At a recent roundtable discussion, leaders of Indiana art and cultural organizations gathered to discuss trends, challenges and opportunities for Indiana arts.  This blog provides their insight as a result of the discussion.

Keira Amstutz is the president of the Indiana Humanities Council.

It’s an old lesson, one we’ve all been taught: You can’t demand respect; you have to earn it.

That truth has been a recurring theme in my mind over the past year as I’ve settled into my role as president of the Indiana Humanities Council.  In talks with other nonprofit, business and community leaders, and the Council’s constituents, I often hear the same question: How can we make people see the arts and humanities as relevant in today’s environment?

Personally, I think that’s the wrong question.  We shouldn’t worry about being seen as relevant.  We should worry about making ourselves relevant.

I know there is much about the arts and humanities that is timeless, but that does not mean that the arts and humanities should be unchanging.  On the contrary: The arts and humanities must be vital, challenging and compelling.  We must push the envelope, seek out new audiences and claim new roles.  And we must add to the community conversation, not only by drawing from timeless truths but also by asserting new truths.

The people, organizations, sectors and disciplines that will be seen as relevant in the days ahead are the ones that blaze new trails, take bigger risks and spark new conversations.  In other words, the ones that lead.  We’re trying to do that with our series of community workshops in which we’re facilitating conversations among citizens.  We’re planning new initiatives that will put attention on the needs and achievements of the people of Indiana.  And we’re striving to create new opportunities for the humanities to be put to work solving the problems of our communities.

I see similar work being done in other organizations.  All across Indiana, organizations of all sizes are staking their futures on daring attempts to offer new ideas, new truths and new leadership.

These are the organizations most likely to thrive in the future.  Rather than demanding to be respected, rather than asking to be noticed, and rather than simply lobbying for support, they’re making themselves relevant.

John Herbst is the president and CEO of the Indiana Historical Society.

The Indiana Historical Society (IHS) is, by its very nature, an institution which takes a long view when it comes to current affairs.  We were started in 1830 and so in 179 years we have seen just about every type of crisis bump along the national pike, including the Civil War, two World Wars, and the Great Depression.

Like the other important cultural organizations, this economic crisis comes at not the best moment for the IHS.  We are in the middle of our fundraising effort – the Campaign for the Indiana Experience, and our building is closed to allow for a renovation to accommodate exciting new visitor experiences that will open in March 2010.  We are also accepting a lot of new archival materials and expanding programs in the state like the National History Day competitions for students and our services to county and local historical societies and museums.

We have modified the plans for our program expansion by phasing the renovation of the History Center.  We are fortunate to have a lead cash gift to the campaign – $8 million from Eugene and Marilyn Glick – which allows us to continue the Indiana Experience project.  In 2009 we will do a first phase to reallocate existing interior spaces for the new visitor experiences we have been planning and piloting for the last several years.

On the Future
I believe that the economic downturn will lead area residents to change their travel habits and reduce their expenses associated with leisure time and activities.  This is good news for IHS and many of the other museum and cultural organizations in that we offer experiences that are relatively low in cost and high in value – and right in their back yards.  We are seeing a shift in the nation’s values and we expect people will be attracted to venues like ours that offer a look at the American experience, authenticity, and a high level of visitor engagement.

On Indiana and Indianapolis
The culture of this state has been of “small government and low taxes” with a built-in negativity for large public projects.  We emphasized sports here and left art, culture, and heritage largely to the private sector.  Even though state and city financial support of these quality-of-life issues has been a token amount compared to most other states and cities of our size, the modest gains we have made are unfortunately being swept away at a very critical time in relationship to private sector giving.  I think all of this can hurt Indianapolis terribly in the years to come in terms of the quality-of-life standards that companies use to recruit and retain a talented workforce.  Ideally regional strategies would include public and private support for a wider range of projects to build the region’s desirable qualities in a number of areas besides sports.

John C. Pickett is the executive director of the Indianapolis Opera.

If there was a clarion call from the roundtable discussion held among CEOs of Indy’s cultural industry, it would be that we all wish to see central Indiana’s cultural portfolio rise to the level and expectations in the vision often articulated by city and state leaders AND that we need those leaders in government and, most importantly, in the corporate community to take up this cause.  While there is agreement that what we produce provides needed vitality to a city/state working to attract high quality talent for employment and visitors, the support from the community – public and private – is not yet enough to sustain the vision.  We all look to the great success of the sports industry knowing that it took strong, active leadership from the corporate community to make it a reality and to keep it growing.  Solutions found in other dynamic cities which have found funding mechanisms need to be explored to see if there is a fit for Indiana.  We often point to Denver which has voted in a 1/10th of 1 percent sales tax option to support cultural growth in their community. The voters have consistently approved this tax in a referendum every four years since 1988.    The first year it provided Denver’s cultural industry $14 million and this past year provided $44 million. While the optional sales tax solution may not fit our situation, funding sources must be identified to provide sustainability.

The clarion call, however, is not just about funds – it is that our community needs the same type of emphasis, focus and recognition by our leaders as the sports initiative has received. The statistics are there to justify this effort with proven economic impact of nearly half a billion dollars.  Aggregate audiences outnumber those of sports.  Studies, local and national, over the past couple of decades continue to demonstrate this.

There is strong agreement among all of us who have the privilege of leading Indy’s cultural organizations that we provide compelling cases for what we provide for our constituents and the community at large.  Do citizens realize the gap filled by many of our programs due to the decline of arts-in-education in our schools?  Everyone agreed that the arts not being more central to our educational systems does not bode well for the future in terms of the city’s cultural audiences and, more importantly, for the education of creative problem solvers of the future.  Do people realize that the public funds that are provided enable our organizations to provide free and reduced admissions, in-school programs and residencies, etc.?

Often, these discussions turn to potential arguments of arts vs. sports.  I personally always resist this.  A first-rate city needs it all.  Indy has the potential to be a well-rounded great city.  The assets are here – whether it be the world’s best children’s museum, one of the nation’s few 52-week symphonies, art and historical museums of great repute, strong and varied theaters and, yes, a vital professional opera company.  We can make the case but we need the validation and work of visionary leaders to build the infrastructure needed to not only sustain quality programs but build collaborations and projects fitting of the results this city has achieved in sports, life sciences, higher education, etc.

The clarion call is there.  We hope discussions like the one facilitated by Inside INdiana Business leader Gerry Dick will continue and garner the support and leadership needed to make visions a reality.

Steven Stolen is the managing director of the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

I think it's clear from our dinner and conversation that the cultural leaders of Indianapolis are poised to respond to the current challenges not in a purely reactionary fashion but in a way that has the sustainability of our organizations at the forefront of the decision-making process.  We're used to working together and that was evident this evening.  I'd like to reiterate something that I shared with this group and have maintained long before the economic challenges we've faced in the past six months.  For this city to make real progress we'll need much more vocal and demonstrative leadership from our leaders.  I'm speaking about leadership at all levels and in all industries.  There is little doubt that the arts and culture supporters are suspicious of elected officials as they have not been willing or, perhaps, able to tell the people of this community why the arts are important.  I'm also encouraged by the work that is done all over the landscape by arts organizations to buoy and support K-12 education in Indianapolis, central Indiana and beyond.  I doubt that any other city has a cultural non-profit commitment to education, demonstrated every day in so many ways, that can approach the effort made by my colleagues in this city.  It's not well known, perhaps overlooked and a point of pride that Indianapolis will, I hope, celebrate... knowing also that the experiences that young people and teachers often have are exactly the same as those by public audiences in evening and weekend performances and presentations.  Good news for sure!!!

Mike Crowther is the president and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoological Society.

Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night!

The Indianapolis Zoo is the largest zoo in the country that receives no tax funding.  Nevertheless, with an annual operating budget of more than $20 million and over 200 full-time employees, the zoo creates an economic benefit through our expenditures and employment impact.  Additionally, our growth over the past several years has largely come from markets outside of Central Indiana, so our value as a tourism generator has grown significantly (our attendance last year – in spite of the rainy summer – was 1.12 million visitors).  But I believe that the Indianapolis Zoo’s biggest contribution to the region is that we join so many other organizations in making Indianapolis, well, Indianapolis.

If you haven’t lived in other places, you probably don’t appreciate quite what we have here.  Sure, we’re not perfect, but we’re better than anywhere else I’ve been.  We may not have mountains or beaches, and some may question the breadth and depth of some aspects of our cultural continuum, but we have the best combination of resources, potential, experience, and attitude that I’ve ever seen.  And the cultural institutions of our city play an important role in maintaining and improving that combination.

Where, outside of Washington, D.C., can you find an institution to compare with the Eiteljorg Museum?  What other city of our size can boast an art museum with the collection and vision of the IMA?  Who has a symphony orchestra with better access, outreach, and ambition than ours?  World-class children’s museum?  Top-ten zoo? Opera? Theater? Check. Got it. Covered.

When the companies of our area recruit potential employees, they must frequently battle a preconceived “rust belt” image that casts us as tired, hopeless, and stodgy.  When these recruits spend a weekend here, however, they find diversity, challenge, and energy.  Seven years ago, when Greg and Claudia Schenkel spent a weekend showing my wife and me around town, I could almost feel my prejudices falling away, and when my wife woke up on a bright Sunday morning, threw open the curtains at our downtown hotel room, and gazed at the Capitol shining below her, her only words were “I think I’d like to live here.”  And it wasn’t simply that Indianapolis was clean and fun, it was that the nature of Indianapolis would feed our growth as individuals and as a family.

But it took vision to get to what Indianapolis has become, and I’m concerned that our vision may be fading.

I understand that no one wants to see money go to waste and that we all feel that we are the best custodians of our own wealth.  That’s why the Indianapolis Zoo and so many other cultural institutions have flourished over the past twenty years, as supporters have carefully watched how we have nurtured their investments in us into the fulfillment of their wishes.  But I’m worried that we’re on the edge of an era when too many people only care about hoarding their resources for themselves instead of using them to build a shining future where our children and grandchildren will be able to say “My family helped build this community!”  Fortunately, there are wonderful exceptions, and I’ve had the honor of knowing and working with many of them.  You can see many of their names on walls, buildings, gardens, and in annual reports all over our city.

My understanding of our Hoosier heritage is that we are the beneficiaries of strong, community-minded people who were neither naïve nor cynical.  They always kept some money in the bank (or under the mattress!), but they also built roads, monuments, schools, arenas, and a future that was better than their present.  Visit the Indiana State Museum, and see what Indiana was, and what it is becoming.  Visit the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and look through the eyes of others at worlds both similar and far different than our own.  Visit the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, and watch how our future is revealed by the interactions between children and wonders that are entirely new to them.  Visit the Zoo, and remember that the greatest gift we can give to our children and grandchildren is a future world they would choose to live in, instead of one they are forced to endure.

We must not retreat and hide, shying away from the rest of the world and keeping to ourselves like a miser in a cold, gray room.  We did that once, and it was called the Dark Ages.

Maxwell L. Anderson is the Melvin & Bren Simon director and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

As Indiana reels in the grip of the recession, it's clear that business as usual is not an option.  And business as usual has kept culture out of public policy discussions, considering it a 'frill' at best, or a hotbed of deviant thinking at the worst.  It's obvious that leading cultural organizations in Indiana are key assets in the lives of Hoosiers, if only from the millions of people who visit our largest cultural attractions--more than attend sporting events in town--and that these institutions have the potential to rebrand Indiana as a forward-thinking state interested in welcoming conventioneers and cultural tourists from around the world.  The two public policy issues I hope can get some traction during this critical moment in the state's economy are:

1. public financial support of large cultural organizations can only help stimulate more investment and tourism in the region; and
2. culture needs to be on the table as a key ingredient of trade missions, convention and tourism business development efforts, and core investment in infrastructure.

John Vanausdall is president and CEO of the Eiteljorg Museum.

Leadership is leadership.  In my mind it doesn't matter if we are speaking of leadership in the for-profit arena, government or the world of arts and culture, creativity and vision from our leaders is even more of a requirement in troubled economic times like these.  Pragmatism and focus in leadership are also necessary in order to get things done, but without a road map based on creative solutions coupled with a clear vision for the desired future state, tactical decisions made to solve immediate needs may ultimately perpetuate the very problems needing to be solved.  Our community faces funding dilemmas for both sports and arts strategies.  To dismiss the arts, culture and entertainment industry as secondary or non-essential ignores the future well being of our city.  The arts, humanities and entertainment, if looked at objectively, are equally important as other strategies for addressing economic development, educational issues and quality of life in Indianapolis.  The creative and visionary solution is to combine sports and arts and culture into a single funding strategy and address them as one.  This blended strategy has greater potential to create a broad-minded city rather than a single-minded one, a city that will attract a diverse number of corporations and a broader, more talented work force, and an enhanced quality of life that appeals to a more diverse citizenry.  And, I would argue, this is the most practical solution as well because far more people will get behind a broad strategy than one with a single focus.