Inaugural creative professional development program launches in Northwest Arkansas

SPRINGDALE -- A two-year program to help arts and cultural organizations develop business tools has launched in Northwest Arkansas.

Ten organizations were selected to participate in the Art Connect program, said Allyson Esposito, executive director of the Creative Arkansas Community Hub and Exchange. CACHE is a Northwest Arkansas Council agency committed to connecting, supporting and developing the arts and culture community.

The agency developed Art Connect in partnership with Mid-America Arts Alliance, according to a CACHE news release. The alliance is based in Kansas City, Mo., and supports artists, cultural organizations and communities throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas through national traveling exhibition programs, leadership development and strategic grant making.

Art Connect is built upon a program called Engage, which the Arts Alliance began in Houston 10 years ago, said Kheli Willetts, director of professional development with the alliance. The program was renamed for Northwest Arkansas to prevent confusing it with a local program of the same name, she said.

Three to four representatives from participating Northwest Arkansas organizations convened via video conference Nov. 12 for the first time, Esposito said. The groups will regularly meet virtually over the next 24 months to learn more about topics such as community engagement, financial planning, board development and governance, she said.

"It's a whole language to learn how to speak nonprofit, how to write grants the right way, how to track and measure your activity over time," she said. "This will equip all these organizations with those business tools to be able to tell their story best and to be able to receive ample funding to expand on their work."

Organizations with $2 million or less in annual expenditures were selected to participate in the program, Esposito said.

"Many of the organizations in the group are very far away from $2 million and are just a couple of hundred thousand dollars," she said. "That's really where we were intending to target a lot of our work."

Willetts said organizations with a budget threshold of less than $250,000 struggle to obtain funding nationally.

Participating Art Connect organizations are led by people and serve communities that have traditionally had less support and feature less-represented art forms and genres, Esposito said.

"We're really hoping to invest in the development of these organizations to help push those content areas and communities forward," she said.

Participation in Art Connect is free, Willetts said.

The program is funded through a $1.2 million grant the Walmart Foundation gave the Northwest Arkansas Council in June 2020 to support regional coordination efforts concerning diversity, equity and inclusion; arts and culture; and hunger relief, said Blair Cromwell, Walmart director of Global Responsibility Communications.

Of that $1.2 million, $441,000 was earmarked for the Art Connect program, she said.

"Art Connect provides participating arts and culture institutions a unique opportunity to access training and best practices that will help strengthen organizational effectiveness," said Erin Hogue, director of community operations and Northwest Arkansas giving for Walmart.org.

Hogue said the company is particularly interested in supporting peer learning among Black, indigenous and people of color artist-led organizations in the region.

Sharon Killian is board president of Art Ventures, an art gallery in Fayetteville. She said the gallery has seasoned professionals representing those minorities.

"It is important to us that our cohorts in the region see this example. I believe this jump-starts the actualization of equality and justice that is possible by example, rather than just talk," Killian said.

The gallery features about 45 artists, and she hopes to use the lessons learned through the program to select an executive director.

"We want them to come into the job with professional development intelligence at their fingertips," Killian said. "The program allows current staff to also receive this professional development and have an even more acute institutional understanding and expertise in their role as drivers of our mission."

Killian said that mission is to promote visual arts in the region by actively collaborating with the community, supporting artists working to the highest standards, encouraging education and public engagement in the arts and providing accessibility to under-represented communities.

Lessons learned through Art Connect have the capacity to create long-term change for Northwest Arkansas through such organizations, Willetts said.

"Our arts and cultural organizations on many levels are actually the keeper of the stories of our communities. They are often the bridges that are built between people and communities," she said. "People can begin to prioritize what's happening in that community with that creative space and they grow."