Planning Creatively for the Creative Sector
Editor's Column from LCV Winter 2011-12

In an ideal world, or even a practical one, a comprehensive plan ought to exist that would provide the basis for defining and calculating sustainable funding for the cultural community in the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. The cultural community includes both the institutions and the individuals who create, present, and sustain culture in all its forms: for example the performing and fine arts, the humanities, architecture, and also the indigenous forms of cultural expression vital to the identity of New Orleans, such as the Mardi Gras Indians and the culinary arts.

In its fullest form, a comprehensive plan to sustain culture would include not only institutional and program funding, as well as fellowships for individual artists, but also include provisions for subsidized medical care and housing for artists and musicians, teacher professional development in the arts and humanities, and enhanced school-based programs in arts and humanities to embrace not only fine and performing arts, but an understanding and appreciation of history, architecture, and cultural history. For in the case of culture, unlike history, he who fails to know his own culture stands not to repeat it, but to lose it.

It should be acknowledged that some funding already is in place in support of the cultural community, but it has never been at adequate levels. On the whole, not only has no basis of comparison been formally studied, a basis for the calculation of necessary and appropriate levels has not even been attempted. Without it, funding will simply muddle along based on past levels and the political whim of each suceeding administration, which in fiscally challenged times such as the moment means they are in supreme jeopardy.

Glass Half Full or Half Empty
For the sake of perspective, let’s look at a couple of basic comparisons. The combined budget of just two cultural agencies in Atlanta, Ga.—the High Museum of Art at $24 million, and the Atlanta Symphony at $47 million, a total of $71 million—beggers cultural funding in the entire state of Louisiana, which only totals $49 million. At right, I list virtually every major institution in the state.

To be sure, Atlanta has a population greater than New Orleans, but many would be surprised to know the difference is only between Atlanta’s 420,000 and New Orleans’ 344,000 residents.

Admittedly, Atlanta’s metropolitan count comprises 5.2 million compared to New Orleans’ 1.2 million, but remember, too, that my list includes the entire state of Louisiana, with a population of 4.5 million. I also left off my list the National World War II Museum because, as its name implies, it is a national institution and the vast majority of its $16-25 million annual operating budget (not counting its $150 million capital budget) comes from out of state. The fact that it alone has a budget equal to half of all other agencies combined should, however, also give one pause as to how investments in cultural institutions are apportioned relative to their impact and importance.

Sources of Sustainable Funding
By what device one sustains culture is the conundrum. Some project costs lend themselves to a needs-based assessment where zero-based calculations apply very directly. Teacher professional development seminars in the arts and culture lend themselves fairly readily to this kind of quantitative analysis as the number of teachers are known and the costs of institutes calculable. Calculating other types of cultural funding, such as numbers of fellowships to reward, recognize, and encourage both established and developing artists can’t be extrapolated quite so neatly, but rational hypotheses can be posed, depending on the results one wishes to achieve. Similarly, project and institutional support grants for large, medium, or emerging cultural organizations can be projected, but the assignment of cost to them is open to interpretation, depending on the desired results.

But what is not debatable is whether Louisiana, and especially New Orleans, are to survive with their unique cultures intact, not frozen in time, but including their inherent propensity to redefine and reshape themselves. They must have an equally sustainable source of revenue to support and encourage their cultures, likely through a combination of revenue streams: goverment subvention, private support, use fees, or taxes. If we are wise, we will value ourselves … at least as much as do Georgians.

—Michael Sartisky, Ph.D., Editor-In-Chief