Funding the arts is everyone's business
Jesse Beason
As Portland's Arts and Culture Commissioner, Sam is steadfast in his belief that a vibrant city has a vibrant arts and culture community. Over the past year, we have continued to advocate for public and private support of this community and pledged to make this a larger issue in our public discussions. Sam's main goal is clear: find the money. $15 million in annual support in the next 5 years. To Sam, this means public and private dollars, so our approach has been to search for creative ways to find public support, and to incent private dollars with that support. Here's what we've done over 2005:
This year
Sam fulfilled City Council's 5th obligation to the Portland Opera for a Capitalization grant. He ensured that the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) received the same percentage cut in funding that every bureau did. He negotiated RACC's new contract to include performance measures and renewed their funding base tied to revenue from the hotel/motel tax. He spearheaded the City's sponsorship of free days at the Portland Art Museum. This represents $360,000 of one time arts support.
Ongoing
Next year, we will implement a check-off system that will allow businesses to donate a portion of business license fee refunds to the Regional Arts and Culture Council. The City will match these donations through eliminating the business license fee project-by-project apportionment option. On January 4, council will consider a raise in the percent for art program to 2%. Both of these programs are estimated to be $550,000 of ongoing revenue to the Regional Arts and Culture Council.
Cultural ties
Sam met with Arts commissioners in New York, Melbourne, Prague and Amsterdam to talk about their approach to arts and culture, funding ideas and philosophies.
Giving the pitches
Sam participated in fundraising for numerous organizations this year from speaking at fundraisers and emceeing auctions to letters of support and meeting with foundations. A brief list of those organizations appears under Community Partners below.
Related Documents
Community Partners
- Conduit Dance
- Disjecta
- Ethos
- International Sculpture Invitational
- Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center
- Leroy Vinnegar Jazz Institute
- Literary Arts
- Metropolitan Opera National Council
- Northwest Business for Culture and the Arts
- Northwest Children's Theater
- Oregon Children's Theatre
- Portland Institute of Contemporary Art
- Portland Art Center
- Portland Art Museum
- Portland Opera
- Regional Arts & Culture Council
- The Oregon Symphony
- WhiteBird
Weblogs
- Five promises for the arts, January 3
- Art and Cultural Next, August 31
- Why Arts!, October 16
Posted by Jesse Beason on December 20, 2005
(0) Comments | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Filed Under 2005 Year-in-Review, Arts & Culture
Comments by site visitors
Post your comment
Please note: your email address, although required to post, will not be visible. We remove inappropriate or offensive content, and content deemed improper by State and City election and ethics law. The comments posted do not necessarily reflect the views of the office or the City of Portland.
