With a milestone anniversary drawing ever closer, ArtsWestchester is right on target with an ambitious initiative.
“We”™re going to be 50 years old in 2015, and we”™ve set some goals for ourself approaching our anniversary,” said Janet Langsam, ArtsWestchester”™s executive director. “We wanted to build 50 new business partnerships. ”¦ We”™re on target. We”™re halfway there.”
Teaming up with Americans for the Arts, a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing the arts, ArtsWestchester committed to fostering these new arts-and-business partnerships to ensure a thriving future for the arts.
Langsam shared that the ArtsWestchester website, artswestchester.org, suggests 10 ways businesses can partner with the organization. Suggestions range from enlivening your workplace with art to treating employees to a concert or performance. Companies can also help employees cultivate leadership skills by volunteering for an ArtsWestchester committee or enhance community outreach by sponsoring an ArtsWestchester event.
“Many of the corporations are very much interested in having their employees engage with the community, and we do have some that would like to work with us that way,” Langsam said.
The initiative, Langsam added, seems to have struck a chord since its February unveiling.
“When we kicked off this program, we had invited Bob Lynch to come,” Langsam said of Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, who gave a group of corporate leaders a national perspective on the effort.
Lynch, who has nearly 40 years”™ experience in the arts industry, is noted for advocating the role of nonprofit arts and cultural industries in helping strengthen the economy.
Lynch said the local effort is part of a national drive designed to team up the arts and business “for mutual benefit.”
“Different places around the country are doing it in different ways,” he said. “ArtsWestchester is doing the 50 partnerships with 50 businesses, which I love.”
He said key to the effort is an understanding of the arts”™ role in the economy, from helping downtown revitalizations to making communities more attractive to employees.
“Often it”™s taken for granted, so I think what our job, these organizations”™ job, is to tell this story,” he said.
That story is something the region seems to grasp.
“It was wonderful to come to Westchester and see that level of understanding,” Lynch said. “It”™s great to see that kind of connectivity and even more growth in a place like Westchester.”
Participation from the corporate community, Langsam said, is already reflecting the varied ways the program can be a benefit.
“Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is a new sponsor,” Langsam said of the Tarrytown-based company. “They are sponsoring the current exhibition, which is ”˜STEAM.”™”
The exhibition, which continues until Aug. 16 in the ArtsWestchester headquarters in White Plains, focuses on “STEM + Arts = STEAM.” It”™s tapping into ”“ and broadening ”“ the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) movement to incorporate the arts and their role in teaching creative thinking.
“All of the artists in this exhibit are inspired by or using the sciences in creative ways,” Langsam said, making it a natural pairing for Regeneron. “As they say to me, they”™re in the business of innovation and so are we.”
Langsam also pointed to Aetna, which will work with ArtsWestchester on a program that brings artists into elementary schools to create “healthy lifestyle” murals in cafeterias. Other opportunities, she added, range from working with Macy”™s to sponsor a dance festival in White Plains to the expansion of work with the Westchester Medical Center and its healing arts program.
Langsam said an alliance with the arts could be tailored to suit the needs of most any company.
“As you can see, it”™s varied so much from corporation to corporation,” she said.
Whether it”™s offering employees tickets to a family arts event or featuring them in the ArtWNews monthly publication, there is an array of options that businesses can work on with ArtsWestchester.
“I think the arts are pervasive. They are important and are so significant in many different areas of our lives. ”¦ What we”™re trying to do is find ways that relate to different aspects of our community,” Langsam said.
And it doesn”™t have to be about a company making a donation, Lynch of Americans for the Arts, said.
“It doesn”™t have to be a money flow,” Lynch said. “Money doesn”™t have to change hands. ”¦ The idea is that besides money, businesses have expertise and individuals in the businesses have expertise.”
As Langsam concluded, “There are opportunities to work with us, to be tailored to each corporation, to their corporate goals.”
Throughout, Langsam said, the effort underscores what ArtsWestchester is asking corporations to do: “Imagine Westchester without the arts.”
With the help of these new business partnerships, Langsam is hoping that scenario will never come to be.
“There”™s a benefit on both sides of the effort,” Langsam said. “There”™s a benefit for the corporations and there”™s a benefit for the community and the arts and that”™s what these partnerships are about.”
