Americans feel increasingly disconnected from each other and from their communities. They report less confidence in civic and political institutions. A third of Americans say they don’t know a single neighbor by name. Trust — an essential element in a well-functioning democracy — is at a historic low.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
One too-little recognized way philanthropy can help build community and shared values is to invest in arts and culture. The reason is simple: Art connects people to place and to one another.
The Knight Foundation is known for its support of free speech and excellence in journalism. Commonly shared factual information builds trust and strengthens communities. But we’ve learned that art and culture can also play an important role in community-building. That conviction has been confirmed by extensive Gallup polling the Knight Foundation has sponsored — and by a decade of on-the-ground experience in communities across the country, especially Miami, where our headquarters is based.
First, the polling. Over the course of three years — from 2009 to 2011 — we commissioned Gallup to speak with 43,000 people in 26 communities around the country. The study, called “Soul of the Community,” sought to answer the question: What attaches people to the place where they live? The results showed that social offerings and aesthetics — broadly, arts and culture — were prime factors connecting people to one another and to the place where they lived, even more than education or employment.
Art brings people together physically — at galleries, museums, and performance spaces — and, culturally, through its capacity to tell a community’s shared story, inspire reflection, and form connections that transcend differences.
The insight that art and culture bind inspired the launch of the Knight Arts Program, which, over the last 10 years has awarded more than $270 million to artists and art institutions in eight cities across the country. That includes $125 million in Miami, which has been ground zero for our efforts.
The results have been breathtaking. Art is everywhere in Miami, immersive and inescapable, engaging people in their lives every day.
In this past decade, Miami has built two concert halls, an opera house, a science museum, three public art museums, three private art museums, dozens of art galleries, and one of the most innovative poetry festivals in America, “O, Miami.”
Art Basel in Miami Beach, the biggest art fair in North America, recently celebrated its 11th season, and the Miami book fair continues to be among the biggest in the nation. In the Wynwood neighborhood, warehouse walls are a canvas for art. Every third grader in the county visits the Pérez Art Museum. Thousands more high schoolers visit the Institute of Contemporary Art.
In Miami, a vibrant city of exiles and immigrants that used to be a transient waypoint, art is a permanent fixture helping to build a culture that can last.
This explosion of art didn’t just happen. It was 30 years in the making and required artists, government, audiences, and, of course, philanthropy. In the past decade, the Knight Foundation served as catalyst and accelerator.
Our success in Miami has helped us develop a three-pronged model for arts grant making in communities, which we believe is broadly applicable. It’s an approach we’ve already begun to apply in cities as diverse as Detroit, Macon, Ga., and San Jose, Calif.
Let me share three lessons and one requirement. The requirement is that the art must be good and the culture engaging. If they aren’t, they won’t move anyone. They won’t inspire. It won’t work.
The key takeaways from a decade of grant-making in Miami:
Take advantage of local trends. Look for where, how, and what art is being created. When we began investing in Miami, we noted a 30-year-old international film festival, a large number of art collectors, the arrival of Art Basel, and the proliferation of all manner of music. So we started there. Like any community endeavor, arts funding should be organic, an authentic reflection of a place, its people, and its history.
Simultaneously fund major arts institutions and emerging, grass-roots art. Knight has invested in most of Miami’s prominent arts institutions, though never as the biggest donor, both to encourage others and to extend our resources. Meanwhile, we’re the biggest supporter of grass-roots arts, not only to expand access but to create buzz.
Intensify the impact by focusing on a manageable and defined geographic area. Geographic focus makes it more likely that audiences will know the artists, organizations, and venues. Familiarity breeds support and a belief that the arts belong in that community.
The response in Miami has been universally positive, and there’s more to come. We’ve begun supporting the use of digital technology to create and present art. We started by endowing the New World Symphony’s digital media program and the Detroit Symphony’s capacity to reach audiences outside the concert hall. We’re now offering to fund digital-media experts to work on museum curatorial staffs — not on the marketing staffs — to help develop programs that meet audiences where and how they live, which is increasingly digital.
Our arts grant making in Miami is a case study in strategic philanthropy that has an impact: better art and more engaged, stronger communities.
Imagine every American living in a community where art is general, where it is alive and accessible, actively connecting people to place and to one another.
Philanthropy can lead the way.
Alberto Ibargüen is chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
