From the Executive Director:  2013 A Year in Review

CNY Arts made great strides in 2013 as it continued to serve as a regional arts council for six counties: Cortland, Herkimer, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, and Oswego. We cover 6000 square miles and serve over one million residents as we promote, support, and celebrate Central New York's arts, culture, history, and heritage.

To help guide our efforts we launched a regional assessment process - ENGAGE CNY - that gathered data and feedback through surveys, forums and research. In all we gathered well more than 8000 responses that included: more than 7200 general public surveys, 125 organizational surveys, 525 individual artist/creator surveys, and responses from 500 participants in over 50 forums. Many thanks to our Regional Economic Development Council, and its Co-Chairs CenterState CEO President, Rob Simpson and former Chancellor of Syracuse University, Nancy Cantor for making ENGAGE CNY possible through a $150,000 award.

The incredible response to the surveys was due to the determined efforts of a fantastic Leadership Advisory Council that included 62 community leaders and regional stakeholders and a dedicated Arts Captain Team. The work of these dedicated volunteers was led by four wonderful project co-chairs, Heather Buchman, symphony conductor and professor at Hamilton College, Pam Matt, Executive Director, Mohawk Valley Chamber of Commerce, George Kilpatrick, a media expert and commentator, and Matt Dwyer, Vice President Northland Communications, each of whom we'd like to thank for their efforts. While the Advisors and Arts Captains are too numerous to mention, heartfelt thanks to each and every one for their enthusiastic and essential volunteerism.

In 2014, we will use this research and data to develop implementation strategies that will help transform the arts, culture, history, and heritage industry across the region; this research will also be used to support other crucial agendas that have been determined by the leadership in each of the counties.  Creating collaborations with all the stakeholders ultimately will result in a pro-active Regional Cultural Plan. Already for 2014, CNY Arts has raised an additional $174,000 through the Regional Economic Development Council to focus on promotions and cultural tourism - a cornerstone of any regional arts, culture and heritage industry effort. Many thanks to Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York State Council on the Arts Executive Director, Lisa Robb, the Empire State Development Corporation, and to the Regional Economic Development Council!

Another great development at CNY Arts was the spring 2013 launch of gotocnyarts.org, an online guide to the region's arts and cultural offerings.  This accomplishment was part of the Initiative to Develop and Engage Audiences (IDEAS).  Since the soft launch of gotocnyarts.org last May, over 265 arts, culture and heritage organizations and 130 artists have signed up to use the events calendar, directory and blog. The calendar now receives over 5000 page hits monthly and this online initiative was awarded $10,000 dollars a month for at least a year in free online advertisements through a grant from Google.  Online, print, radio, and television ads, as well as billboard signage throughout the region advertising gotocnyarts.org have helped increase web traffic.  In addition, continued awards from the IDEAS Funders Collaborative in the amount of $226,500 dollars helped fund online calendar and events advertising, project management support, and arts marketing education - all for the arts, culture, and heritage constituents. Many thanks to the IDEAS Funders Collaborative (see left). It's important to note here that the late Kathy Goldfarb-Findling was instrumental in spearheading this project. She was a mentor to CNY Arts, the IDEAS Collaborative, and a linchpin to the work accomplished within our arts and cultural community.  The CNY Arts staff and board will always be extremely grateful for her efforts and good will.

In 2013, Onondaga County arts, culture and heritage organizations were able to apply for Economic Development grants in a new program designed specifically for our field to help increase attendance through tourism and local participation.  These grants were adjudicated and administered by CNY Arts.  A few of the awarded projects were: The Art of Video Games at the Everson Museum that was complemented by Video Games Live, a concert offered jointly by Symphoria and the Landmark Theater, a reconstituted International Arts and Puppet Festival on the North Side produced by Open Hand Theater, and renowned theater artist Mimi Kennedy presenting her one woman show Mimi Kennedy Finds Matilda Joslyn Gage.  For 2014, these economic development grants, along with general operations grants and other project support grants, all at improved levels, are again available to the arts and culture community.  These are all made possible through the vision and leadership of Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney and County Legislature Chairman Ryan McMahon for which we are deeply grateful.  CNY Arts also wants to extend thanks to the entire Onondaga County Legislature for its ongoing support for our industry and to Judy Tassone, Kathy Rapp, and Ways and Means Chair David Knapp who have been especially helpful in providing guidance to CNY Arts and the arts community.

2013 brought important milestones and transitions and here are just a few of all that deserve attention: Symphoria, the region's new symphony celebrated its one year anniversary.  We welcomed new leadership at the Syracuse Opera (Lisa Smith), Landmark Theater (Tom Kazmierczak), Symphoria (Catherine Underhill), and Point of Contact Gallery (Miranda Traudt). Chancellor Nancy Cantor has gone on to Rutgers University leaving behind a decade of work on behalf of arts, culture, especially the Connective Corridor, amongst other community initiatives. The Shineman Foundation, an Oswego-based charitable foundation that identifies arts, culture and historic preservation as focus areas, began service to Central New York under Executive Director, Lauren Pistell. We also must note the transition of Steve Kern, the brilliant Director at the Everson Museum who has brought vision, community spirit and arts professionalism to our region.  He leaves us to go to the Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey's largest museum.  Kudos to the Everson Board for bringing Mr. Kern to Central New York, which has benefited us all.

This coming year, CNY Arts will continue to build upon our recent successes with the help of our dedicated Board of Directors and wonderful staff. Our hard work has earned CNY Arts a second year of REDC funding and the ability to support community grants-to-the-field with funds provided through the New York State Council on the Arts that have increased at every level, including some first time increases since 2008.  We are looking forward to the exciting regional cultural planning process and working with community leaders, arts, culture and heritage groups, and individuals to build an even more successful 2014! Thank you one and all.

Through a promotional marketing campaign that included social media, print, web, radio, and television advertising, we have been able to shine a spotlight on our arts and cultural community. 450 radio spots and 151 TV commercials featured gotocnyarts.org. Our message was sent through 4 traditional billboards, and 4 digital billboards in high traffic areas that were seen by more 100,000 commuters. We purchased space for 100 print ads for gotocnyarts.org were placed in 10 different print publications. We promoted gotocnyarts.org at various events such as the Woman's Expo, Lights on the Lake, and Sunny 102 FM's Big Mike's Annual Christmas Radio Concert.

These efforts help raise the visibility of our arts and cultural community by showcasing great events available to residents and visitors to our region.  As we plan for 2014, we continue promoting our region and encourage all arts organizations and artists in Herkimer, Oneida, Oswego, Madison, Cortland, and Onondaga County to submit events to gotocnyarts.org to be part of some of the exciting plans we have for 2014.

Funding for gotocnyarts.org's promotional efforts was provided by the IDEAS Collaborative.