On Wednesday, Imagine MKE – a nonprofit advocating for arts and culture in Milwaukee – announced a three-point plan to set up the city’s arts and culture sector for long-term success in the face of compounding funding challenges.
Each of the three points addresses a different issue. The points are:
- Developing an analytics model that collects and reports arts sector data annually.
- Establishing an Arts & Culture Philanthropy Council to strategize private funding.
- Pursuing policies that increase public arts funding on a local, regional and state level.
For the better part of the new decade, the Milwaukee arts sector has faced higher operational costs, lagging ticket sales, rising inflation, little public funding and more competition for private funding. Recent federal cuts have only upped the urgency.
“We need to be bold,” said executive director Christine Hojnacki. “We can’t do the same thing as last year or the year before.”
This new plan comes after Imagine MKE spent nearly a year convening about 100 arts executives, funders, business and civic leaders and other local stakeholders across different sectors. They met alongside local and state experts in analytics, public policy and philanthropy to determine a path forward.
“This was the first time that many of these people were in the room together,” Hojnacki said, adding that while the arts and culture sector has convened in the past, many of its leaders are new.
Each of the three initiatives has goals and deadlines set for the year. The Philanthropy Council will have its first meeting before the end of May and will consist equally of individual, foundation and corporate donors. And two work groups will move the analytics and public policy initiatives forward starting early June.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
As of now, the only regular source of sector-wide data about Milwaukee’s arts scene comes from Imagine MKE’s partnership with Americans for the Arts on its Arts & Economic Prosperity Study, which evaluates the economic and social impacts of nonprofit arts across the country. That data is used in advocacy work and informs decision-making for funders and arts groups, but the study is only conducted every five years, with the last one in 2022.
Imagine MKE’s new initiative aims to enlist a third-party researcher to help with an analytics model, which will collect data about the local arts sector on an annual basis: stats like audience numbers, revenue percentages, endowments and more. Having recent data will help organizations better manage fundraising, Hojnacki said. The data will be public and annually reported.
The Arts & Culture Philanthropy Council, made up of local leaders who manage giving for arts groups, will meet several times a year to discuss strategies to maximize the impact of their donations. At the first meeting this month, they will consider, “Who’s not at the table? Who do we want at the table?” said Herzfeld Foundation executive director Rob Henken, who will participate in the council.
Imagine MKE founding chair Katie Heil said “we’re not establishing the agenda” in creating the council but rather doing the work to convene people. “We’ve got a vehicle to move this forward that we didn’t have before.”
For the public policy initiative, Imagine MKE is borrowing a page from its own playbook after its successful push for a state film office, which launched this year. Like the Action! Wisconsin coalition (under the umbrella of Imagine MKE), this new public policy work group will consult those involved in the local arts sector along with adjacent sectors such restaurants and businesses that benefit economically from the arts. For now, the primary goal is to hire a lobbying or advocacy firm in 2027. The hope is, over time, to significantly raise the amount the state spends on the arts per capita. (Wisconsin consistently ranks near the bottom in state arts funding nationwide.)
To fund these initiatives, Imagine MKE will seek financial support from its board, those involved in the initial plan and other supporters. Hojnacki said it may take years for the results to fully take shape, but that’s the intention. “Change takes persistence and patience at the same time,” she said.
Founded in 2019, Imagine MKE describes itself as “the only organization dedicated to advocating, advancing, and promoting the region’s entire creative sector.” As Heil put it: “We have no office of arts and culture [in Milwaukee]. We’re in lieu of it.”
All this data and discussion is meant to guide Imagine MKE and the arts sector as a whole in shaping the crucial case for broad support of arts in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. Storytelling is essential to achieving this, Hojnacki said. “Let’s figure out what’s the most impactful story, and be aligned.”
