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Indy arts organizations get creative in response to economic, state-funding downturn

Indiana arts organizations struggle to find creative ways to raise money after state legislators brought a drastic budget cut upon those organizations that receive state aid this summer.

A 20 percent cut slashed the 2010-11 budget of the Indiana Arts Commission that distributes funds to roughly 400 arts organizations throughout the state. The agency’s overall budget will prevent nearly $800,000 from being distributed to these organizations in an unforgiving economy.

“Many steps were taken to reduce the state’s spending, including agency budget reductions averaging 10 percent; salary, hiring and travel freezes; deferment or reductions for programs, and other actions. This includes the arts commission,” Jane Jankowski, Gov. Mitch Daniels’ press secretary, said in an e-mail. “The state has many worthy programs, and no one wants to make cuts, but many are affected when revenues are down.”

Back-and-forth process

This decision came after a lengthy back-and-forth between the Indiana Legislature and Daniels. He originally proposed a 50 percent cut in the IAC’s budget in January of this year, slashing $2 million from the previously $4 million total. Organizations such as the Indiana Coalition for the Arts sent lobbyists to fight this cut as soon as it was announced.

“We had advocates from all over the state contact legislators to share why arts are important to community and leadership,” Sally Gaskill, president of the board for the coalition, said. “We used a very powerful online advocacy tool of 10,000 names and e-mail addresses of people who support public arts funding [across the state]. These people could e-mail legislators, which allows lawmakers to hear directly from their constituents.”

Local lobbying efforts

The lobbying efforts were effective. By April, the Indiana House and Senate had passed a nine percent budget cut for the arts, but this number didn’t make it past Daniels’ desk. A special legislative session occurred in June, at which legislators finalized the 20 percent cut.

Many organizations felt relief that Daniels’ original proposal was not the final number because, in the current economy, every dollar means more than it has in previous years, Dave Lawrence, acting president of the Arts Council of Indianapolis, said.

“The economy has had a bigger impact on the non profit community due to hurting contributed income from corporations and earned income,” he said. “And organizations fortunate enough to have endowments have taken enormous hits. It’s sort of double-whammy.”

The Indianapolis Museum of Art relies more on individual donations than state funding to stay afloat.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is one of these organizations. The museum’s endowment is about 70 percent of the annual operating budget, public relations manager Katie Zarich said. The loss in the value of this endowment has forced the IMA to cut nearly $5 million across three different sets of budget cuts since 2009 began.

“It’s unfortunate we’ve seen some of these cuts,” she said, “but the way we’ve gone about them at the IMA is to try to do as much as we can with as little as possible.”

Organizations’ responses

Other organizations in the city have adopted the same approach.

Dance Kaleidoscope has made several big budget decisions recently, cutting the number of weeks dancers work in a year from 48 to 45, and employees received no raises across the board, Executive Director Jan Virgin said. The organization has also taken some risks for the benefit of the community.

“We took a leap of faith this summer,” she said.

The modern dance company presented a summer show with lower ticket prices — normally $35 tickets were dropped to $15 — to encourage the community to attend the performances despite tighter personal budgets. Dance Kaleidoscope also took greater measures to collect donations from individuals rather than relying as heavily on grants as it has in the past.

“We had dancers write personal letters to past donors,” Virgin said. “We’re going after more while spending less.”

But it has not been all doom and gloom in the local arts world. The City-County Council maintained its $1 million budget for Indianapolis arts programs for 2010. But many local arts practitioners said they feel this good news is not good enough because of the necessary impacts the arts have on a community.

“If you consider the arts as an economic and cultural driver, that money is probably not sufficient to maximize the potential of that,” Mike Knight, public relations and communications manager for the Arts Council of Indianapolis, said.

The bigger issue: Arts are undervalued

Knight attributes this lack of value for the arts to a larger social issue that needs to be addressed in the state. Until the understanding of how the arts are essential to our society increases, he believes the arts will continue in their struggle to find government and public monetary support.

“If you pulled somebody out of a jungle and put him or her next to a car, they might look inside a car, see a seat in it and say, ‘Wow, this is a comfortable seat,’” he said. “But until you can get them to see the value of that car—to get them from point A to point B—it’s kind of worthless.”

Local dancer Libby Harris said she agrees with Knight’s philosophy.

“A community is not full unless it has a big arts program around it,” she said. And the ability for artists to express their creativity is essential to a fulfilled life. “Artists can’t live unless they have the opportunity to put their art out in to the world,” she said. “I need to be able to express myself.”

This is why having full-time jobs available at arts organizations is essential to the city, she said. But as much as a career in the arts gives to her, her ability to have such a career gives just as much back to the community.

“That’s what’s beautiful about the arts. It’s a give and take,” she said. “I give people something, but what they give me back is two-fold. Them supporting us and appreciating what it is that I do gives such a gift back.”

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