HBO Remarks (excerpted)
By Ruby Lerner, December 3, 2001

Creative Capital pre-empted the holiday party season this year with an evening celebrating its first three years of supporting innovative artists. Generously hosted by HBO in New York, the festivities included opening remarks by board members Sheila Nevins and Jeffrey Soros. Attendees then enjoyed artist presentations introduced by President Ruby Lerner. Presenters: William Pope.L, Leah Gilliam, Ela Troyano, Paul Shambroom, Jason Salavon, Tracie Morris, and Amelia Rudolph.

I want to thank you all for joining us to celebrate our first 3 years, and what an incredible three years it has been.

As many of you are aware, Creative Capital was founded in 1999 to support innovative artists in all disciplines by providing not just an initial monetary award, but both follow-up financial support and advisory services as well. And if any projects become financially successful, something proportional would come back to the fund to support the next generation of projects. Borrowing ideas from the venture capital world, we also see ourselves as a hybrid. We aim to wed the best of what a traditional arts funder does with the best of what an artists' services organization does in order to make a comprehensive investment in our funded artists.

So, how are we doing? What have we learned?

We've had three grant cycles. More than 140 evaluators and panelists have reviewed about 6,800 applications and have selected 118 projects to date, with another 30-40 to be added next Spring. (Interestingly, more than 90% of this year's applications came in via the internet.)

We've done extensive outreach, visiting 27 states. Through nearly 100 informational meetings, most hosted by local organizations, and through staff participation on panels at numerous conferences, we've reached thousands of artists in person.

Once the grantmaking and outreach systems were in place, we spent most of the year 2000 concentrating on developing the artists' services portion of our mission. Our work to date has resulted in the evolution of a sequential and interwoven system of support, which includes:

1. Support for the Project. One of the most important features of our work is the engaged and ongoing relationship between the grantee and Creative Capital. We meet with each artist individually to determine project goals. We support the project by making additional financial resources available, where applicable, and through promotional support, particularly on the website.

2. Support for the Person. Beyond the specific project, we are interested in artists emerging from their Creative Capital experience with skills and relationships that will help to ensure their long term sustainability. This is being accomplished primarily through the Strategic Planning Program, developed for Creative Capital artists by our extraordinary Planning Consultant Colleen Keegan.

3. Nurturing the Community. One of the first things I knew we had to do was to create an opportunity for artists to see each other's work and to become resources to each other, building relationships that we know will continue long after we're out of the picture. We've had two retreats so far, and they have been very powerful. Many of the artists cite being able to see work from disciplines other than their own as one of the most inspiring aspects of the event.

4. Engaging the Public. We are excited to be developing this final step in the system, since we know how much wonderful work gets created but not disseminated widely enough. Beginning in mid 2002 and continuing through 2003, we will work with the artists to ensure that their work is reaching all its potential constituencies. W e will put the work together both by artistic discipline, and thematically across disciplines as well. Many Creative Capital projects are engaged with the critical issues of our era:

the environment, the changing urban landscape, immigration and assimilation, technology and globalization, race and ethnicity, to name just a few of the recurring themes.

We believe that artists have unique contributions to make to the conversations in these fields. This seems clearer than ever. So, we will be exploring partnerships both within the arts community and outside it. All ideas are welcome.

This system is a work in progress and will continue to evolve, but the feedback we're getting suggests that we are on the right track. Our funded artists regularly point to the range of services and resources as the element that makes Creative Capital funding unique. As the organization continues to develop, we plan to retain the flexibility that allows us to be responsive to a variety of artists and projects.

While it has always been part of our mission to encourage artists to think entrepreneurially, what we didn't originally consider is that CC itself might become an entrepreneurial entity. One o our goals for the coming years is to make what we're learning available beyond the finite number of artists we can support directly.

To that end, we're working with Colleen on a book and workbook about Strategic Planning, designed especially for artists. Also, through a grant from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, we are planning to train artists who have themselves been through skills-building workshops to facilitate workshops with their peers around the country–this is being designed as an income-generating program both for the participating artists and for Creative Capital.

Though we believe that it is probable that a few Creative Capital projects will eventually generate revenue back to us, we know that those amounts are likely to be small, and that is why a year ago the board decided to undertake an endowment campaign to make Creative Capital a permanent part of the arts funding landscape. To help launch the campaign, The Andy Warhol Foundation generously allocated $10 million which must be matched dollar for dollar by May 1, 2004.

There's a lot of work ahead. But I think you can see that Creative Capital has been, and in fact must be, a community enterprise. Many of you in this room have made, and continue to make, our development possible.