits everyone (including those whom you ask for support, the community around you, and other artists). So I’m trying to encourage you to be aware that you have two jobs as artists: the job of creating beautiful artwork, and the job of helping to build support for the arts in society as a whole. The two are inseparable, so it benefits you to be doing both jobs rather than only one. Asking your local business to support you is also something we can’t do as well as you can—you are on the ground in your community, and can therefore establish a closer relationship than we could (with our focus on the entire borough of Queens), or larger organizations could (like NYSCA, with its focus on the entire state of New York).
Our goal here at the Queens Council on the Arts is to empower you to bring in support for yourselves, and to encourage you to think of yourselves as members of a larger community of artists, arts administrators, and arts lovers—rather than as lone individuals performing your craft in isolation. I hope you can feel the value of reaching out to your communities and the businesses there—I know it’s scary! But the payoff is enormous.