Upset in Round One
by Brad Erickson

"I don't think anyone actually believes it stands a chance," remarked a highly placed arts administrator. The speaker was assessing, in mid-January, the likelihood of the federal economic stimulus package including a proposed $50 million in additional funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. She was not alone in her skepticism. Even while billions of dollars were being handed from the U.S. Treasury to the banking and auto industries, many seasoned arts professionals and philanthropic leaders found it hard to imagine that Congress would acknowledge the arts as being directly linked to economic activity and job creation. And while the budget for the NEA has nudged upward during all eight years of the previous administration, cuts to public funding for the arts have become so commonplace in states and cities around the country that a perpetual mood of pessimism is difficult to fault.

So astonishment was mixed with joy when word began to leak out that the conference committee working to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the stimulus bill did in fact contain the additional funds for the NEA. Members of Congress linked their decision to unequivocal assertions that the arts equal jobs.

"Why the success?" asked a local funder at a recent arts advocacy training, where I participated on presenting advocacy tips to artists and arts administrators on behalf of California Arts Advocates and Arts Forum SF. The question is a great one because the lessons learned from this significant, uphill victory can inform immediate efforts at the state and the local level here in the Bay Area.

First, the national advocacy group Americans for the Arts (AFTA) deserves to be credited for years of preparation. Its educating Congress through its D.C. offices and its annual Advocacy Day--when hundreds of advocates from around the U.S. gather in Washington to personally meet with lawmakers and make the case for the public value of the arts--has proven to be invaluable in setting clear arguments for public investment in the sector. AFTA and other national arts service organizations have built a nationwide network of activists, linking with state and local groups to forge a sizable constituency for the arts. The groups have invested in powerful but easy-to-use technology that can mobilize grassroots action from tens of thousands of people nationwide, generating a flurry of emails and telephone calls to lawmakers in a matter of hours, if not minutes. And AFTA with other advocacy groups has cultivated high-profile allies, the "grass tops" influencers who are ready to lend their voices when called upon.

AFTA has been a model in arming its grassroots and grass tops advocates with dependable data, gathered over many years, and laying out clear talking points that keep a multitude of activists on message.

When the House of Representatives passed its version of the stimulus that included the extra appropriations for the arts, optimism among arts activists was running high. Just days later, enthusiasm turned to anger when the Senate, astonishingly, voted 3 to 1 in favor of the Coburn Amendment, which linked museums, theatres and art centers to a host of dubious enterprises (casinos, golf courses, municipal parks, aquariums, zoos and highway beautification projects, among others). Federal stimulus dollars, according to the amendment, authored by Tom Coburn (R-OK) and supported by Dianne Feinstein and most senators, would be banned from these implicitly wasteful industries. Indeed, quite a few members of Congress were quite explicit in pointing to the NEA as the quintessential example of porcine spending.

At this pivotal moment, with the conference committee about to meet and the president pressing for quick action, AFTA and the advocacy groups moved swiftly to activate their grassroots--generating 35,000 emails and phone calls. They mobilized their grass tops as well, who did some behind-the-scenes lobbying of their own. The New York Times, shortly after the passage of the revised bill, credited a phone call to Nancy Pelosi placed by Robert Redford, a longtime friend of Americans for the Arts, as being key to the speaker's strong support for including the arts appropriation. That, and the flood of contacts from the congresswoman's San Francisco constituents.

The lessons from this federal victory are clear. We must be prepared to be in this for the long haul. We must arm ourselves with good data (AFTA and others have already done the research--now we must educate ourselves). We must build relationships with lawmakers at the federal, state and local levels. And we must be ready to act--mobilizing our allies at the grassroots and the grass tops.

Right now, a bill to revive state arts funding, introduced by California Arts Advocates and authored by Assembly Assistant Majority Leader Paul Krekorian is making its way through the legislature. Titled the Creative Industries and Community Economic Revitalization Act, the bill links the arts to spurring local economies and job growth. It identifies a stable source of funding by directing 20 percent of the sales tax on works of art and like items to a special fund reserved for granting purposes. Despite the fiscal worries in Sacramento, legislators have shown interest in the bill, and California Arts Advocates is pushing for its passage by 2010.

If we can learn from the federal victory and follow the example set by Americans for the Arts with our local efforts in Sacramento and city halls, we do indeed "stand a chance" of successfully connecting the arts to economic recovery and other public policy goals--like education, civic engagement and quality of life. We can learn through this success not to extend our hands for a bailout, but to reach out as partners to work with lawmakers and others to improve communities around the region and the nation.

My Advocacy Efforts:

I'm the cofounder, Arts Forum SF; president, California Arts Advocates (CAA); and state captain for California Americans for the Arts (AFTA).

March 4, San Francisco: Copresented at an advocacy training for artists and arts administrators at the San Francisco Foundation offices. The event was coproduced by California Arts Advocates and Arts Forum SF.

March 11, Sacramento: Testified at the California Arts Council public meeting on behalf the Creative Industries and Community Economics Revitalization Act - AB 700 in the state Assembly.

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