September Fundholder Newsletter // Arts, Culture & Community Giving

Dear fundholder,

Welcome to the CICF Collaborative fundholder newsletter. In this issue, we’re highlighting arts and culture – a more expansive giving area than many of us realize.

But first, a couple of updates:

As part of our ongoing effort to make it easier to engage with us and explore available resources, CICF, Hamilton County Community Foundation, and Indianapolis Foundation have launched new websites. Each site reflects the organization’s unique focus and offers insight into its programs, priorities, and impact. Visit each of our sites to learn more about how each organization is serving its community.

Additionally, we now offer a giving library, which highlights nonprofits in a variety of sectors to make giving easy. This is a new resource, and we’re excited to continue growing it by featuring additional nonprofits over time. Note that we don’t endorse any specific nonprofit. Those featured span a variety of giving areas that our fundholders are passionate about.

The Fundholder Bus Tours return this year, and there’s still one opportunity available to learn about giving in Marion County:

• Marion County bus tour: Thursday, Sept. 17 at 9 a.m. This trip will take donors to organizations addressing food insecurity in Central Indiana. Register here.

In 2024, $6,014,641, or 10% of all giving through CICF Collaborative’s donor-advised funds, supported arts and culture organizations.

Some recipients are long-running bedrock institutions, like Indiana Repertory Theatre and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; others are newer arts entities like GANGGANG, creators of the enormously successful BUTTER fine art fair.

Some, however, are organizations you might not realize fall under the banner of arts and culture, such as Indy’s Pattern Inc. or Noblesville Creates – two cultural advocacy groups. These entities create and coordinate arts and cultural experiences to improve quality of life, support artists’ livelihoods, strengthen local economies, and enrich experiences for visitors.

Arts and culture organizations are often some of the primary places where people gather to foster a sense of community. There is something special about sitting in a theatre with other patrons as the lights go down and the curtain rises, and you are all brought into experience a story together.

As Indiana Humanities explained in a recent Q&A with CICF, “The humanities have always mattered, and that is especially true now. They help us all bridge the spaces that divide us and are essential as we think about our American democracy on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”

This act of experiencing together (all too rare, these days) is part of what makes arts and culture organizations so special and an important part of our community.

Importantly, however, arts and culture organizations are essential economic drivers for any community. In fact, a recent report from the Indy Arts Council showed that in the 13-month period from 2022 to 2023, the arts and culture sector drove $524 million in economic impact to the region . The arts bring people into different neighborhoods to eat and explore. It creates opportunities for shops to welcome people and local businesses to thrive.

Nolen V. Bivens, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts:

Arts and culture organizations have a powerful ability to attract and hold dollars in the community. They employ people locally, purchase goods and services from nearby businesses, and produce the authentic cultural experiences that are magnets for visitors, tourists, and new residents. When we invest in nonprofit arts and culture, we strengthen our economy and build more livable communities.

These secondary benefits are partly why CICF collaborated with Indy Arts Council recently to conduct a survey of arts venues across Central Indiana (to be released later this year). With the data collected, nonprofit arts producers, artists, venue owners, and even developers can better meet Central Indiana’s demand for artistic and cultural experiences and help enliven neighborhoods and bring people together in new ways.