Attachment 4 - SVC White Paper Business of Arts and CultureTHE BUSINESSOF ARTS AND CULTURE
PAID SUPPLEMENT | MAY 202121SVCREATES
ATTACHMENT 4
“We are not in Kansas anymore, and never were.”
_Connie Martinez, CEO, SVCreates
New Ballet Company Alumus Dancer Kylie Toy
2
SVCreates Board of Directors:
Tamara Alvarado, Program Officer of Local Grantmaking,
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Teresa Alvarado, Former Chief of Local Impact for SPUR
Maryles Casto, Founder and Former CEO, Casto Travel
Roy Hirabayashi, Co-Founder, San Jose Taiko
Janice Fry, Former VP Executive Development,
Sun Microsystems
Marshall Jones, VP Regional Sales, Prestige
Jennifer Hull, Nonprofit Management
James LaCamp, VP Finance, Coupa Software
Matt Ogawa, Human Resources, Facebook
Barry Posner, Accolti Endowed Professor of
Leadership, Leavey School of Business at SCU
Joshua Russell, Director of Marketing and Public Relations,
Evergreen Valley College
Sheena Vaidyanathan, Public School Teacher, Los Altos
School District
Mark Waxman, Chief Marketing Officer, CBIZ
Silicon Valley Braintrust:
Kerry Adams Hapner, Director, Office of Cultural Affairs,
City of San Jose
Hector Armienta, Founder and Director, Opera Cultura
Gina D. Dalma, EVP, Community Action, Policy and
Strategy, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Khori Dastoor, General Director, Opera San Jose
Erin Fogg, Founder and Principal, Spoke Consulting
Daniel Garcia, SVCreates Cultivator and Founder of
Content Magazine
Karen Kienzle, Director, Palo Alto Art Center
Chike Nwoffiah, Founding Director, Silicon Valley
African Film Festival
Mauricio Palma, Director Strategic Initiatives,
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Joshua Russell, Director of Marketing and Public Relations,
Evergreen Valley College
Usha Srinivasan, CEO and Co-Founder, Mosaic America
Research:
Creative Community Builders (CCB)
Americans for the Arts
Joint Venture Silicon Valley
Californians for the Arts
Please visit svcreates.org for full list of resources and data.
Thank you to the SVCreates Board, SVBrain-
trust, Erin Fogg of Spoke Consulting, Daniel
Garcia and Alexandra Urbanowski at SVCreates.
All materials in “The Business of Arts and Culture” are protected by United States copyright
law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published, broadcast, or
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The essence of Silicon Valley informs our unique arts and cultural ecosystem.
Setting the stage
Silicon Valley is a relatively young
and highly educated region that
attracts people from around the
world. Our entrepreneurial, risk tak-
ing, startup culture fueled the emer-
gence of a global center of technology
and innovation at record speed — a
feat for which we have become world
renowned. And in doing so, we also
created a broadly diverse “culture of
churn” and unprecedented wealth
that is, in many cases, only loosely
tied to our local community.
Silicon Valley wealth is largely “new
money” and resides with our technol-
ogy elite, not the social elite who his-
torically funded the arts. Just like our
companies, Silicon Valley philanthro-
py leans global and is often driven by
a desire to change the world. And, for
many in our “valley of immigrants,”
connection to this place remains a bit
illusive.
As a result, there is a deep chasm between the capacity and propen-sity to fund arts and culture.
We believe engagement and invest-
ment in our arts ecosystem requires
a nuanced understanding of our
region’s unique and beautiful com-
plexity and the value of the arts in
overcoming our civic challenges. This
publication will help you understand
who we are as a cultural sector and
what we bring to this special commu-
nity, it will shed light on the particu-
lar challenges we face and how we are
confronting them. Most importantly,
it will help you understand your es-
sential role in sustaining the business
of the arts.
It is worth noting that our research
for this project was underway before
COVID-19 hit the arts sector particu-
larly hard. You will see that we have
added pandemic texture and insights
to each section, but, as is true for
most other sectors, we have yet to
fully realize the long-term impact of
2020’s concurrent crises on the arts.
Before we invite you to dig in, let’s
pause for a moment of reflection.
Imagine navigating a global pan-demic, a racial reckoning, home schooling, and the social and eco-nomic complexities of this world without access to music, film, po-etry, performances, visual arts, cultural events and festivals.
Hard to imagine? We agree. And we
rest our case.
Warm regards,
Connie Martinez, CEO, SVCREATES
2021 | THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE
setting the stage
3
Hierarchical Leadership
Prominent Structures
Observing Art
Centralized Power
Highly Capitalized
Social Elitism
Status
Excellence
Entrepreneurial Leadership
Decentralized Creative Spaces
Creative Expression
People Power
Scrappy Great
Inclusivity
Cultural Identity
Relevance
From 20th Century Industrial Economy To 21st Century Creative Economy
Silicon Valley Arts & Culture
early adopter of the 21st Century
Who we are
4
South Bay Hooper Caroline Kim
WhoWEAre
Silicon Valley’s cultural ecosystem is a vast, organic network of
hundreds of small- to mid-sized multidisciplinary arts and cul-
tural organizations and thousands of artists, creative entrepre-
neurs, volunteers and individual participants.
Much like the Web, Silicon Valley’s arts ecosystem is invisible unless you use it as an arts consumer or
producer, or both — and your experience and understanding of the arts is contained
almost entirely to the “sliver” of the ecosystem that you experience directly.
This is not the case in most comparable US regions, where decades of cultural
policies and investments have favored large “legacy” organizations, cultural
facilities and donor events that are predominantly white and highly visible.
Silicon Valley has never been a traditional marketplace for the arts and has little history of
well-funded, euro-centric arts organizations. In fact, ours is the only compara-
ble city-region whose community of arts organizations with budgets over $5M
contracted between 2010 and 2020 (as San Jose Rep, American Musical Theater
and San Jose Ballet closed). Just as these mid-sized euro-centric arts institu-
tions were shuttered, 501c3 start-ups and culturally specific arts organizations
grew by 60%, funded by “family and friends” and fueled by volunteers. During
this same time, local public investment in the arts grew faster than inflation,
population growth and national averages for public support, primarily driven
by a surge in arts funding by the City of San Jose.
Demographic shifts and technology innovations are the key disrupters to the sector as culturally
specific demand grows and digital culture changes an individuals’ relationship
with the arts. Silicon Valley felt the impact of these disruptors ahead of other
US regions because our innovation economy attracted the global talent that
created the technology platforms for digital culture and changing demograph-
ics shifted priorities and the consumption of the arts. These disruptors were
less about quality and more about relevance, as audiences began curating their
own, and often culturally specific, experiences.
As international immigration has propelled our population growth, our arts and culture sector has
grown to align with our demographics and cultural identity. A decade of growth, coupled
with our entrepreneurial and engineering culture, fueled culturally specific art
start-ups. At the same time, growth in funding for “technology centric” cultur-
al institutions outpaced our national peers by a factor of 5 and expenditures by
organizations focused on western art forms contracted by 50%.
San Jose Has
Very Few
Large Cultural
Institutions
Compared to
Other Cities
San Jose Austin San Diego San Francisco Miami
Number of organizations over $5M
3 11 12 1512
Portland
31
Silicon Valley NonProfit
Arts Lean Small
Only 8% have budgets over $500k
67%
17%
3%5%
7%
Under $50K $50K-$200K $200K-$500K $500K-$1.5M Over $1.5M
Total number of organizations in 2019 = 1,063
52021 | THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE
Who we Are
Source: CCB 2019 Study
Rate of New Arts Organizations
Reflect Silicon Valley’s
Start-Up Culture
2015-191975-79 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 2005-09 2010-14
We are a Valley of diverse voices and
many cultures
KEY INsights
Organizational budget growth does not
always equal resilience
Unlike other US city-regions, Silicon Valley’s
cultural sector nearly matches the demo-
graphics of the region
The vibrancy of our cultural sector
depends on relevance & diversity, not size of
institutions
Our cultural sector mirrors our start-up
DNA and leans “market”
NONProfit Arts Leader - Usha Srinivasan, Mosaic America Local Artist - Harumo Sato
A recent immigrant from India, Usha
Srinivasan arrived in Silicon Valley in
1995 to attend Stanford. After earning
her MBA she settled into a career in
high tech. Becoming a mother forced
her to reckon with issues of identity
and belonging in her new homeland.
She was struck by the lack of social
integration between culturally
distinct groups in Silicon
Valley — a consequence
of rapid demographic
shifts as the valley
transformed from
an agricultural
center to a glob-
al high-tech hub.
Raised in a highly
multicultural en-
vironment in India,
she knew first hand
the power of culturally-rooted arts to
build bridges. She founded Sangam
Arts (now Mosaic America) in 2013
— a presenting platform for multicul-
tural arts. In 2016, she was joined by
Priya Das and together they launched
Mosaic — a unique and innovative
grassroots movement for cultivating
belonging through inter-cultur-
al and co-created art. Mo-
saic programming has
featured artists from
over 35 cultures,
collaborated with
over 40 partner
organizations and
reached more than
25,000 in six Bay
Area cities.
Harumo Sato’s art exudes joy, col-
or, and wonder. The characters she
draws could be your “spirit friend”
and the magic of her life story is pres-
ent in her work — a fantastic journey
of spiritual crisis, impossible heal-
ing, and happy discovery. Soon after
Harumo moved to Mountain View,
a friend brought her to South
First Fridays Art Walk in
downtown San Jose. She
met local artists and
creatives and was
overjoyed to find
like-minded think-
ers and makers.
Harumo gained
local and national
recognition by sell-
ing art at fairs and
festivals and in 2018,
she landed a series of shows through
Art Attack San Francisco and paint-
ed a mural at Dac Phuc restaurant
during POW! WOW! San Jose. In 2019,
she produced murals for Facebook
and Target and is now hoping to cre-
ate art for hospitals, rehabilitation
clinics, and hospice centers—to culti-
vate joy for those most in need.
“Art really changed my life.
It saved me—really cured
me. So I want to en-
hance positivity and
make people happy.
I want to draw a
peaceful world.”
An Ecosystem of Many Voices and Talents
There are thousands of stories like Usha’s, Harumo’s, Jimmy’s, and the Xochitl project that breathe life into our ecosystem.
30 37 28 49 70
102 128
212
307
THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE | 2021
Who we are
6
Source: CCB 2019 Study
The number of 501c3 arts organizations
grew from 659 in 2008 to 1063 in 2019.
In Silicon Valley, about 60% of 501c3
arts and culture funding comes from
consumers of culture, not funders. That’s
higher than comparable regions in the US.
While the financial value of the cultural
sector remained relatively constant over
the past decade, overall funding shifted
from euro-centric arts organizations to
technology-centric cultural institutions
such as The Tech Interactive and the
Computer History Museum.
An Evolving
Marketplace
for Arts and
Culture
Creative Entrepreneur - Jimmy Fonseca
Raised in East San Jose, Jimmy Fon-
seca remembers experimenting with
graffiti as his gateway into art. Today
he is an artist and muralist on a mis-
sion to spread his floral aesthetic,
by creating blooming flowers with
a mixture of spray paint and acryl-
ics rendered in lush, expressionist
tones. With a degree in graphic
design, Jimmy works for a
print shop and pursues
his art business after
hours. He currently
does commissions,
has several mu-
rals he has paint-
ed around town
and hopes for
international proj-
ects. He has been a featured artist at
SoFA Street Fair and has artist resi-
dency at Local Color. “I get inspired
by flowers that I see on walks in my
neighborhood. It’s something I like
to go back to and experiment with.
It’s an organic thing, so it’s not very
structured. Flowers have contour,
shading, lines that can be played
with no right or wrong
way. The first time I
tried spray painting
a rose, it came out
cool, so I wanted
to do it again, to
the point that it
became kind of
an obsession.”
Off-the-Grid - Xóchitl - Folklorico Dance
In the 1990s, former teacher Roslia
Novotny established Xóchitl, a folk-
lorico dance group that became very
popular with students and their fami-
lies at Lincoln High School in San Jose.
Megan McAlister and Sam Cortez
expanded this community gem and
brought a cross-cultural perspective
to Xóchitl that reflects the beautiful
diversity of Silicon Valley. Me-
gan was born and raised
in San Jose and brings a
lifelong love of ballet
and tap to Xóchitl
and Sam brings his
folklorico talent
and experience af-
ter studying dance
at University of Co-
lima in Mexico and
now directing Los Lupeños and Los
Lupeños Juvenil in San Jose. These
leaders are growing the community’s
energy and passion for dance and
showcasing new dance routines from
different regions. During COVID,
the group stayed together through
Xóchitl online cultural class. “My
early journey with folklorico began
at a young age by sneaking into
my sister’s practices,” said
Sam. “I hope Megan
and I can help all of
our kids carry the
joy and creativity
of dance into their
community and
their futures.”
Dancer: Mariajose Garcia Morones, Xóchitl dancer class of 2020
0
125
50
25
75
100
Culturally specific organizations grew
by 57%, dominated by Asian groups
The arts and culture sector evolved between
2008 and 2019 bringing it closer to the relative
percentage of those populations across the region,
as demonstrated by number of organizations.
2008 (n=274)
2019 (n=431)Western EuropeanEast Asian + PacificSouth AsianLatin American + CaribbeanEastern European/RussianReligiousLGBTQ+Black or African AmericaSub-Saharan AfricanMIddle Eastern + Norht AfricanAsianSource: CCB 2019 Study
2021 | THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE 7
Who we Are
Arts improve the health and well-being of our
community and the individuals who live here.
There is extensive scientific evidence
that the arts improve our physical and
mental health, increase civic engage-
ment, nurture social cohesion, im-
prove child welfare and lower poverty
rates. Americans for the Arts recently
reported that the arts result in a 66%
improvement in individuals experi-
encing depression, 50% improvement
in anxiety symptoms, and an 83%
decrease of stress. About 50% of US
healthcare institutions use arts pro-
gramming for patients, families, and
staff to reduce hospital stays, manage
pain and decrease dependency on
medication.
Arts contribute to our economy. Americans
for the Arts found that nonprofit arts
generate $166.3 billion in econom-
ic activity, 4.6 million jobs and $27.5
billion in government revenue annu-
ally. Locally, the arts generated about
$250M in economic activity, created
4,000 jobs, and audiences of more
than 4 million people. Music and artis-
tic performances and exhibitions are
important drivers of bar and restau-
rant revenue and other small business
services and are attractive to a cre-
ative workforce as they choose where
they want to live.
Arts enhance creativity and academic perfor-
mance. Research shows that students
engaged in the arts perform better
academically regardless of socio-eco-
nomic status and that for every $1
spent on after-school programs a
community saves $9 on other public
expenditures. Nobel laureates in the
sciences are 17 times more likely to be
actively engaged in the arts than other
scientists. Creativity is among the top
five applied skills sought by business
leaders and 91% of Americans believe
that arts are part of a well-rounded
K-12 education.
Arts foster environmental stewardship. Two
national studies conducted by the
Knight Foundation found that the arts
deepen a person’s attachment to the
place. Stewardship of our local envi-
ronment and its relationship to cli-
mate change, environmental justice
and sustainability is fueled by our
knowledge of our environment and
caring for the place we call home.
Arts drive social change. Most major move-
ments or societal shifts throughout
history have been driven, advanced,
revealed, or envisioned by artists. From murals of George Floyd to the spoken word of Youth Poet Laure-ate Amanda Gorman, the arts en-lighten, provoke and inspire. There
is a reason dictators and authoritarian
leaders fear the arts and its power to
inspire a change of mind and spirit.
As German Playwright Bertolt Brecht
once said, “Art is not a mirror held up
to society but a hammer with which
to shape it.”
Arts are the key to a more just, soulful, and livable Silicon
Valley. They bring joy, beauty and healing to our lives. They drive
economic and social activity. They attach people to place and to
each other, fuel creativity and learning, and foster social justice
and truth making.
Why Art Matters
Artist Francisco Ramirez
THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE | 2021
Why Art Matters
8
Artists are influencers and raise the voices
and images of social change
KEY INsights
The arts reveal a region’s character, its
priorities and commitment to place
Participation in arts programs is a
game-changer for kids, families and
communities
The arts activate public spaces, fuel small
businesses and help attract a creative
workforce
The arts are the enablers of community
building, place making and cross-cultural
understanding
$27.5B
Nationally, the nonprofit arts industry generated $27.5 bil-lion in government revenue.
4.6M
The cultural sector creates 4.6M jobs across the nation.
$166B
Nonprofit arts and culture is a $166B driver of our national economy.
$102B
The cultural sector generated $102B in local spending across the U.S.
7.4%
Arts and culture represent 7.4% of California’s GDP.
The Arts Mean
Business
more likely to be
recognized for academic
achievement
4X3X
more likely to
win an award for
school attendance
MOre LIKELY
TO GRADUATE
COLLEGE
2X
Students who participate in arts are:
more likely to
participate in a math
and science fair
4X
Source: Americans for the Arts
Sources: Americans for the Arts and Californians for the Arts
San Jose Jazz High School All Stars
LESS LIKELY TO DROP OUT
5X
2021 | THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE
Why Art Matters
9
Silicon Valley’s success is also its weak-
ness when it comes to sustaining its arts
ecosystem
KEY INsights
COVID-19 exposed the sector’s vulnerability
and the need to increase economic security,
equity and dignity for all workers
The pandemic made access to the arts less
equitable
Government investment is critical to the
arts role in placemaking, community-
building and access to programs
The lack of local philanthropy highlights
the importance of government investment
in the arts
COVID Hit the Sector Hard
Rina Chang, San Jose Taiko
Pianist/composer Kris Bowers
National unemployment rate for arts workers soared to 21.7% in July 2020.
The cultural sector lost 60% of its revenue in March 2020 as gatherings halted and people sheltered-in-place.
National economic loss of nearly $16B in the cultural sector as of March 2021 due to COVID-19.
California creative workers made up 59% of unemployed population through July 2020.
THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE | 2021
An Uphill Climb
10
16%
Top 16% of households hold 81% of regional wealth.
$50k
Average annual income for a culture sector worker in Silicon Valley is less than $50k.
90%
90% of Silicon Valley philanthropy leaves the region.
$1.2M
The median price of a home in Silicon Valley is $1.2M.
2x
Silicon Valley’s income divide grew twice as fast as California and the nation.
FEELING THE
SQUEEZEAnUphillClimb
Rising real estate costs make finding and keeping spaces difficult and often out of reach for housing
culture workers, recruiting and retaining artistic talent, and sustaining the busi-
ness of the arts. Many of these challenges are the same challenges facing others,
but talent is the cornerstone of the industry and space is the “delivery” mecha-
nism. The sector cannot operate without both of them.
These economic pressures also drive up the cost of business services for artists and small- to
mid-sized organizations as they struggle to make their art in a high-cost region.
The ecosystem’s capacity to run their “community serving” small businesses
depends on access to affordable business support and expertise outside of their
“creative” skill sets.
Despite our tremendous wealth, raising money for the arts is very difficult because Silicon Valley
immigrants, engineers, and entrepreneurs “lean into” DIY activities and use
their philanthropic strength to support global causes, disaster relief, and
science and technology. And as Silicon Valley became more broadly diverse,
philanthropic investment in the arts became more dispersed and in alignment
with a wide range of cultural priorities.
If audiences can’t come together, arts organizations lose the opportunity to engage them as patrons
and donors. Silicon Valley’s suburban development pattern and transportation
challenges also dilute energy and make bringing audiences and donors
together difficult.
COVID-19 eliminated the art sector’s ability to bring people together, further undermining its
small business model of serving “paying customers” and bridging the gap with
donations. The sector quickly pivoted to online content and experiences, which
helped them stay connected with audiences, donors and students, but did not
pay the bills and at a time that philanthropy rallied around emergency funding
for “basic needs.”
Silicon Valley is a challenging place to live and work if your
livelihood is not connected to our extraordinarily successful
technology industries, success that has driven up housing costs,
strained transportation systems, and widened the income gap.
Higher Fire
Artist Chelsea Stewart Sources: Joint Venture Silicon Valley, The Giving Code and Americans for the Arts
2021 | THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE 11
An Uphill Climb
Facing Our Challenges
SVCreates is committed to a series of regional initiatives to build a better community
through the arts. These initiatives respond to the financial realities of Silicon Valley and
address the challenges of funding, spaces, and business services. They embrace its quirky,
entrepreneurial, and start-up culture. And they address the needs of a broadly diverse arts
ecosystem that leans small and culturally specific.
A Web of Support
ArtsWeb is a network of shared services and peer-to-peer support for artists, arts leaders, and arts organizations.
A software platform helps connect individual art-ists and arts organizations with customized busi-ness services and offers the support of an Arts Busi-ness Navigator and a cohort of peers. ArtsWeb is designed to make the “business of the arts’’ more affordable and accessible for artists and smaller culturally specific arts organizations. It is being de-signed and prototyped in Santa Clara and Alameda counties in partnership with Community Vision
and with funding from Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
A Network of Shared Spaces
Creative Spaces Collaborative is a network of or-ganizations that are creating affordable and col-laborative social purpose real estate options for our creative community.
As part of this initiative, SVCreates is partnering with Urban Community to provide shared spaces for seven arts organizations and creative entrepre-neurs in San Jose’s SoFA district, and with the City of San Jose and Shea Properties to build a creative cen-ter in Japantown for San Jose Taiko and 3-4 smaller arts organizations.
Like-minded organization Local Color provides shared spaces for artists in San Jose’s SoFA and Di-ridon districts. School of Arts and Culture at Mex-ican Heritage Plaza provides performance space for over 30 culturally specific arts organizations. And CreaTV San Jose is leading the development
of a multi-use, technology enabled space on Sec-
ond Street in downtown San Jose with a focus on
collaboration, creativity, and civic engagement
that will house six to eight arts organizations
and be available for community use. As the Val-
ley begins to reopen post-pandemic, the Creative
Spaces Collaborative will learn from each other
and continue to steward shared space solutions.
A Marketplace for Arts Education
ArtsEdConnect is a scalable technology platform that connects teachers and school districts to arts education offered by local artists and arts orga-nizations and provides funding to support their work together.
ArtsEdConnect is designed to bridge the arts and
creativity gap in Silicon Valley schools and bring
joy, learning and skill building to children without
equitable access to the arts. In partnership with
Santa Clara County Office of Education and with
funding from Charmaine Warmenhoven and the
County of Santa Clara, nearly 10,000 children are
benefitting from having access to arts and creativ-
ity each year through ArtsEdConnect, and that
number can grow with more resources for unmet
demand, especially in Title I schools serving high-
need children and families.
A StoryTelling Platform
Under the artistic direction of founder Daniel Garcia, Content Magazine is the voice of our cre-ative culture heard through its hyper local maga-zine, podcasts and social media.
The Content platform works with local artists in its
production and embraces beauty, story, and the
soul of Silicon Valley’s creative culture. It inspires
our region with local artist profiles, insights, and
advocacy for the arts. The platform is designed to
rise above the churn of Silicon Valley, give voice
and access to artists and sector leadership and fos-
ter community engagement, pride and understand-
ing of the sector.
A Coalition of Advocates
Advocacy for good public policy and funding for the arts is getting stronger as leaders are forming coalitions to address issues ranging from a devel-opment’s % for a public art to affordable housing to public and private funding of the arts and ev-erything in between.
The challenges of a global pandemic have fueled a
sense of urgency, accelerated efforts already under-
way, and brought kindred spirits together. Change
takes time, but it begins by working together on ac-
tionable strategies that lift up the sector. Arts advo-
cates from SVCreates, Americans for the Arts, Cali-
fornians for the Arts, American Leadership Forum
Silicon Valley, San Jose Arts Advocates, Arts Com-
missions, and San Jose’s Office of Cultural Affairs
are actively working together to face the challenges
of the sector.
SVCreates’ SVCultural Fund and SVCreative Corps
are local campaigns to increase institutional fund-
ing of nonprofit arts operations, leverage local,
state and federal recovery funding, unleash local
giving and put artists to work on creative projects
and programs of benefit to the community.
THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE | 2021
Facing our Challenges
12
Polaroid Photographer Jay Aguilar2021 | THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE
Facing Our Challenges
13
Looking Forward
Above: Sculptor Oleg LobykinPhotography by Sannie Celeridad
As with most of the world, Silicon Valley’s arts and culture sector
did not plan for a global pandemic. But the sector can plan for
this moment of reopening and recovery by strengthening its
relationship to community and leveraging emerging trends.
THE QUEST FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE HAS MOMENTUM.The arts have a voice and a following. A voice to challenge our thinking and spotlight inequi-ty, and a following that listens and engages. The arts are a strong community partner for sustain-ing positive momentum and creating a paradigm shift worthy of all our support.
HEALTH IS TOP OF MIND. The pandemic exposed our mental and phys-ical fragility, fueled community trauma, shed light on environmental insecurity, and sur-faced every other health risk hidden between the cracks of society. The arts are poised to play an essential role in our communi-ty’s healing, deliver trusted health messag-es, and help navigate our future informed by these vulnerabilities and the healing power of the arts.
“ROARING TWENTIES” MAY LIE AHEAD. As our federal, state and local governments in-vest heavily in a safe reopening and as pent-up demand for gatherings and economic activity soars, arts and culture can activate small busi-ness, create a sense of belonging, and safely meet the demand for human interaction.
VIRTUAL ENGAGEMENT IS HERE TO STAY. The sector learned a lot about digital content and technology platforms during COVID. As we reopen safely and reconnect with each other in person, we will also use our new knowledge to engage others virtually to augment our offerings, deepen our relationships, and expand our reach.
COALITIONS MATTER. The sector is stronger together and has the pow-er to demonstrate unprecedented cooperation by crossing the boundaries of possibility for funding, policy, and justice, and centering cul-tural and racial equity in our collective efforts.
Looking Forward
14
Steve WOZniak
Apple Inc., Cofounder
“Every child in Silicon Valley deserves the joy, learning
and discovery that comes from participating in arts
and culture.”
“The arts is a driving force behind healing in our
communities. Artists challenge our thinking, speak
truth to power and change hearts and minds. We
need to invest in artists and organizations that
champion the arts as they can be powerful agents of
social change and racial justice.”
Nicole Taylor
President & CEO, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
CIndy Chavez
Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 2
“The arts are essential to the health and well-being
of our entire community. The arts nurture our souls,
unleash our creativity, and deepen our attachment to
our community and to each other.”
A Call To Action
GOVERNMENT leaders can adopt public policies
that strengthen a more equitable and accessible cultur-
al sector, champion arts funding equal to the economic,
social and community benefit of arts, and use their public
platform to deepen community understanding of the val-
ue of cultural workers and the cultural sector.
BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY leaders can invest
money, technology and know-how in the cultural sector,
engage artists in their work and the creation of spaces,
and encourage other corporate investment in the arts
through peer-to-peer recruitment, articulating the busi-
ness case for the arts and modeling engagement.
FOUNDATION leaders can invest in the cultural sec-
tor, inspire and influence others to invest, and use their
philanthropic platform to increase donor understanding
of the sector while amplifying its value and visibility.
GRASSROOTS leaders can advocate for good public
policy, engage in community coalitions and strategies
that lift up the arts, and be knowledgeable ambassadors
for the arts.
ARTS AND CULTURE leaders can band together
to advocate for good public policy and fair treatment of
artists and cultural workers, build bridges across sectors
by engaging in our community outside of the arts, and
nurture and grow donor relationships.
INDIVIDUALS can donate, engage, lead, participate
and enjoy the arts!
svcreates.org
2021 | THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE
A Call to Action
15
THE BUSINESS OF ARTS AND CULTURE | 2021
SVCREATES | 310 S. First St. | San Jose, CA 95113
www.svcreates.org
Cover Image, “HERE & THERE” Mural by Sam Rodriguez
Location Eighth St. and Empire, Kiem Service Laundromat San Jose.
A big thank you to the David & Lucile Packard Foundation,
San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs and the Silicon Valley
Community Foundation for funding our research work.