The Arts and Social
Entrepreneurship
L
Ralph J. Stalter, Jr.
Chairman, Advisory Board of the Cultural
Corridor Theatre Center; management
consultant to Nevada Repertory, Nevada’s
only member of the prestigious League of
Resident Theatres (LORT).
RalphStalterConsulting.com
At America’s
top performing
arts conservatories, students
are entering
business plan
competitions.
et’s define social enterprises as nonprofit businesses that create jobs as a way of addressing social or
environmental problems. They focus on improving the quality of life in neighborhoods underserved
by government agencies or for-profit businesses. Many operate on shoestring budgets, work out of
dilapidated buildings and rely on used equipment so as to pour more resources and funding into various
projects. Some, like Newman’s Own, are nationally recognized businesses that contribute profits to charity.
In September, 2013, at SOCAP13 -- a conference bringing together some of the world’s most
innovative social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and other leaders in the social sector -- Laura Callanan
gave a presentation entitled, “The Surprise Social Entrepreneur”. What follows is an excerpt from Laura’s
presentation:
I started out reminding the audience of the criteria for being a social entrepreneur and told a story of
an unnamed person and his company, demonstrating how they met the criteria using a lot of business-y
and investment-y sounding language. Halfway through, I revealed I was talking about someone in the arts.
My closing point was that if the social innovation world wants to get more creative, it should start engaging
with artists. The conversation with the audience that followed revealed that while a few folks challenged
the notion that the arts address core human needs, most were stimulated by the chance to engage artists
and arts organizations in social change work.
Then I dug into a deeper exploration of what artists and arts organizations were doing, and where it
overlapped with the efforts of other social entrepreneurs. What I found surprised even me: at America’s
top performing arts conservatories, students are entering business plan competitions; GenXers at fine arts
and design schools are developing their social practice with the same enthusiasm they bring to honing
their technique; artists working with community developers are bringing life back into boarded-up
neighborhoods in a movement newly christened “creative placemaking” (exemplified by NEA’s Our Town
initiative); and artists-in-residence programs exist in the most amazing places, including the Institute of
Advanced Studies at Princeton, the Center for American Progress, and the San Francisco dump. - See more
at: http://arts.gov/article/supris R