Supporting Arts and Culture Charities

Arts and culture charities is a broad term for organizations that exist to promote and develop artistic expression. They preserve our cultural heritage through media including exhibitions and performances. Staffed by volunteers and professionals with a passion for the arts, these charity organizations play a vital role in shaping the world around us.

Arts and culture charities encourage education and appreciation of numerous artistic disciplines including painting, sculpture, writing, photography, puppetry, film, theater, opera, dance, and music. By supporting one of these organizations, you are showing your support for the creative expression of human experience.

There are many different types of nonprofit arts and culture organizations, but most fit under the following broad categories:

Performing and Visual Arts
Libraries, Museums, and Cultural Institutions
Public Media

These charities rely on multiple ways of securing funding. For example, Performing and visual arts charities are often partially funded by ticket sales and museums charge fees for admission. Cultural institutions often have boards of directors who organize regular events to raise money for the cause. And public radio and television charities often ask their listeners and viewers to support the station with donations, particularly during pledge drives.

Often, funding for arts and culture charities also comes from the government. By itself, this funding is rarely sufficient for all of the programming and other activities that these organizations provide. That’s why many people look for nonprofit arts organizations in their community to support. By supporting art charity organizations like the ones that can be found on this site, you can make a difference.

Performing and Visual Arts

Performing arts groups rely heavily on individual and corporate donations, as well as on foundation grants to fund their concerts and productions throughout the year. They also organize other important activities, such as camps and classes, for people who are interested in exploring their creative side.

Although some larger symphonies and orchestras are able turn a net profit through their ticket and subscription sales, many smaller nonprofit performing arts organizations need other types of funding in order to exist.

The important work of performing and visual art charities includes education in the broadest sense. Often, attending and/or participating in their productions and shows can genuinely change our perception of ourselves and our world, by more deeply informing us around a variety of issues. These experiences can make us more aware, appreciative and engaged members of our community. Through such activities, one can better understand what it’s like to walk in the shoes of someone else.

Ballets and Operas

Ballet and Opera have entertained audiences for centuries. Many ballet and opera companies also offer workshops, allowing participants to gain hands-on experience as performers or in myriad support positions involved in mounting such productions. What better way to learn than from people who have been working in the industry for years doing things like directing, creating choreography or working the lights? These charities also offer audiences the opportunity to see visiting acts from around the world. Their performances and exhibitions give guest performers and artists the opportunity to share their talent with people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to see them. These performances don’t make enough money from ticket sales alone. They also rely heavily on donations and grants

The same is true for large performing arts centers that rely on foundation grants, corporate sponsors and private donations in order to have a balanced budget. Putting on a production and maintaining a large building is expensive.

Community Theaters

Community theaters and arts centers are another important resource for the residents of their communities. They can help students to pursue the arts as a hobby in their future schooling or as a career, by giving them a platform on which to develop their talents. Participation in their programs can sometimes assist students in receiving academic scholarships.

They also give younger students a place to go after school where they can continue their broader education, learning and developing skills in a safe environment.

After school programming, summer camps and free or low cost public entertainment are all ways in which these organizations enrich their communities. In some cases, their buildings or spaces within them are made available as rental space for private events, such as weddings and parties, providing a vital supplement to their operating budgets.

Theater charities are an important component of cultural enrichment and entertainment. They can also provide a creative outlet and confidence building activities. One organization that works behind the scenes to support more than 200 theatre companies is the League of Chicago Theatres.

Arts Councils

Many cities have arts councils that meet regularly to organize events like art fairs and performances. They pool the resources of the artistic community to create larger, immersive experiences. The Holland Area Arts Council (HAAC) is one such arts and culture charity that offers a variety of different ways for people of all ages to experience art. Their goal is to spark the imagination of this medium-sized midwestern community through rotating exhibitions, classes, camps and workshops.

HAAC puts on arts and music events, as well as organizing public art projects, including murals that beautify the built environment. In large cities, there are often arts councils at multiple levels within the community and additional councils at schools and government organizations, which can collaborate to put on shows and provide other activities.

When considering donating to an arts council, some choose one that has a more direct impact on students and their own community and choose to support a local council.

Libraries, Museums, and Cultural Institutions

Libraries, museums and cultural institutions rely on donations from independent sources to augment government funding.

Libraries

Libraries provide a variety of important services in addition to providing books for borrowing.

Many libraries offer literacy and training programs to people who are reentering the workforce or do not speak English as their first language. These can include classes and programs on tax preparation, general financial literacy and other specialized educational topics. Often these activities are supplemented and facilitated via free use of computers and other technological resources such as extensive video and audio recording collections that are available for borrowing.

Libraries can also offer programming, especially for children, including activities such as puppet shows, animal-sharing events and clubs for volunteering. Libraries are an important hub in most communities, serving as a polling place and a space for candidate forums and other public meetings that are vital to a healthier civic life.

While much of the funding for these programs comes from local taxes, they also are supported by donations from friends of the library groups and by the work of volunteers. By donating to your community library, you help to maintain all of these programs, contributing in a larger way to their positive impact on the members of your community.

Organizations that are working alongside libraries to provide more literacy opportunities are book charities, such as Open Books and Little Free Library.

Museums

Museums are a place to learn about new things and explore subjects you are already interested in, such as outer space, history, painting, sculpture, the natural and the industrial sciences, photography, writing – even holography and broadcast communication!

Generally, traveling museum exhibitions and permanent exhibits are curated around a specific topic, time period or theme. By demonstrating how things were done in another place or time and sharing the perspective of that often distant society or civilization with today’s museum goers, children and adults learn more about the world and how it came to be the way it is.

Museums also provide more formal educational opportunities for students of all ages. They often put on camps and after school programs that allow people to engage in activities that would otherwise be unavailable to them, including conservation and research.

By donating to a nonprofit museum, you help fund all of these programs and activities. But there are other benefits as well. Museum members receive invitations to private events and backstage access to the latest exhibits, as well as access to exhibits before they open to the general public.

Whether it’s by volunteering your time or making a tax-deductible donation, consider supporting one of these critically important institutions.

Cultural Institutions

As discussed, cultural institutions rely heavily on private donations. By contributing to one of these charities, you are a member of your community who proves you value the important work that they do.

Cultural institutions promote understanding by fostering dialogue among diverse groups within the community. Their music, food, art, language and dance programming, among others, sustains and promotes cultural appreciation in and even beyond their local communities.

The Swedish American Museum is one example of a hybrid cultural institution and museum. It provides resources for the Swedish-American community as well as organizes events and shopping opportunities for Swedish-American products. It also offers exhibits and information on traditions and geography to help people of all backgrounds to better understand and connect with Swedish culture.

Art Education Charities

There are also charities specifically for art education that exist to teach children how to engage in and express themselves through art. These programs become increasingly important as government funding for school arts education programs is no longer guaranteed. Not all parents can afford to pay for their children to have private art lessons. Donations to these programs help fill that gap.

Many art education charities also provide programs for adults. These programs can be a great way to relieve stress and anxiety, process grief and become inspired again by life. By supporting an art education charity, you create a positive outlet for both children and adults to express their emotions in a safe place and in constructive ways.

Public Media

Public media is non-commercial, nonprofit media, including television, radio and online publications. It is considered public because it is partially funded by government sources that can be federal, state and local. The mission of public media is generally to serve the public with universal access to programming with broad appeal, unbeholden to vested interests, contributing to the sense of local, regional and/or national community.

When you listen to a community radio station, you are often exposed to non-mainstream speakers discussing issues that are relevant to members of your community. It’s one of the few remaining inexpensive ways to provide programming to a wide audience with minimal censorship.

Even though nonprofit stations can generate revenue by broadcasting sponsored messages, that’s not enough to fully fund their operations, which includes staff salaries, equipment maintenance and the acquisition and creation of programming. Accordingly, many small public broadcasting stations host live fundraisers or membership drives.

Not only local nonprofit radio stations need that help. NPR (National Public Radio) and PBS (The Public Broadcasting Service), America’s public radio and television, respectively, still depend on ongoing donor support, despite the commercial success of many of their programs.

CHIRP, a Chicago independent radio station staffed by volunteers, has a focus on sharing information about music, arts and culture. It’s available in Chicago live from 6 AM until midnight, with a mix of local and independent music from a wide variety of eras and genres. Many of the DJs on the station are local music fans. The station also interviews arts and activists in the area, sharing the stories of Chicago’s diverse population. Consider donating to CHIRP.

Do you want to help Arts and Culture Charities to enrich our communities?

Arts and culture charities play a major role in shaping our communities. They help create welcoming and beautiful public spaces, inspire creativity and create events that celebrate our culture and heritage.

No matter how much funding an arts and culture charity gets from the government, they all depend on individual supporters to meet their annual budgets. Consider making a donation to help these important organizations thrive.

By donating to an arts and culture charity, you can lend funding to projects that educate, inspire and delight audiences. Whether you’re funding programs at your local library, backing a local theatre production or supporting your community radio station, your contribution can have a major impact on helping these charities.