business volunteers for the arts®

Arts clients. Business consultants. ABC/NY matchmaker. For more than 30 years, ABC/NY has identified—and brought together—challenging projects at arts organizations and capable volunteers from the business sector to solve those challenges.

About the Process
The arts client submits an application for assistance with a project, followed by an interview with ABC/NY staff. Free for arts members. The business volunteer consultant submits an application, followed by an interview with ABC/NY staff and by opportunities for orientation sessions.

About the Projects
Project times vary from a month to a year. Typically, the volunteer is investing one or two hours a week, in a flexible way that suits his/her schedule. Typical projects can include business and marketing plans, entrepreneurial plans for increased earned revenue, PR/communications, strategic plans, staff/volunteer training, or analysis of financial systems, technology systems, human resource/staffing systems. Some projects are more specialized, (e.g., events, real estate, legal). 

BVAs are not expected to become members, subscribers, donors, or trustees of their arts organization, but it is not a surprise that some are asked to join arts boards. Some use the experience to enhance their training for board service. Some use the experience to build their own professional skill sets/portfolios.

• Arts Client Application
• Business Volunteer Application
• Recent Matches

Listen

• Executive Director Will Maitland Weiss discusses the Business Volunteers for the Arts program and explains who volunteers—and why.  (Clips courtesy of Let’s Travel Radio, May 14, 2009.)
  
• BVA Elaine Luttrull (recipient of ABC/NY’s 2009 Encore Award for Creative Business Volunteer) explains why she volunteers and what she gets out of it, and talks about her business background and her volunteer work with the Puppetry Arts Theatre. (Audio clip from a volunteer workshop at the Foundation Center April 22, 2009)
  
  
• Tim Young, Executive Director of the Puppetry Arts Theatre, talks about working with BVA Elaine Luttrull.  (Audio clip from a volunteer workshop at the Foundation Center April 22, 2009.)
  
• BVA Jacob Victory discusses how he became a BVA and some of the volunteer work he’s done.  ( (Audio clip from a volunteer workshop at the Foundation Center April 22, 2009.)
  

Business Volunteers for the Arts® is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency.
Additional support is provided by the New York Community Trust.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Funding for this program is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.