Hartford Business Journal

6 Hartford Business Journal • January 14, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Frank Rizzo Special to the Hartford Business Journal W hen it comes time for end-of-year giving, arts groups find they can most often depend on financial gifts from faithful fans. Thank goodness. That's because arts-giving from sev- eral other sources have taken a hit over the past decade. The National Endowment for the Arts has never fully recovered its grant-giving levels of the early '90s. Annual dol- lars given out by the state's Office of the Arts, for instance, have dwindled to a trickle as Connecticut's budget has been battered. More locally, money given out by the Greater Hartford Arts Council — the organization that largely oversees corporate and workplace giving to the region's 140 nonprofit art groups — also declined over the years, from $1.4 million in 2012 to $1.1 million in 2018. "We're certainly not making the money we did in the '80s and '90s," says Greater Hartford Arts Council CEO Cathy Malloy during a recent interview from her Pearl Street office in downtown Hartford. Or even the first decade of the 2000s. But Malloy still determinedly drum- beats about the arts and the role the council plays in the region, even in light of the reduced dollars it has to give out from its most recently com- pleted budget of $2.45 million, down slightly from $2.63 million in 2012. Malloy began in the arts post the year her husband, Dannel P. Malloy, became governor in 2011. Prior to that, she had a 10-year tenure as executive director for another not-for-profit, the Center for Sexual Assault Crisis Counseling and Education. While her husband moved out of his executive job Jan. 9, she will be continuing on in hers. "Money is always a big issue. That's never gone away," she said. Malloy and her staff have to tread a careful line between acknowledging the generosity of the corporations that help fund the nonprofit while encouraging them to increase their support and spur other businesses to participate. "One of the things we're challenged with now is [the nature of ] corporate philanthropy," she says. Malloy notes businesses are being pulled in many philan- thropic direc- tions to deal with social issues such as homeless- ness, hunger, education, crime — "front-burner issues," she says. "But we want arts on the stove." She also says the trend for cor- porations is to give more on a national scope. "But we really feel very strongly that if you have a [corporate] head- quarters here, or if you have a significant employee base here, you should be giving here, too," she says. New revenue In light of changing dynamics, Malloy says the council is looking for new rev- enue streams, "while not throwing the baby out with the bathwater." One modest revenue stream is a "fees- for-service" approach, where corpora- tions pay the council to manage, pack- age and execute special events, such as the "Summer in the City" program in Hartford, which will be entering its third go-round this year in partner- ship with United Technologies Corp. and the city of Hartford. Also in 2019, the council plans to manage the arts portfolio of a major corporation, which will provide another new revenue stream. Malloy says that deal came about based on the arts council's expertise in following scores of nonprofits in the region for the past 48 years. "We know these organizations inside and out, so if a company is com- ing to us and says, 'We have this much money to invest in the arts but we don't know the arts community as well as you do, where do you think we should invest?', we can help," she said. Summer in the City Among the programs that Greater Hartford Arts Council manages is the Summer in the City program, which is funded by United Technologies Corp. and others, and includes several cultural and community events, including the: Black-Eyed & Blues Festival Greater Hartford Latino Festival Riverfront Fireworks Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz Taste of the Caribbean + Jerk Fest West Indian Independence Celebration Riverfront Dragon Boat + Asian Festival Hartford Capital City PrideFest ARTS BIZ Funding Crunch Cathy Malloy reflects on the struggle for new arts dollars Greater Hartford Arts Council CEO Cathy Malloy said her nonprofit is working to develop new revenue streams to help raise more money for the arts-and- culture industry. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Frank Rizzo

• Cover