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News
ARTS & CULTURAL COUNCIL RECEIVES
NEW YORK STATE MILLENNIUM ARTS
AND BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP AWARD
Arts & Business Council Honors Creative Collaborations
with New York State Millennium Arts and Business Partnership Awards
Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester Receives
One of Ten Awards for Partnership Cited as
Model Project for the New Millenium
NEW YORK -- The Arts & Business Council announced April 27, 1999 that an independent panel has selected ten creative collaborations between arts organizations and businesses throughout New York State as model partnerships for the new Millennium. As a special Millennium initiative funded by the New York State Council on the Arts, The New York State Millennium Arts and Business Partnership Awards, totaling $64,000, will be made for recent projects involving an arts service organization and one or more businesses that have demonstrated a substantial impact on their communities. The ten awards, ranging from $3,200 to $9,600, will be presented to the participating arts organizations on the evening of May 17, 1999 at the Arts & Business Council's annual Encore Ceremony and Reception to be held at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian at One Bowling Green in New York City.
The Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester receives the only award in Western New York for its Culture Builds Communities Program. A partnership with Citibank and the City of Rochester, Culture Builds Communities is a neighborhood arts program in its second year. The program funds neighborhood associations to work with artists in participatory projects that build neighborhood pride. The Arts Council will receive an award of $6,400.
Through this special initiative, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Arts & Business Council participated in a national effort, led by the White House Millennium Council, to mark the Millennium by celebrating the nation's cultural heritage and stimulating the growth of creative arts and business partnerships. The special focus on arts service organizations was in recognition of their critical role in fostering a healthy cultural community.
In making these awards, the jury considered the following criteria:
- How has the project impacted the community: local, regional, or statewide?
- How long is the project capable of continuing to make an impact?
- Can the project serve as a model that would stimulate other similar partnerships?
- To what extent has the project already served as a catalyst?
- How has the project helped provide access to the arts for members of the community?
- What benefits has the partnership offered the business?
- Has the business involved itself in the project beyond providing financial support?
- Have the business partner's employees offered themselves as volunteers?
A list of the award-winning partnerships is below.
For the past 34 years, the Arts & Business Council has been a leader in building mutually beneficial partnerships between nonprofit arts organizations and the business community. Through its many programs, including Business Volunteers for the Arts, and its network of over 20 active affiliates across the country, it has generated millions of dollars annually in resources for arts organizations.
For further information about the New York State Millennium Arts and Business Partnership Awards, call Sari Pessah at the Arts & Business Council, 212-727-7146, ext. 22.
New York State Millennium Arts and Business Partnership Awards
Albany-Schenectady League of Arts, Inc. and Times Union
For the past three years, The Albany-Schenectady League of Arts, America's oldest, continually operating regional Arts Council, and the Times Union, the Capital Region's largest circulation daily newspaper, have collaborated to create Apollo, a new arts and cultural magazine. The Times Union has provided financial, technical, design and in-kind support to the League to develop its former Arts Calendar into a new publication that provides substantial and comprehensive reporting on arts and cultural programming and issues in the eleven counties of New York's Capital Region.
Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester and Citibank
Culture Builds Communities is a neighborhood arts program in Rochester, supported by Citibank and the City of Rochester. The objective is to build pride in neighborhoods through participatory projects that result in the creation of a lasting work of art that celebrates the neighborhood. Collaborations between neighborhood associations and professional artists have resulted in the creation of a gateway park, several murals, a quilt and new works in the performing arts.
Arts Council of Orange County and Downtown Middletown Business Improvement District
The Arts Council of Orange County and The Downtown Middletown Business Improvement District have collaborated for the past three years to revitalize the heart of the city. By combining the assets and strengths of both organizations, the partners offer free entertainment and multicultural events not only to Middletown residents, but also to all of Orange County. These programs bring more people into the downtown business district, as well as increasing the accessibility of the arts to the entire community. The performing artists are all Orange County residents, which is part of the plan to support local talent and give them wider public exposure. Plans are underway for a huge Millennium Celebration in Middletown.
Bronx Council on the Arts and Borders Group Inc.
The Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA) WritersCorps, a literacy-based program dedicated to helping individuals succeed through the written and spoken word, and Borders Books and Music collaborated to create the Bronx Youth Poetry Slam League. This "Slam" initiative allows BCA to add a public literary performance component, complementing its basic WritersCorps workshops. Further, Borders Books and Music has sponsored three public presentations of The Slam between youth groups at its Park Avenue and World Trade Center stores. The Slam activities will culminate in a Celebrity Slam demonstration between established Slam poets and an "All-Star" youth team from various after-school sites. Borders has generously supported the development of the Youth Poetry Slam League by underwriting the WritersCorps sites in The Bronx, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. In addition to its generous support, Borders has arranged for its public relations firm, Roman Peshoff, Inc., to market and publicize The Slam, especially the Celebrity Slam event.
Greene County Council on the Arts and Hudson Valley Newspapers
The Greene County Council on the Arts, in cooperation with the Columbia County Council on the Arts, formed a partnership with the Hudson Valley Newspapers to publish Arts Alive, a 16 page quarterly newspaper featuring news and listings of regional cultural events, as well as opportunities for artists. This project provides cultural information to over 33,000 readers of the Hudson Valley Newspapers, as well as advertising essential services to over 2,500 artists and members of the Greene and Columbia County Councils on the Arts.
High 5 Tickets to the Arts, Inc. and Citigroup/Ticketmaster/New York Times
High 5 Tickets to the Arts, with its corporate partners Ticketmaster, The New York Times and the Citigroup Foundation, is helping to build audiences for the arts by making $5 tickets from over 100 New York City arts organizations available and accessible to teens and their families. Ticketmaster donates its ticketing services without charge or service charge; The New York Times regularly provides pro bono advertising on behalf of the program; and Citigroup Foundation funded High 5's start-up and continues to be a major funder. Representatives of all three corporations actively serve on High 5's board.
Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and Jamaica Center Improvement Association
The Jamaica Arts & Music Summer (JAMS) festival was formed three years ago by the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning and Cultural Collaborative Jamaica. JAMS, an outdoor festival that celebrates the arts of Queens, has become a catalyst in fostering close relationships between cultural organizations, major corporations, area merchants, and small independent businesses. JAMS has proven to be an extraordinarily effective tool in promoting Jamaica as a consumer and cultural tourism destination and a model for similar communities seeking to strengthen their cultural and business sectors.
Queens Council on the Arts Inc. and Queens Center
Now in its fourth year, the Queens Family Funbook of Discount Coupons was started as a cross-marketing effort for Queens cultural organizations across the county and the businesses located in the Queens Center, a major retail shopping center located in Elmhurst. An audience survey revealed that over half of the coupon users had never been to the site before. The number of participating merchants continues to increase each year and more merchants are expected to participate in the Funbook this year.
The Sagamore Institute of the Adirondacks, Inc./The Adirondack Museum and Raquette Lake Navigation Company
Recognizing the potential of Hamilton County as a popular tourist destination, Great Camp Sagamore, a National Historic Site, and The Adirondack Museum joined forces with Raquette Lake Navigation Company to offer visitors a comprehensive visitors' package. The Adirondack Gilded Age tour captures the lifestyles of the 19th century captains of industry, revealing their "illusion of roughing it" in North Country summer estates. Groups tour the Vanderbilt's Great Camp Sagamore in the morning, enjoy a gourmet luncheon cruise aboard the W.W. Durant seeing additional Raquette Lake camps from the water, and then visit the "Smithsonian of the north," the acclaimed Adirondack Museum.
Westchester Arts Council and The Westchester County Business Journal
The Westchester Arts Council has developed an innovative partnership with The Westchester Business Journal to create the monthly publication of ArtsNews. The Journal publishes and designs ArtsNews, with the Council overseeing the editorial and creative content. Once a month, with a cleverly spoofed public figure on the cover, ArtsNews is inserted in the Business Journal and distributed to the paper's 40,000 readers. In only its first year, this publication has become an essential tool for business leaders, corporate executives, politicians, civic leaders and anyone with an interest in Westchester County.
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