Political concerns affect business sponsorship.

Political concerns affect business sponsorships

When business first began to look at the arts as a key area of support some 20 years ago, the recipients of corporate financial aid were delighted. With corporations part of a cultural funding mix that had only recently -- in 1965 -- added

Although most of the corporate funding went to well established cultural groups initially, the efforts of top business figures, David Rockefeller and Dr. Frank Stanton among them, called attention to the needs of the entire cultural field and to the benefits that might accrue to corporate supporters. With the increased attention given to the arts, and to the corporations that funded cultural groups, companies that had not been involved in the past began to view arts support as a new field of opportunity.

It was no secret to savvy arts leaders that corporations tied their arts funding to areas of corporate interest and sought some return on their investments through goodwill, product identification, or through involvement with organizations or programs that related to the markets they wished to reach. In fact, in referring to the business motivation for funding the arts, this writer with tongue in cheek often would quote that famed "philosopher," Mae West, who is reported to have said, "Goodness has nothing to do with it."

Arts groups recognized the need for corporate self-interest and saw nothing wrong with it, as long as their relationships with corporations were not overtly commercialized and as long as they were able to avoid artistic compromises and maintain their control over their artistic product. Nor, in a large sense, were arts groups overly concerned with a corporation's business activities or the kind of product it made or service it provided.

Of course, there were a handful of arts groups that refused to accept corporate support because they felt that it might inhibit their artistic program. The San Francisco Mime Troupe, for one, refused to accept business dollars because social commentary was part of their mission and they wanted to be free to criticize any aspect of society, including the corporate sector.