By Connie Martinez, SVCREATES’ Chief Executive Officer
“A world without culture is a world without a future.” — a recent UNESCO tweet
It has been over a month now since we began sheltering in place. In that one month, COVID-19 has decimated our cultural sector’s mission of bringing people together in shared settings and has pummeled our basic business model of “paying customers plus donor investment.”
As cancellations pile up, cultural facilities close, tours reschedule, and studios shut down, the revenue from our “cultural consumers” is drying up. Meanwhile, philanthropy is understandably prioritizing basic need nonprofits serving high-need communities. Americans for the Arts ongoing survey has measured over $3M in losses so far among just 60 of our local arts organizations alone, so we know the total impact is much greater. Click here to search by state and county to view the sobering economic impact of the Coronavirus on the arts and culture sector. Americans for the Arts and the California Arts Council are measuring the national and local impacts of this crisis and will continue to keep us informed.
Much like the tech sector, our local artists and arts organizations are entrepreneurial, scrappy, and innovative — they have quickly pivoted to provide online content and experiences. While this definitely helps us stay connected to our audiences, donors, and students, it does not pay the bills. I am certain we will get better at the “virtual delivery” of content, and we will learn how to monetize some of it moving forward. But in a world that expects online content to be free, virtual experiences will never replace the essential revenue generated through in-person delivery of arts experiences and our need to gather in the flesh — nor do we want them to.
With challenges mounting as our shelter-in-place lingers and the reality of a more socially distanced immediate future sets in, our sector needs us. We have created the SVCREATES’ Arts Relief & Recovery Fund to begin meeting our community’s immediate needs and planning for a new future. We are grateful to the Castellano Family Foundation for seed funding emergency support for artists and to the Morgan Family Foundation for their matching donation. Others have stepped up as well, and as of today, we have provided nearly $200K to over 100 artists. Our hearts are warmed by their responses but we know they will need more.
To begin to address this massive and growing need, the County of Santa Clara, under the leadership of Cindy Chavez, is challenging our community to match the County’s $650K investment in the arts right now. Our goal is to raise $2M — $3M for our grantee portfolio of over 150 artists and nearly 100 small and mid-size multidisciplinary and multicultural arts organizations.
Arts organizations and artists are essentially community-serving small businesses. They are cultural entrepreneurs who generate over $850B in economic activity across our nation. However, to those who are healed, inspired, taught, or transformed by the arts, our cultural sector is much more than that. One could argue that we need the soul-soothing power of the arts now more than ever, and certainly, we need it in Silicon Valley.
Please consider donating to our Arts Relief & Recovery Fund by clicking here.
