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When Capital One bought ING Direct last year in the first big bank acquisition since Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, the deal was subject to a high level of scrutiny. While regulators poured over the facts and figures, what they really wanted to know was could Capital One be trusted?

“We had hearings with the [Federal Reserve] in three different cities. Numerous nonprofits testified on our behalf about our corporate character,” said Carolyn Berkowitz, Managing Vice President for Capital One Bank and President of the Capital One Foundation. “They all said, ‘…this is a company that’s going to add to our community, not detract from it…’ That kind of commitment doesn’t come from just writing a check.”

Milton Friedman famously said, “the business of business is business.” Corporate responsibility skeptics often ape Friedman, asking how these programs impact the bottom line. But for most publicly traded firms, over 80% of their market value – the real test of shareholder value – lies on the balance sheet in good will and brand. Capital One’s good will, built through skills-based volunteering, added to its brand value and its book value because it helped ensure the purchase of ING Direct.

Although Capital One’s skills-based volunteering program is more than ten years old, in 2008 the company expanded and restructured it to make it a cornerstone of their brand. At its founding, Capital One was “a company that was a new idea, knocking down the price of credit. That was a mission unto itself,” said Berkowitz. “For our associates, taking on pro bono is like a new mission. Having the opportunity to use their very honed skills, taking them into the community and back to the company is a reward for our people and has a big impact on our ability to grow.”

Capital One joined 365 of America’s largest companies and well-known brands in taking the A Billion + Changepledge to “donate their best talent to tackle tough problems in their communities and around the world.” The pledge inspired the donation of the equivalent of $1.998 billion of volunteer time and the organization wants to get to 500 participating firms by this summer (Source: Billion + Change). But skills-based volunteering isn’t an easy story to tell.

On April 22, during a Pro Bono Summit panel organized by A Billion + Change, Deloitte, Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, George Mason University, and Fairfax County, Berkowitz asked, “how can the media help tell this story?” By common wisdom, donors and volunteers respond to pictures of volunteers coming to the aid of suffering people, not “capacity building” – strengthening the infrastructure, operations, and management of nonprofits. According to Berkowitz, “we often find nonprofits aren’t ready for us; don’t speak our language,” and don’t have the structures to make use of volunteer resources. Without that infrastructure, nonprofits can be like water in the dessert: pour on all the resources and they’ll just run off without making an impact.

“We’re a visual medium, so a park clean-up is an easy visual,” said NBC4 Washington’s Northern Virginia Bureau Chief Julie Carey. “But we also love numbers,” so the kinds of statistics that underlie programs like Capital One’s can draw media attention. Yet many businesses still don’t know how they can help nonprofits overcome capacity problems. That must change.

Over my next few blogs I’ll explore how Capital One and other companies use programs like the A Billion + Change pledge to drive business value and magnify social impact. Here’s a quick preview of my next post on the business case for using skills-based volunteering to build nonprofit capacity…

“We need to totally rethink and resell pro bono,” said Deloitte’s Evan Hochberg, National Director of Community Involvement. “At last year’s Impact Day,” said Hochberg, describing Deloitte’s annual community service day, “I had one executive come up to me [dressed in a suit], and say, ‘This is not Impact Day. I need to be outside in a t-shirt,’” doing something with her hands, not her skills. While her attitude shifted over the course of the day after seeing Deloitte’s skills-based volunteers transform these organizations, her original thinking is the kind that still predominates in many circles.

“So far, [skills-based volunteering] has been sold as an employee benefit, not as a deliberate way of having social impact,” said Hochberg. “Our country can’t afford for us to be that cavalier with human capital.”

What operational, infrastructure, and management challenges does your nonprofit face? How has your company made a transformative difference for a nonprofit? What undermines these kinds of engagements?

(This post, originally published on BCLC.uschamber.com, is one in a weekly series highlighting The pARTnership Movement, Americans for the Arts’ campaign to reach business leaders with the message that partnering with the arts can build their competitive advantage.)

*This article was posted on ARTSblog.

(Photo Credit: Ben Hines)

This past April, Austin’s most unlikely musicians, including doctors and software engineers, took the stage to raise funds for Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM), a local non-profit organization that provides Austin’s low-income musicians with access to affordable healthcare. The organization has served more than 2,700 of the city’s battalion of hard-working musicians since its inception in 2005, giving them access to regular, cost-effective healthcare services.

This year’s Corporate Battle of the Bands, sponsored by H-E-B and Cirrus Logic, featured 8 bands made up of full-time employees who play music on the side. Each band was sponsored by a local business, including H-E-B, Cirrus Logic, HomeAway, Intel, Seton Healthcare and St. David’s Foundation.The event raised $73,500 in support of HAAM.

The music of the night spanned every genre—folk rock, pop rock, ’60s rock, alternative and more. A panel of celebrity judges, including Kathy Valentine of the GoGos, rock and roll hall of famer Ian McLagan, and KVUE Anchor Quita Culpepper awarded Best Cover Band and Best Original Band, who each received a $500 gift certificate to Strait Music, and the Grand Prize Winner, who will receive a day of recording time at Austin’s Bismeaux Studio and four three-day passes to Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival.

• Best Cover Band: Atomic Large Band, Intel
• Best Original Band: Knuckle Sammich, H-E-B
• Grand Prize Winner: The Slakes, HomeAway

The live audience chose the “Fan Favorite” by filling the tip jar of their favorite band of the night. This year, the honor went to Superhet of Cirrus Logic. The band won an indoor gig at Stubb’s BBQ, an Austin live-music hotspot, and $500 to Strait Music. All tip jar proceeds went to benefit HAAM.

In addition, a silent auction was held during the performance to raise funds for HAAM, with prizes including a private party at Gibson Guitar’s exclusive entertainment relations showroom, a Robert Plant and Patty Griffin signed concert poster, and a guitar autographed by Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel.

“Cirrus Logic proudly supports HAAM and Corporate Battle of the Bands because we love live music and appreciate the gifts that local musicians give us,” commented Jason Rhode, CEO of Cirrus Logic. “Helping musicians get access to health care through HAAM is one way we can give back to these artists. And frankly, Corporate Battle of the Bands is a lot of fun for our employees.”

For more information on HAAM’s Corporate Battle of the Bands, visit myhaam.org.

By now we are all familiar with flash mobs—those groups of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. But what if a flash mob could help your business? In the following article from the Wall Street Journal, Linda Freund explores just that, citing partnerships between Nike, Kraft Foods, and Ford and local arts groups like Dance Mob Nation and Bay Area Flash Mob.

“The positive feelings people get when watching flash mobs are often transferred to the brand responsible for creating the experience." -Brad Haley, chief marketing officer, CKE Restaurants Inc.

Spontaneity for Hire: Flash Mobs Go Corporate

Looking to establish your own unique pARTnership? Americans for the Arts members are ready to help you partner with the arts! These organizations can help advise you about the types of partnerships—including flash mobs—that might work for you.

This month, global clothing retailer UNIQLO, in partnership with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), will become the exclusive, multi-year, corporate sponsor of the Museum’s Free Friday Night program, which provides free public access to the Museum and all exhibitions from 4:00pm to 8:00pm, every Friday, throughout the year.

UNIQLO Free Friday Nights will provide increased accessibility to the Museum’s exhibitions, collection and film programs for New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. Since the Free Friday Night Program launched in 2004, nearly three million visitors have enjoyed free admission to MoMA’s exhibitions, film screenings and The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, making the Museum one of New York’s favorite Friday night social scenes.

“Providing free Museum admission year-round helps MoMA fulfill its mission of developing new audiences and making art accessible to a wider public,” said MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry. “As a major corporate partner, UNIQLO plays an essential role in helping the Museum bring the very best in modern and contemporary art to our diverse national and international audience.”

“MoMA is my favorite museum in the world,” said Tadashi Yanai, chairman, president & CEO of Fast Retailing, the parent organization of the UNIQLO brand. “I am very pleased that we could open our UNIQLO flagship store on the same street as MoMA in New York City. It is an honor for us to be neighbors with MoMA on 53rd Street, such a prestigious and central location. I hope that together we can grow and deepen our relationships with the general public, and that the UNIQLO sponsorship can give even greater access to people from all around the world to visit such a leading international museum.”

A multi-year partner with the Museum, UNIQLO previously sponsored the MoMA exhibition Tokyo 1955–1970, A New Avant-Garde in 2012.

For more information on UNIQLO Free Friday Nights at MoMA, visit Moma.org.

While corporate philanthropy has long ago shifted from community charity to strategic, carefully designed programs, a fundamental question of authenticity can undermine the soundest strategies.

If the association between a company and a cause, or the social impact of the company’s action does not resonate with consumers and other stakeholders, what is the point of the best-laid plans?

This question was examined at a recent panel convened by Barron’s and the Luxury Marketing Council, a collaborative organization of leading brands. Discussion was led by journalist and author Richard C. Morais, editor of Barron’s Penta, a quarterly magazine and website serving wealthy families. In this context, Morais addressed the inherent contradiction facing luxury brands and philanthropy — high end products are often marketed as expressions and rewards for one’s self, and this can create dissonance for philanthropic projects focused on others. Customers of these brands are also often philanthropists themselves and they are attuned to these inconsistencies.

As Page Snow, Chief Philanthropic Officer at Foundation Source, illustrated, “Individuals of wealth are approached constantly for various causes, and their BS detector becomes very finely tuned, especially at higher levels of wealth.”

Alignment sets the stage for genuine and successful partnership. Snow offered advice to those of us on the asking side of this equation: she pointed out that younger family philanthropists are looking out for how their foundations’ assets are being invested just as much as how their grants are being made. They want their portfolios to align with their own values, just as much as their grantees. Even more important, they are not looking for non-profits to fund. They are looking for problems to solve.

She went on to analyse recent luxury cause marketing campaigns for alignment and authenticity. RuPaul and Viva Glam: great match. While one of the most inauthentic of recent campaigns, she said, was Komen and KFC. Curing cancer through products that contribute to obesity and cancer just doesn’t fly.

Sometimes the alignment simply fits the company’s DNA. Illustrating this was Jasmine Audemars, Chairman of Audemars Piguet, a Swiss watch manufacturer that supports global sustainability projects. “Time evokes the evolution of geology” according to Piguet. As head of their corporate foundation, Audemar and the board direct its resources toward forest preservation around the world as well as in their own backyard in Switzerland’s Jura.

And on the corporate side, they built the first industrial building in Switzerland to receive the Minergie Eco label. Sustainability advocates are embedded within each department to help improve the company’s processes. None of the foundation projects are used to overtly promote watches, the corporate image or otherwise fit a “strategic” marketing or communications objective. So, while the foundation work informs the corporate work, it is not used as a marketing gimmick.

Danny Meyer highlighted a staff-based philanthropy approach. Employees at his Union Square Hospitality Group restaurants are hired primarily based on their “Hospitality Quotient,” their desire and happiness in serving others. Even in his business’s early days when Union Square was being redeveloped, he and his staff engaged with the community by serving free lunches to organizers and farmers market advocates. Each restaurant manager and staff choose their own local philanthropy, and Danny himself has several in which he is involved, such as Share Our Strength and City Harvest.

This focus on employee engagement comes back to a core focus of Union Square Hospitality Group: it all starts with employees, not customers, investors or anyone else. Staff that is continuously engaged and challenged is central to the company’s business growth.

With a focus on fulfilling one’s employees, public recognition for philanthropy becomes secondary. Union Square Hospitality has sponsored the Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park for years. After all, nearby Blue Smoke is one of their restaurants. But only lately have they actually put their name on it.

But one occasion where they are stepping forward as a brand is the DeVine Intervention campaign for Hurricane Sandy relief that recently closed. Wine suppliers have donated lots valued at $250,000 for an online auction benefiting recovery. The timing was felt to be important…offer an infusion of cash for those suffering the longer term effects of the storm.

So the question all of us engaged in philanthropic partnerships should ask is, “What problem am I solving, and how am I being authentic about it?” Only then will a cause find its voice, and its true partners.

(This post, originally published on HuffingtonPost.org, is one in a weekly series highlighting The pARTnership Movement, Americans for the Arts’ campaign to reach business leaders with the message that partnering with the arts can build their competitive advantage.)

*This article was posted on ARTSblog.

(Photo used with permission from TheSpectrum.com)

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Zions Bank is a living example of how arts and business partnerships can thrive. The Zions Bank St. George Financial Center has long been a supporter of the arts with its Staircase Gallery, featuring rotating exhibits by area artists and art students. Zions Bank also sponsors a gallery at Dixie State University’s new Jeffrey R. Holland Centennial Commons building, showcasing large paintings by area artist Frank Huff. In addition, the Bank sponsors the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Broadway Across America, the Natural History Museum of Utah, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, among other initiatives, and was a 2008 recipient of The BCA 10: Best Businesses Partnering with the Arts in America award.

In February 2013, Scott Anderson, president and CEO of Zions Bank, spoke at the Sears Dixie Invitational Art Show Gala at Dixie State University's Eccles Fine Arts Center. Anderson spoke in part about how businesses—no matter the size—are obligated to support the arts.

“Supporting the arts benefits businesses as the arts offer opportunities to build relationships with customers, enhance community relations and attract and retain employees,” commented Anderson.

Anderson said that businesses must do their part in supporting the arts in schools and communities by purchasing the work of area artists, because “where arts flourish, the quality of life is superior and the people and the economy prosper.”

Anderson began his February speech by quoting President John F. Kennedy, who once said it is the “obligation of all people and all organizations to support the arts for the betterment of society and of life. When the creative impulse cannot flourish, when it cannot freely select its methods and objects, when it is deprived of spontaneity, then we all suffer, freedom is lost, creativity is abandoned, the root is severed and society crumbles.”

The CEO offered 3 principles regarding the arts that he believes will strengthen communities:

1. Teaching the arts in school: Anderson called it a “moral obligation” and offered examples of how the inclusion of the arts in school curricula has benefited students, resulting in decreased absenteeism, fewer behavioral problems and increased academic achievement. “This is not to say that the study of the arts will make us all geniuses or great artists, but it will make us better people.”

2. Promoting Creativity: Anderson encouraged his listeners to realize there are no limits to what they might be able to accomplish when creativity is part of the thought process. Creativity is not just an individual thing, but also important to communities and businesses.

3. Supporting the arts: Anderson believes that in an enlightened and flourishing society, every individual, every business and every government will give to the arts, and will support the arts in their communities. “Some may be able to give only a little; some may be blessed to give a lot. But all of us can and must give.”

Anderson concluded his speech by telling his audience at the Eccles Fine Arts Center that following these three principles will be good for “us as a people.”

Inspired to use Anderson’s 3 principles to build upon your own arts and business pARTnerships? Visit the “For Partners” section of pARTnershipMovement.org for ways to take your pARTnerships to the next level! For more information on Zions Bank’s arts initiatives, visit ZionsBank.com.

In a recent development in the corporate art world, many of the most important business colleges and schools are now collecting art and using it as a learning tool.

As I was updating the information for the new 2013 edition of the International Directory of Corporate Art Collections, I discovered a surprising and unexpected growth sector—business schools and colleges have begun to form art collections as a necessary component to their business curriculum.

During the past 20 years, it has become more recognized and accepted that art in a corporate environment has numerous benefits—for employees, clients, and the company itself. So it is heartening to see that many of the most important business colleges have developed an art program as an adjunct to their more traditional course offerings.

Primarily a North American phenomenon, some of the business schools with important collections include the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia, Harvard Business School, the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics, and the Stephen Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Harvard Business School’s collection of more than 200 pieces, assembled over the last two decades, is displayed in public areas frequented by MBA students. Inspired by the growing collection, a small group of MBA students founded the HBS Art Appreciation Society in 2001. It quickly grew into one of the largest student clubs on campus, sponsoring events in Boston area galleries and museums, as well as an annual weekend in Manhattan to meet artists, tour exhibitions, and attend theater.

While the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago is known for its history of turning out future CEOs, it is also home to over 300 works of art by approximately 75 artists.

The Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia, started in 1991, has over 300 late 20th-century works of art in the Balser Art Collection. Housed throughout the Steinberg Conference Center, it was created to provide the students, faculty, and visiting executives, with a cultural and educational resource. The collection offers a broad range of contemporary styles with works by well-known artists including Albers, Dali, Miro, Pearlstein, and Warhol. Most of the artworks were acquired or commissioned specifically for the Center, and there are plenty of opportunities for viewing them.

The Ross School of Business of the University of Michigan has a collection of more than 250 contemporary works on paper and sculpture. According to the school, the art provides a cultural experience for its students in addition to a business education. The works in the collection—located throughout the school—encourage broad participation in civil society and openness to new ways of seeing and thinking. Some of the artists represented include: Howard Ben Tre, Jonathan Borofsky, Alexander Calder, Dale Chihuly, Jim Dine, Richard Estes, Helen Frankenthaler, Red Grooms, Al Held, Sol Lewitt, and James Rosenquist.

The art collection of the Mason School of Business at the College of William and Mary in Virginia reflects its self-proclaimed identity as a home of “revolutionary” thinking. The school intends the collection at its new Miller Hall to encourage a creative, entrepreneurial spirit and an awareness of history.

As the benefits of art in the workplace become more accepted and  trends continue to make the work environment a more stimulating and creative space, we expect more and more business schools to recognize that art is an important adjunct to a business education, and to convey that idea to upcoming business students and future leaders of companies.

(This post, originally published on CorporateArtWorld.com, is one in a weekly series highlighting The pARTnership Movement, Americans for the Arts’ campaign to reach business leaders with the message that partnering with the arts can build their competitive advantage.)

*This article was originally posted on ARTSblog.

The Lexus Design Award, an international competition that targets the next generation innovators from around the world, has announced the 2013 slate of honorees. The Award welcomes designers from all fields—architecture, product design, fashion, etc.—as an opportunity for young and ambitious design visionaries to learn from some of the industry's great luminaries, and to have their work displayed during Milan Design Week.

Lexus called for innovative designs that provide solutions to various issues in daily life in relation to motion. 1,243 submissions were collected between October and December 2012. Of those submissions, 12 winners were chosen.

The designers of two of the winning entries have created prototypes of their designs in close collaboration with two assigned mentors, Junya Ishigami and Sam Hecht. These prototypes, as well as the panel displays of the other 10 winning entries, were exhibited this past April in the Lexus space at Milan Design Week, the world’s largest design exhibition.

The two prototyped designs include Hideki Yoshimoto’s “Inaho”—a digital display inspired by an ear of rice slowly swaying in the wind, whereupon the interior light glows gold in the dark and gently leans toward people when they approach it, and Hitomi Igarashi’s “porcelain origami”—free-form porcelain created by casting a specific type of paper, giving rise to new possibilities in porcelain.

Lexus, the luxury vehicle division of Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation, is no stranger to innovation. The brand has continuously breached the boundaries of conformity since its inception in 1989. The Lexus Design Award is one such example, advancing the company’s mission of innovation while simultaneously promoting the brand to a global audience. Nobuyuki Negishi, chief representative of the Middle East & North Africa Office, Toyota Motor Corporation comments,”The aesthetic elegance of Lexus vehicles which comes from our deep commitment to world class design has made a significant impact on our customers …The Lexus association with international design will now resonate around the world through our various initiatives and will further strengthen the Lexus brand.” 

View all of the 2013 Lexus Award Winners, including the two prototyped designs, at the Lexus Design Award website.

Final article in a three-part series on the value of nonprofit arts and culture organizations to local governments.

In previous articles published in the January/February and March 2013 PM magazines, I wrote about how nonprofit arts organizations contribute to your city’s economy and create jobs, economic impact and tax revenue. For this final article, I am going to switch gears and discuss how the arts are used to attract non-arts businesses to your city, how they help keep skilled employees at those businesses, and how they improve local schools. 

As local government managers, you work to attract major corporations and small businesses to open up shop in your community. You well know that a new factory employing 100 people will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in economic activity for your city and tens of thousands in tax dollars.

I suspect you have a standard presentation that you use to demonstrate why a business should locate in your community. The attractions might include low tax rates, cheap real estate, or quality schools. But does your standard pitch include a robust arts and cultural scene and substantial arts education in local schools? If not, it should!

CEOs Value Arts Skills

More and more CEOs are looking for more pluses than just tax breaks. They want happy employees who are creative and are good problem solvers. More often than not, business leaders say creativity is of high importance when hiring. 

The arts are about critical thinking, solving and reframing problems and facts in ways that reveal insights and opportunities. Music, creative writing, drawing and dance provide skills sought by employers of the third millennium. In fact, a 2010 Americans for the Arts survey found that 72 percent of companies contributing to the arts recognize that arts skills stimulate creative thinking, problem solving, and team building. 

The Boeing Company exemplifies this principle. When you consider its history—from designing and building the earliest biplanes to creating and supporting today's supersonic aircraft and spacecraft—you might think it would be content with how far it has come. But a company of its size and scope doesn't succeed by resting on its laurels. It is constantly re-examining its capabilities and processes to ensure that it is as strong and vital as its heritage. In fact, its culture mirrors the heritage of aviation itself, built on a foundation of innovation, aspiration and imagination. To help foster a culture of innovation and imagination, Boeing has turned to the arts.

George Roman, vice president, state and local government operations and regional executive at Boeing, sums it up nicely, “We have long held that investing in the arts positively impacts economic development and growth, produces a creative and diverse workforce, and nurtures the imagination and self reflection needed to solve complex personal and community issues.”

Christopher “Kip” Forbes, vice chairman of Forbes, Inc., echoes this sentiment, “The success of my family’s business depends on finding and cultivating a creative and innovative workforce. I have witnessed firsthand the power of the arts in building these business skills. When we participate personally in the arts, we strengthen our ‘creativity muscles,’ which makes us not just a better ceramicist or chorus member, but a more creative worker—better able to identify challenges and innovative business solutions.  This is one reason why the arts remain an important part of my personal and corporate philanthropy.”

A Quality-of-Life Indicator

If you ask CEOs what their most valuable resource is, savvy executives will say the organization’s employees. The problem is that each night, the employees go home.

The challenge of a CEO is to make the company such that they are happy and want to continue to come back each day and work there. CEOs are realizing that employees become dissatisfied when the area where they live (this could be your city or county) does not offer them adequate leisure activities. In other words, people want things to do.

So, when a company is looking to open a new factory or office, more and more it wants to know what types of cultural activities exist for its employees. If your answer is none or a few, then the CEO is liable to keep on looking. 

The concept of city livability is becoming more and more common. People want to live, work and play in one area. So, cities without a modest arts scene not only miss out on economic benefits, but also risk losing residents, and thus, businesses who can’t find enough qualified employees.

"The arts are critical to the quality of life in our communities and to attracting people to our communities to create a high-quality labor pool. Hanesbrands and its employees are proud to be strong supporters of the arts and contributors to the vitality of our communities," according to Hanesbrands Chairman and CEO Richard A. Noll.

Hanesbrands donated $2 million to create the Hanesbrands Theatre in the Sawtooth Building which was a former Hanes Hosiery Mill in downtown Winston-Salem. The black-box theatre can be configured to accommodate theatre, dance and film presentations which will meet a need expressed by more than a dozen arts groups for space in the downtown area for performances and other events.

Respondents to The Conference Board’s CEO Challenge 2013 ranked innovation as their third greatest challenge overall. When CEOs were asked to rank their top innovation challenge, human capital was their top concern.

In the Classroom

How does one get innovated or creative employees?  The most recognized way is having a great school system, including one that has a robust arts education program. Did you know that a student who has taken an arts education class at least once a school year is:

• 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement.
• 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools.
• 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair.
• 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance.
• 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem.

Not everyone who takes an arts or music class is going on to become a professional artist. Actually, very few do. But, students use the skills they learn in their arts class and apply it to a work setting. This is why students with an arts education background go on to be productive, creative employees. 

So, a local government with creative students fosters business that by its very nature is becoming more and more creative and innovative by necessity. Communities that have a modest-to-thriving arts scene have one more amenity to attract business—and keep the ones that are already there. 

I hope that this series has expanded your view of the value of arts and culture in local communities. In these times of tentative economic recovery, managers must use every available avenue to stabilize and improve the local economy.

*This article was reprinted with permission from the April 2013 issue of Public Management (PM) magazine, copyrighted and published by ICMA, the International City/County Management Association, Washington, D.C.