arts & business council®

Programs

Business Volunteers for the Arts®
Business Volunteers for the Arts® (BVA) is a core element of the Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts' national affiliate network. The BVA program is operated in 14 locations around the United States with a mission of helping nonprofit arts organizations improve business practices; provide opportunities for business professionals to contribute to their community and become directly involved with the arts; and increase business leadership on behalf of the arts. The BVA program takes place in the following cities nationwide: Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Providence, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and Washington, DC. Nationally, since the program’s inception in 1975, it has generated over $100 million in donated services, cash, and other in-kind resources. Staff from BVA affiliates meet once a year to share best practices, as well as trends and programmatic issues relevant to the communities that the BVA program serves.

Creativity Connection
At a time when imagination, innovation, and adaptability are prized attributes in business, it's not surprising that corporations all over the world are striving to tap into the hidden creativity of their employees. Creativity Connection helps corporations to surface creativity through high-quality arts-based learning programs, custom-designed and delivered by the world's leading experts. We partner with an outstanding roster of performers, writers, and visual artists to develop and market a set of programs that are now being used by companies like McGraw-Hill, General Dynamics, Agilent, Blue Cross and Wachovia to teach their employees leadership and communication skills, creative thinking and high-performance teamwork.

MetLife Foundation National Arts Forum Series
The MetLife Foundation National Arts Forum Series brings together nonprofit and private sector professionals to examine pressing issues facing arts organizations around the country.

National Arts Marketing Project
National Arts Marketing Project is designed to help arts organizations better understand the marketplace in which they operate and recognize the benefits of an aggressive, outward-looking audience development effort. This is done by helping to institute long-term systemic change within arts organizations by helping them acquire and implement sophisticated marketing skills. These skills enable arts organizations to increase earned income through audience development.