The Private Sector Initiatives team at Americans for the Arts is leading efforts to increase partnerships between the arts and the three main areas of the private sector: business, foundations, and individuals. These partnerships deliver economic and social benefits to communities, generating jobs, and galvanizing neighborhood revitalization efforts. Review these resources to make the case for arts partnerships in your community today.

Did you know that donated support from the private sector accounts for 40 percent of the average arts organizations revenue? That support occurs across a broad spectrum of engagements from audience participation to volunteerism to board service and leadership to arts-based corporate training to sponsorship and funding. 

Making a Case for the Arts

BCA News
BCAnews is the only national newsletter devoted exclusively to news about business-arts alliances. Published quarterly, BCAnews features articles, case studies, research findings and examples of business-arts partnerships.

BCA Noteworthy
BCAnoteworthy is a monthly e-bulletin of the national Business Committee for the Arts (BCA) that demonstrates the value of business-arts partnerships throughout the United States.

Arts & Economic Prosperity III
Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences documents the key role played by the nonprofit arts and culture industry in strengthening our nation’s economy. This study demonstrates that the nonprofit arts and culture industry is an economic driver in communities—a growth industry that supports jobs, generates government revenue, and is the cornerstone of tourism.

Arts Education: Preparing Students for the Workplace (pdf, 44KB)
Arts Education: Preparing Students for the Workplace. provides a snapshot of key findings from the study, Ready to Innovate (see full study below), conducted by Americans for the Arts and the Conference Board, indicates that business and school leaders see the arts as key to preparing students to be creative workers for the global marketplace.

BCA Triennial Survey (pdf, 120KB)
The BCA Report: National Survey of Business Support to the Arts is a triennial survey which tracks the trends and levels of business support to the arts in the United States.

This study provides businesses with the information they need to begin or increase support to the arts. It acts as a tool for arts organizations and local, state and federal government agencies in their efforts to stimulate business support to the arts.

Business Support to the Arts (pdf, 74KB)
Business support to the arts changes with the economy. With more than $3 billion in arts funding, businesses play a key role in ensuring the health and vitality of the nation’s arts sector. This report provides a financial support forcast for 2009.

Creative Industries
Creative Industries: Business & Employment in the Arts reports offer a new, research-based approach to understanding the scope and importance of the arts to the nation's economy. While most economic impact studies of the arts have focused on the nonprofit sector (such as our own Arts and Economic Prosperity studies), Creative Industries is the first national study that encompasses both the nonprofit and for-profit arts industries.

National Arts Policy Roundtable
The National Arts Policy Roundtable is an annual forum that enables national leaders of business, government, philanthropy, education, and the arts to: network, share knowledge, and recommend policies critical to the advancement of American culture.

Policies recommended by the Roundtable are, in turn, circulated back through the Americans for the Arts National Arts Policy Network for implementation.

Private Giving (pdf, 49KB)
Private Giving Report, provides information on private giving to the arts, culture and humanities from 1997-2008 and offers analysis of current trends in private sector philanthropy.

Ready to Innovate: Are Educators and Executives Aligned on the Creative Readiness of the U.S. Workforce? (pdf, 629KB)
Americans for the Arts and the Conference Board, in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators, surveyed public school superintendents and American business executives to identify and compare their views on creativity and innovation. The results proved that creativity is increasingly important in the workplace yet there is a gap when looking at the needs and hiring practices of companies.