Posts from the ‘Business’ Category

Mar 7

DYOP: Drip Your Own Paint

Since UTC agreed to chair our 2013 campaign, it only made sense to ask them to jump-start our workplace giving program and kick-off a company wide initiative starting March 1st. UTC took that idea and really ran with it.

View of Hartford from the Gold Building cafeteria.

For the entire month of March, UTC will host workplace giving campaigns in each of their business units: Otis, Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, United Technologies Aerospace System, United Technologies Research Center, UTC Climate, Controls & Security and corporate headquarters in the Gold Building. Coordinators from each of the business units, working with Sandy Broadus (Assistant General Counsel, Litigation) under the leadership of co-chairs Matthew Bromberg (VP of Coporate Strategy & Development) and Charles Gill (General Counsel), are planning dozens of interactive and hands-on arts events to get employees engaged with our tremendous arts community. What an undertaking!

My colleague Laura McLelland, the Arts Council’s director of workplace partnerships, is coordinating each company’s giving campaign and helping Sandy and her team come up with fun, creative ideas to motivate employee support. Together, they agreed that the campaign should kick-off on March 1st at corporate HQ with a fun, easy way for people to create a one-of-a-kind piece of community art; Laura had the perfect solution: a Jackson Pollock-style drip and splat painting activity.

Oh the Drip & Splat (I’m trying to change the name to DYOP, hence the title of this article). It’s been a longtime staple of our workplace giving program—probably because it’s so popular. And fun. And easy.

The idea is simple. We provide blank canvases and colorful, washable tempera paint. Employees can stop by and drip, splat and literally throw the paint at the canvas, leaving their mark on the finished piece. As time goes by, and as employees line up to participate, the artwork becomes layered with different colors and paints until the canvas disappears and the company is left with an amazing piece of abstract art created by its employees. The office proudly hangs the art for all to see, and I love hearing people point to a specific drip or certain splat and say, “I made that. That’s my mark.”

Laura leads the Drip & Splat activity.

Last Friday, I went over to the Gold Building with Laura and Meaghan Wooldridge, our Workplace Giving Associate, to run a Drip & Splat (DYOP) with the folks at corporate HQ. The activity was a resounding success—after the first few employees, including the cafeteria staff, left their marks, employees were lining up to try their hand at abstract art and claim their very own ‘I take pART’ sticker. Sandy proved to be amazingly adept at recruiting volunteers, and by the end of the activity more than 100 UTC employees had taken pART.

Yesterday, Arts Council staff were down at Pratt & Whitney’s location in Middletown running a similar DYOP activity; as I write this article, Laura and Meaghan are journeying down to the southern part of the state to Sikorsky to create two more pieces of DYOP art. And this is just the beginning! Stay tuned for more updates and other UTC workplace events as March unfolds.

Check out our Facebook album of photos from the Corporate HQ DYOP

Interested in running a DYOP activity at your workplace? Talk to Laura.

Mar 4

UTC to Lead 2013 United Arts Campaign

Some exciting news from the Arts Council today! We are proud to announce that United Technologies Corporation will chair our 2013 United Arts Campaign, playing a lead role in ensuring the success of our community-wide fundraising drive to support the arts.

UTC’s iconic “Gold Building” headquarters in downtown Hartford.

“The arts programs and activities supported by the annual United Arts Campaign contribute significantly to the quality of life in our community, helping make this region a great place to live and work,” said United Technologies Corp. Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Louis R. Chênevert. “We are proud to serve as chair of this year’s campaign to ensure the Greater Hartford Arts Council has the resources it needs to support the arts throughout the region.”

UTC has long been a supporter of the Arts Council–it was one of the first companies to run a workplace giving campaign in 1995–and the company has an exemplary history of employee engagement and investment in the local cultural community. Working with Arts Council leadership, Chênevert has assembled a Campaign Cabinet of community and corporate leaders to ensure the success of the 2013 campaign. Joining as campaign leaders from UTC are Charles D. Gill, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, and Matthew Bromberg, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development.

For the entire month of March, UTC is hosting a company-wide workplace giving campaign in each business unit: Otis, Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, UTC Aerospace Systems, UTC Climate, Controls & Security, UTC Corporate Headquarters and the UTC Research Center. Last Friday, we officially kicked-off the workplace campaign with a hands-on, Jackson Pollock-inspired “Drip & Splat” paint activity at HQ. We’ll be posting photos, videos and stories from the UTC giving campaign throughout the month of March as employees take pART in our amazing arts, heritage and cultural community.

“We are so grateful to the entire United Technologies team for agreeing to chair our campaign, and we are excited to celebrate our long partnership with UTC, one of Greater Hartford’s finest examples of strong corporate citizenship,” says Cathy Malloy, Chief Executive Officer of the Arts Council. “With UTC leading the charge, we look forward to a tremendous fundraising campaign this year.”

Thank you to UTC for leading our 2013 United Arts Campaign!

Mar 4

Take pART: United Arts 2013

Each year the Greater Hartford Arts Council runs a “United Arts” campaign—donors can make one gift that supports our entire arts, heritage and cultural community. United Arts dollars fund our range of grant programs and support more than 150 local organizations and artists every year.

United Arts invites the community to take pART in everything the arts have to offer, from visiting one of our world-class organizations to see an exhibit, catch a play or concert, watch a performance or interact with local artists who call Greater Hartford home. The Arts Council runs workplace giving campaigns in 70 companies throughout our 34-town service area, encouraging employees to support the arts and flex their creative muscles through hands-on arts activities and events.

Guests at the Society Room for the 2013 Big Red for the Arts

The campaign officially kicked-off on February 6 with Big Red for the Arts, our annual food & wine fundraising event. Featuring dishes from some of the best restaurants in Greater Hartford and wines and spirits from around the world, this year’s Big Red raised a record-breaking $65,000 to support the arts. Special thanks to presenting sponsor Rockville Bank for helping us kick-off our campaign in style!

Please consider a Donation to the
United Arts Campaign

What’s New in 2013:

Calder’s Stegosaurus sculpture (see above) is the face of our campaign this year, both on our take pART brochure and featured as the 2013 thank-you gift to our $500 and up donors, designed by the amazing artists at local paper goods shop Hartford Prints!
you’ll be hearing a lot of String Theorie—the featured musicians of our 2013 campaign—and donors who give $100 or more will receive a digital download featuring an exclusive live track.
Stay tuned for more information about how you can take pART, both at your workplace and in the community!
The spring Aetna Arts Week is right around the corner, chock-full of free and low-cost activities and events sponsored by Aetna and supported by your generous contributions to United Arts
Learn why the Arts Mean Business: supporting 7,000 local jobs and generating an annual economic impact of more than $230 million
We’ll be posting stories, videos and photos as CEO Cathy Malloy and Arts Council staff travel around the community meeting with arts enthusiasts and visiting our grantee organizations to raise awareness about our amazing arts and cultural community

We look forward to an another amazing year of keeping the arts alive!

Jan 14

Letterpress 101

This week wraps up our 2013 Pick Your Print contest, and by next Wednesday we’ll have a winning concept ready to be turned into a piece of letterpress art. Letterpress has seen a resurgence in popularity over the last couple of years–from business cards to greeting cards and everything in between–but a few of us are still fuzzy on the details. What exactly is letterpress?

For the answer we went to the experts: the Gale sisters. Read their “Letterpress 101″ below:

WHAT IS LETTERPRESS? By Hartford Prints
Letterpress is a type of relief printing. Traditionally, it employs moveable type which is then inked and applied to paper with enough pressure to create an impression in the paper. A very simplistic version of this would be the rubber stamp.Western letterpress was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-1400′s. At one time, it was the method by which virtually all newspapers, books and other publications were printed. With advances in technology, letterpress has moved out of the commercial world and into the educational and fine craft worlds. Today, many colleges with a printmaking program offer letterpress courses and many of their graduates go on to open small business which offer fine printing on a small scale.

Artwork at the Hartford Prints! studio.

At Hartford Prints! we have a Vandercook 4-T proof press. This model was invented in 1948 specifically to print on acetate to create negatives for offset lithography printing. Our press likely dates from the 1960′s. We create our printed matter in one of three ways: traditional hand-set lead or wood type, hand-carved wood or linoleum blocks, or photopolymer plates created from digital files which we design on our computers.

For the Arts Council, the plan is to create a woodcut print based on whichever of the three design concepts wins the most votes. Once the design is selected, Addy will refine and finalize the drawing and begin planning for the carving stage. In relief printing, however many colors are in the design is how many blocks will be needed. So for a two-color print, Addy will have to carve two separate blocks. The blocks are carved in reverse, or backwards. Whatever is to be printed is left alone and all the negative space, or white of the paper, is carved away. When the blocks are done, they are placed on the bed of the press. The press has rollers to which the ink is applied and the rollers then distribute the ink onto the block. As the press is operated, the paper is carried across the block and pressure is applied to push the paper into the block just enough to take an impression and pick up the ink. This process is repeated until the desired number of prints is achieved and then repeated again for each following color.

Letterpress is a lovely and tactile medium. Soft, thick, 100% cotton papers are often used and the impression creates a wonderful texture that is a delight to touch. Hartford Prints! is so excited to have the opportunity to produce a unique letterpress print for the Arts Council and we are sure that everyone who receives a copy of the print will be thrilled with the final result.

There’s still a few days left to vote! Visit LetsGoArts.org/PickYourPrint to choose our winning design!

Nov 11

Why We Love Aetna Arts Week

Today kicks off one of our favorite arts events: Aetna Arts Week, a week-long celebration of arts, heritage and culture in and around the capital city. Each year, we present two arts weeks (one in the fall, one in the spring) sponsored by Aetna and made possible by your generous donations to our United Arts Campaign.

But why do we love Aetna Arts Week? Alright, sure. We love anything about the arts. But this program, in particular, serves a number of community needs—and helps strengthen our relationship with one of our most important corporate partners, Aetna.

Let me back it up again. Aetna has been a long-time supporter of the Arts Council (and of many of the organizations we represent). For about 10 years, they sponsored & helped produce Aetna First Thursday, an evening of jam-packed arts programming on the first Thursday of every month. A few years ago, we noticed the popularity of the ‘monthly funnel’ of arts events had started to wane; our organizations were running their own, wildly successful Thursday late-night activities, and we wanted to pilot a new, different program that both served the cultural community AND engaged our partnership with Aetna.

One of the biggest struggles we have here at the Arts Council is showing you—the community—all of the wonderful organizations, events & programs supported by United Arts. I mean, we fund nearly 150 different institutions and events each year! Working with Aetna, we came up with a new idea: instead of “First Thursday,” how about creating a week FULL of events from our grantee organizations. We’ll do it twice a year and use it as an opportunity to drive the public to the places we support, while getting them more engaged in the art itself.

Ta-Da! Aetna Arts Week was born.

To us, this is one of the best examples of an arts-business partnership. It helps the Arts Council provide free & low-cost community arts events, keeping art accessible to everyone. It showcases our United Arts operating support grantees, providing a “sample” or “tasting” of the wonderful programs they offer year-round. And, it allows Aetna the opportunity to continue to support the arts and get its employees more involved and engaged in the Greater Hartford community.

Win-win-win.

See the full line-up of Aetna Arts Week from this Courant article and on this blog.

Special thanks to Aetna (of course!) and to our operating support grantees who are offering an amazing line-up of programming. All of this wouldn’t be possible without the success of our United Arts Campaign, thanks to the generous support of our individual donors, corporate partners, foundations & government agencies.

May 10

An Arts & Business pARTnership

The arts and corporate communities have an interesting, long-standing relationship—especially here in Hartford. In fact, the Arts Council owes its very existence to the corporate community; back in 1971, businesses got together and encouraged the creation of one fundraising and grantmaking entity to support the arts and cultural organizations in Hartford that were growing at an astonishing pace—and, understandably, had increased their need for donations and institutional support. Since then, a somewhat amusing relationship has formed between the arts and business: companies like strong arts organizations—they attract workers, give the neighborhood a rich, vibrant flavor and provide opportunities for positive stewardship. The arts, too, rely on business for more than just philanthropy: the wealth of resources in the corporate world, from providing pro bono services and building connections with local leaders and everyday employees, businesses have much to offer the arts.

Yet we all seem to get hung up on the almighty dollar.

Trust me, it’s something we talk about every day. Probably multiple times a day. How much is this company willing to give? Who can we get to sponsor this event? How many employees do they have—and, how successful will the employee giving drive turn out to be? The unfortunate reality of an unforgiving fundraising climate is that we sometimes miss the forest beyond the trees.

Businesses have a lot more to offer than financial support, so we need to make sure we take advantage of every resource. As marketing, fundraising and community outreach professionals, we must always be looking for new opportunities to help the arts—even if there’s no dollar sign attached.

A lesson beyond the bottom line.

Mayor Pedro Segarra and the NU video team getting ready to film.

I learned (well, re-learned) this lesson the good way the other day. We’ve been having conversations with Northeast Utilities about their annual workplace giving campaign, and suddenly they struck upon an ingenious idea: wouldn’t it be great if the Arts Council had a compelling, well-produced video appeal to use for the 2012 United Arts Campaign? And, what if it featured Mayor Pedro Segarra, this year’s campaign chair? Is that something NU could offer? The answer was yes to all of the above.

Obviously I loved the idea. The professional video and editing services at Northeast Utilities go way, way (way, way, way) beyond what I could afford to pay. So sure, they’re not cutting us a check. But, their pro bono, in-kind support will give us a valuable fundraising and community relations tool that we wouldn’t have been able to create on our own. Plus, it reminds the community of all of the good work our corporate partners do for nonprofits—a win-win for both of us.

Meaghan, one of our Workplace Giving Associates, joined me at City Hall to meet the team from NU to film the Mayor’s address. While we don’t have the final cut yet, I can tell you from seeing the first edit that this is going to be a great video. What I can do is post a few of my (in)famous blurry cell phone picks for a ‘behind the scenes’ video set-up of the Mayor and the NU tech team in action (see above).

This was a great, eye-opening (or eye-re-opening) experience about what businesses can contribute beyond the bottom line. I was talking to another staff member today—Laura, also from the Workplace Giving team—about Americans for the Art’s pARTnership movement, an evolving campaign that aims to build better, mutually beneficial relationships between arts organizations and the business community. This story would be right up their alley.

Special thanks to Laura, Jon and Mark from Northeast Utilities and everyone in the Mayor’s office for making this project a reality.

Coming soon: I’ll give an overview of the pARTnership movement in the next couple of weeks and what it means for Hartford. In the meantime, stay tuned for the final cut of Mayor Segarra’s campaign message.