The dance for dollars: As the political economy improves, Illinois arts funding reaches a turning point
by Maureen Foertsch McKinney & Burney Simpson
Photographs of dancer Alicia Wester by Terry Farmer
M
alachi Thompson grew up on Chicago's South Side when the area attracted artists like Miles Davis, Dinah Washington, Count Basie and John Coltrane. He lived down the street from the great jazz venues of the day, but was too young to enter. So Thompson spent much of his childhood hanging outside the Sutherland Hotel and the Regal Theater because he was determined to hear the music.
For Thompson, a jazz trumpeter, the streets were about making songs, not deals. Not even when he decided to use music as an instrument to inspire the kids and to rejuvenate the economy in his hardscrabble Bronzeville neighborhood, did he see himself as anything but a musician and a teacher.
But recently Malachi the musician became Malachi the politician. He's running for 4th Ward alderman, aiming to cut through the bureaucracy that has thwarted his fund-raising efforts. He knows his campaign may be merely symbolic because he has little money to run a race. But he says he'll be satisfied with sending a message: Politicians can wield money and influence to restore his Bronzeville neighborhood to its former status as a musical mecca.
Thompson's case is an extreme one, but it helps to illustrate the changing nature of the arts funding struggle in Illinois as the '90s draw to a close: Artists are beginning to sound like politicians as they spread the message that art is good for the economy. And increasingly, arts advocates are shaping their messages around what they believe funders want to hear. As one fund-seeker put it: "We stay away from stepping on flags as art and we don't close one day a year for AIDS.''
Indeed, this toned-down, pro-economy approach appears to have garnered a receptive audience. In recent years, private- and corporate-foundation giving has climbed to nearly $31 million. And it likely will hit that level this year, or even increase slightly. Meanwhile, state base support reached an all-time high this fiscal year of $10.6 million. With the addition of $650,000 in federal funds, the Illinois Arts Council's budget reaches $11.3 million, which is up 45 percent from last fiscal year. And, though wounded by funding cuts earlier in the decade, the National Endowment for the Arts appears to have survived a drive by conservative congressional forces to destroy it. The NEA took a $63 million cut in 1996, but since then appropriations have remained relatively stable. The appropriation for each of the fiscal years 1998 and 1999 was $98 million.
Indeed, that's a good place to begin a story about strategic shifts among arts advocates. The NEA's political trial-by-fire offered some valuable lessons.
"Right now the arts community is in a transition phase,'' says Nick Rabkin, senior program director for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. "We're in a flux, there's no doubt about it.''
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Undoubtedly, a major impetus for change has been an improved economy and a subsequent resurgence of state funding after a nearly decade-long decline. "We've come out of an economically difficult time for the state,'' says Alene Valkanas, executive director of the Illinois Arts Alliance, which keeps tabs on arts spending in Illinois. "People give when they are feeling secure. Giving in general has improved and the arts are a beneficiary of that.'' In Illinois, a rise in economic confidence most certainly has affected giving: State appropriations to the Illinois Arts Council topped the previous high of $9.8 million in fiscal year 1991.
Those numbers reflect political as well as economic change. Illinois entered the '90s at the high end of arts spending, and at the tail end of arts-loving Gov. Jim Thompson's administration. Arts spending dropped as the economy slowed and the fiscally cautious Gov. Jim Edgar took office. The arts council's budget reached a low for the decade of $5.5 million in fiscal year 1996.
In the last three years, though, arts funding has been heading back up, and not just through requests from the governor's office. Fatter state coffers have allowed state legislators to show munificence toward the arts, too. The Illinois Arts Alliance's Valkanas saw evidence of that in her organization's survey of candidates this year. "We're finding a greater understanding of the role arts play and a greater willingness to support the arts in terms of funding,'' Valkanas says, noting that her organization has surveyed congressional, gubernatorial and legislative candidates since 1992. Among those legislative candidates responding (47 percent of the total surveyed), 72 percent reported that they support the arts council's $14.3 million request for next fiscal year. That's up 56 percent over the last survey.
Recent decisions on spending bolster Valkanas' theory that lawmakers are willing of late to hand more money to the arts. Take the case of grants to individual projects promoted by officials: Line-item spending for the arts council-that is, designations for projects specifically requested by officials-has rebounded after being eliminated in the mid-1990s. Last fiscal year, legislators appropriated $6.3 million to pet projects across the state. This fiscal year, spending amounted to $6.1 million for 15 such favored budget line items. The largest among them was $3.5 million to build a new Beverly art center, replacing the existing 30-year-old structure on Chicago's South Side.
Arts projects were also tacked onto the budget for the state's Department of Commerce and Community Affairs. This fiscal year, that amounted to 15 add-ons worth $4.8 million. The bulk of the money went to two construction projects: $2 million to move the DuPage County Children's Museum and $1 million for the Evanston Performing Arts facility.
Rep. Judy Erwin, a Democrat from Chicago's Loop, sees two trends: Cultural organizations have boosted their lobbying efforts in reaction to NEA cuts, and the legislature has come to see cultural activities as having economic benefits.
And the General Assembly's assessment is on target. A 1995 economic impact study performed for the private, nonprofit Illinois Arts Alliance showed that the arts directly generate 16,800 full- and part-time jobs in Illinois, which produce nearly $6 million in income tax revenue for the state. "People didn't see art as pork, like a new police station or roads and bridges," says Erwin, whose district has the highest concentration of arts-related jobs in the state. "And what's new is that the arts have become part of bringing home the bacon."
Nevertheless, whileincreased government funding is a boon, public money is but a small portion of the funding pie for arts organizations. "In the arts, government is not a major player,'' says Valkanas. "The real support for the arts is in the private sector."
In fact, a 1998 study by the Illinois Facilities Fund and the Donors Forum of Chicago showed the nonprofit arts and cultural organizations
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in the state get just 3.9 percent of their revenue from government sources.
Still, though government's role in funding the arts is small, it is vital.
For instance, government grants lend credibility and pique the interest of private donors. "When an individual wins an NEA grant, it helps immensely,'' says George M. Irwin. "Although NEA funding is never more than half of the cost of a project, it helps to stimulate other grants.''
Bloomington poet Lucia Getsi says that without funding from the Illinois Arts Council, The Spoon River Poetry Review,a small, but nationally circulated literary magazine she edits, could not exist, which would mean literally hundreds of poets might go unpublished. And as an individual artist, Getsi says, she relies on the grants for the time to create. "The grants enable you to have the independence and solitude you need,'' says Getsi, who has received fellowships and grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the state arts council.
Jazz trumpeter Thompson has become savvy in the grant-pursuit game. He says he's come a long way since he successfully applied in pencil for his first NEA grant. But he says it is impossible to rely on the money that comes in from grants. He's got to keep up with bookings and making recordings.
"You can't depend on grants,'' he says. "It's like a crapshoot.''
But others see the potential for partnership. "For me, the important thing is exploring cooperation,'' says arts patron Irwin, who served as the first chairman of the Illinois Arts Council. "I've always believed in a public-private partnership for the funding of the arts. I believe the bulk of the support should come from the private level.''
Overall, the artsin Illinois rely on individual contributions for more than 70 percent of their financing. That encompasses everything from the purchase of a brownie at a ballet company bake sale to a million-dollar bequest to the opera. And much of the success of local arts efforts relies on such generosity from its patrons. Quincy, for example, has a fine arts society with an annual budget of $820,000 because an appreciation for the arts was cultivated in George M. Irwin when he was growing up in that western Illinois river town. Irwin was just 26 years old when he set up an endowment to establish the first community arts council in the United States in 1947: the Quincy Fine Arts Society. His days as a clarinet player in the Quincy High School band were still fresh in his mind.
Ask Irwin-who still lives in Quincy and continues to support art and historical preservation efforts-how he came to build a fine arts society in his hometown and he'll tell you he was lucky to have been exposed to the arts as a child.
Family businesses-the Irwin Paper Co. and what is now known as Coltec Industries-provided the financial resources for the society. Irwin declines to discuss the amount he contributes, but notes it took a lot less money to create an endowment fund than it would today.
Foundationfunding, which provides indisputably essential support for the arts, has remained relatively stable, even as government giving climbed. An analysis of donations by these groups also reveals stable giving during the mid-1990s, when state support was shrinking.
The Foundation Center, a not-for-profit clearinghouse, collects information
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on foundation contributions. But returns can be missing or lack detail. And there are often gaps due to differences in reporting methods. Nevertheless, a rough picture of foundation giving to the arts is part of the public record.
In 1994, for example, foundations reported an estimated $30.6 million in contributions to Illinois arts-everything from $1 million to the Chicago Symphony from the Amoco Foundation to a $200 grant to the Hyde Park Art Center from the independent Blum-Kovler Foundation. After a drop in 1995, total giving rose to an estimated $30.9 million in 1996. That stability is important for the arts community because foundations provide a major piece of the funding pie. According to the Facilities Fund study, the second greatest share of the revenue for Illinois not-for-profit arts organizations-25 percent-comes from private and corporate foundations. And the growing economy has helped foundations' bottom line, too. Tax rules for many of these foundations, those categorized as nonprofits by the IRS, require that they allocate and spend at least 5 percent of their endowment each year for charitable programs and administrative expenses. That means more money for everybody, including the arts.
And an analysis of reported contributions, as well as interviews with leading foundations, indicates that arts funding has at least held steady or increased slightly since 1996. For example, the giant MacArthur Foundation has given an average of about $6 million to the arts in Illinois each year from 1996 to the present. The Ameritech Foundation has given an average of $1.6 million each year from 1995 to 1998 to arts and cultural events and organizations. The mid-size Harris Bank Foundation averaged $258,000 in arts giving from 1996 through 1998. And New York-based Mellon Foundation contributed $1.4 million in Illinois in 1997. United Airlines Corp. donated nearly $1.5 million to the arts in 1997, and projects a comparable amount this year.
But dollars aren't the only way foundations support the arts. One influential arts funder, Illinois-based Sara Lee Corp., donated its $100 million art collection this summer to five European museums and 20 American museums, including Chicago's Art Institute, which got 12 works of art.
While foundations consider what to give, they also reflect on who and why. In determining whom to fund, MacArthur takes into account such issues as the health of the arts community as a whole. One concern has emerged for that foundation over the past five years, according to MacArthur's Rabkin: the "graying'' of the audience.
"If the arts don't start appealing to young people, [they're] going to go the way of the Kiwi bird,'' Rabkin says. "Some funders are concerned about the long-term viability of the arts in America. They are using their money to build a more diverse and younger audience. We fall into that trend.''
To that end, MacArthur gave $50,000 to affordable housing activists in Chicago, Lakefront SRO Corp., for a community performance company called Scrap Mettle SOUL; a $500,000 grant over two years to Chicago's Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum for an exhibition and youth educational programs; and $400,000 to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago for an integrated program of education activities related to performance and visual arts.
That foundation is generally considered one of the more progressive organizations in the country. It is young, having been established in 1978 by the developer and founder of Bankers Life and Casualty Co. With $3.2 billion in assets at the start of 1997, MacArthur gave away a total of about $153 million and spent an additional $33.6 million that year. Since then, a growing stock market has increased MacArthur's assets to $4 billion, according to its annual report. In 1996, MacArthur gave $6.4 million to arts organizations in Illinois, based on an analysis of reports to the Foundation Center. Among the biggest grants was one for $400,000 to the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education. But MacArthur also gave $20,000 to the RedMoon Theater, an influential
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troop that takes to the streets with giant-sized puppets to engage Chicago families in their neighborhoods.
The Chicago Community Trust is another large, influential funding source for the arts in the Chicago metropolitan area. But it sees its role differently. The trust is the giving arm of Chicago's establishment and generally gives to organizations supported by the city's elite. It doesn't follow the MacArthur model of social engineering, says Sara Solotaroff, senior program director. "They decide what society needs and make up grants programs that see that their ideas get carried out," Solotaroff says. "We don't work that way. We support major cultural institutions. But we also support smaller and mid-size groups that may be struggling."
The blue-blood trust was founded as a private charity in 1915 by the city's major banks and trusts to build an endowment to serve the community. That broad mandate, and today's $1 billion endowment, means an average giving of $35 million to $38 million a year for activities related to health, humanities, education, social services and civic affairs, says Solotaroff. The trust pools money from wealthy individuals and forms permanent endowments. The donors can control some aspect of the giving and earn valuable tax credits. The trust typically asks for a minimum donation of $250,000 to start an endowment, says Solotaroff.
In fiscal year 1997, the trust gave $2.2 million to arts and humanities, which was 7.2 percent of its $30.6 million in giving that year. In 1996, it completed a 10-year, $21 million capital endowment fund campaign for all of Chicago's major arts institutions, including such heavyweights as the symphony, the Lyric Opera and the nine museums in the parks.
With some of thelargest companies in the country located in Illinois, arts interests in this state are fortunate in attracting corporate dollars. And setting up a foundation to dole out some dollars provides several benefits to corporations beyond enabling them to bask in philanthropic glow. Of course, there's the possibility of positive publicity, and then there's the potential for a tax benefit for the dollars it gives to an Internal Revenue Service-approved charitable organization. A foundation set up by a business must also give away a minimum of 5 percent of its endowment each year. For example, the foundation arm of the huge "Baby Bell," Ameritech, had assets of $66.8 million in 1994, and its employee giving program amounted to $23.8 million in 1995.
But there are other reasons for business to support the arts: They improve the economy-to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Statewide, the arts generated $800 million in spending in 1995 alone, according to an economic impact study commissioned for the Illinois Arts Alliance by Coopers & Lybrand, a company that does economic analyses. The 2,000 not-for-profit arts groups in Illinois accounted for nearly $700 million of that $800 million.
"Cultural tourism is the number one reason why tourists visit Chicago,'' says Illinois Arts Council Executive Director Kassie Davis. A 1995 study of the financial effect of the Claude Monet: 1840-1926exhibition at the Art Institute illustrates the financial impact. The 965,000 visitors to the exhibit generated spending of nearly $400 million on goods and services, according to Geoffrey J.D. Hewings of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hewings is the director of Regional Economics at the university,
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which worked with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to do the study. The lion's share of the spending related to the Monet exhibit-$340 million-was done by out-of-state visitors.
That kind of payoff is not lost on local officials. And increasingly, municipal governments are using the arts as another route to economic development.
In fact, selling the arts as economic development is a strategy increasingly used by arts advocates throughout Illinois.
"I haven't figured out how arts build roads, but when I do I'll use it,'' says Rob Dwyer, executive director of the Quincy Fine Arts Center. "We sell the arts as enlightened self-interest."
Quincy has learned that what is good for the arts is good for Quincy, he says. "If it is perceived to be in the best interest of the community, it will be supported whether it's boy scouts or the arts. The reason I think we are successful is because we tie the arts to the local community's needs. We stay with what Quincy believes in and that's basketball trophies and local pride. When I go to the Rotary [Club] to talk about the arts, I don't talk about how wonderful Mozart is. I talk about how kids who are involved in the arts stay in school longer and are better students,'' Dwyer says.
"The arts in Quincy don't have a hard, razor-edged professionalism. It's quid pro quo giving,'' Dwyer says. "If a business gives $5,000, it expects that much back in advertising.''
Indeed, business and community leaders alike want to see a return on their investments when they put art on their economic development agenda. For municipalities, there are obvious returns for funding the arts, Valkanas contends. For instance, a new community theater building on the drawing boards for downtown Arlington Heights will mean increased foot traffic at night, which will mean more customers using local restaurants and other businesses in the area. In Peoria, Mayor Lowell "Bud" Grieves is calling for the creation of what he calls a "United Way-like council for the arts.'' In Chicago, the cultural department's budget hit $10.4 million this year, a 57 percent rise just since 1994. And the department is asking for another 7 percent increase for next year. "The arts are another government service, like streets and sanitation, the police and fire department. They play an important role," says Lois Weissberg, who oversees the tourism office as commissioner of the Chicago Office of Cultural Affairs.
A strong exampleof how the arts can serve as a job producer is Gallery 37, an arts training center for inner-city teenagers that sits in the heart of Chicago's Loop. Mayor Richard M. Daley has a personal connection to the project. His wife, Maggie, is chair of the gallery, which since its founding in 1991 has employed more than 8,000 students. The public/private partnership, which sees support from corporate Chicago, including Sears, Roebuck & Co., Marshall Field's, JMB Realty and Sara Lee, has been expanded into 30 public high schools around Chicago. And Rockford is planning to create something similar to Chicago's 10-week apprenticeship program. London, England, and Adelaide, Australia, have already set up programs based on the Gallery 37 model.
Further, Chicago has established a three-year partnership with American Express Corp., United Airlines and other travel- and entertainment-related businesses, which led to purchases worth $350 million in 1997, according to the Chicago Office of Tourism. The business partners promoted cultural tourism through ads in consumer magazines and trade publications for travel agents, sent 250,000 direct-mail pieces and produced the "ArtBeat Chicago" television program that ran on eight Public Broadcasting System stations in the Midwest.
Still, the arts funding picture in Chicago is not all rosy. Ask Malachi Thompson, whose Sutherland Community Arts Initiative recently lost a $142,000 matching grant from Meet the Composers Inc. due to a two-year lag in the city's disbursement of a $500,000 Empowerment Zone grant.
Thompson says that meant scaling back a program to work with teachers at Chicago's Price
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Elementary School and King High School to bring arts into the classroom. "That was a big blow for a small, grass-roots community organization like ours.''
Thompson wrote the music for a play that was produced by the Victory Gardens Theater called The Sutherland.Part of the Empowerment Zone grant was to provide a live ensemble for the production. Without the money, the music had to be recorded for performances. Thompson says he feels he has been constricted in his efforts to bring change to his community of Bronzeville. He says he has been able to take small steps, but not the big steps needed to produce real change.
Thompson's struggle over funding mirrors what is happening among activists as they try to churn Bronzeville's rich, cultural history into economic development. The neighborhood was the destination for many southern blacks who migrated to Chicago from 1915 to the 1950s to work in the steel mills and meat packing plants. Zoning laws forced African Americans into enclosed geographic parts of town, leading to crowded and difficult conditions. But this segregation also led to Chicago's growth as an important center for the blues and jazz.
Bronzeville's era as a cultural center waned as the manufacturing jobs disappeared. The city cleared the land and built high-rise public housing. Many middle-class blacks moved into previously all-white neighborhoods or to the south suburbs. Now the area is home to vacant lots, a sprinkling of newly gentrified turn-of-the-century brick houses and the crime-ridden Robert Taylor homes. Activists promoting cultural tourism in Bronzeville say they've had some luck with foundations and other funders but they've been turned down for many major grants. "We don't have the political connections to get city money for the project,'' says Harold Lucas, executive director of the Black Metropolis Convention and Tourism Council.
Thompson wants to be that connection. At least, he's hoping his campaign will draw attention to his cause.
But arts advocates face one critical factor beyond their control: Much of their success depends on an economy over which they have no control. If the stock market takes a dive, so will the confidence of funders. And the arts often are the first to be cut. In the case of a recession, "All bets are off," says MacArthur's Rabkin.
"We're not anticipating recession in Illinois,'' says Illinois Arts Council Executive Director Davis, noting that the agency is seeking a $3 million increase for next fiscal year.
Even in difficult financial times, though, Illinois manages to keep up appearances relative to other states. In the past decade, this state-with the notable exception of 1996 when the arts council's appropriation dropped to $5.5 million-has stayed away from the bottom of the pack in per capita arts allocations, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. For instance, last year's Illinois Arts Council and Illinois Humanities Council combined budget of $13.5 million gave the state a per capita arts-spending rank of 20, which was up from a rank of 34 in 1997.
Quincy's Dwyer recognizes what it can mean to be an arts advocate in a state that has-most times-been supportive of the arts. If his organization were located in neighboring Missouri, it would have been eligible for about $8,000 from that state's arts council. He projects the Quincy Fine Arts Society will receive $70,000 from the Illinois Arts Council next year. "That's a big deal to me.''
Bronzeville wants to share in that success. The taste is strong in Thompson's mouth. He remembers what it is to live in a culturally rich environment. At the age of 11, he convinced his mother to take him to his first concert: Count Basie at the Regal. "That was the activating force that got me to play jazz.''
Now he fights to make sure some other 11-year-olds in his neighborhood have exposure to what may be an activating force in their lives.ž
Rosalie Warren contributed to this report.
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