After spending almost six months studying Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga and the 14 arts agencies it supports, arts consultant Dr. Tom Wolf offered a medical analogy: The patient is healthy, especially for one its size and age, but it needs to make some changes in its lifestyle if it wants to remain so.
Cultural PartnersAllied Arts supports 14 arts and cultural organizations through the Cultural Partner Operating Support Grant program. They are:* Arts & Education Council* Association for Visual Arts* Ballet Tennessee* Bessie Smith Cultural Center* Chattanooga Ballet* Chattanooga Boys Choir* Chattanooga Girls Choir* Chattanooga History Center* Chattanooga Symphony & Opera* Chattanooga Theatre Centre* Choral Arts of Chattanooga* Creative Discovery Museum* Hunter Museum of American Art* Shaking Ray Levi Society
“Part of what I do is diagnostics, but I also prescribe the medication,” he said. “There are a few pills that need to be prescribed.”
Chief among those is finding a way to attract what Wolf described as mid-level donors. The largest private individual donation Allied Arts received last year was $25,000. It also received hundreds of donations under $1,000, but far fewer in the middle of those two numbers.
According to Wolf’s research, 75 percent of the money that makes up the area’s largest philanthropic foundations was put there by families who became wealthy before 1950.