Arts Center partners with regional Collaborative to help local artists share resources

The smART4Arts Collaborative is bringing arts organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area together, providing shared resources and services to those organizations involved.

Through a collaboration with ArtsWave and The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation, smART4Arts leaders hope to provide more diverse programming and opportunities for arts in the area.

So far, nine organizations are involved in the pilot project, including the Oxford Community Arts Center.

Heidi Schiller, executive director of the Oxford Community Arts Center (OCAC), said that in March, ArtsWave hosted a workshop on working collaboratively and through that, the idea of a collaborative marketing program was formed. This is how the OCAC first got involved, especially because getting those resources independently would be costly.

“Some people wanted more help with their social media, some people wanted more help with determining their market share and what the demographic for their reach should be,” Schiller said. “For OCAC, the two things that I was most interested in getting was doing some marketing demographic research for the greater Oxford area, really defining … who is our audience and who are we reaching out to?”

Other organizations within smART4Arts include  The Well, Cincinnati Men’s Chorus, ArtsConnect, American Legacy Theatre, Clifton Cultural Arts Center, MUSE, My Nose Turns Red and Learning Through Art, Inc. Schiller said the Collaborative is also working with an outside organization, GreenCraft Media, to assist with marketing and help smART4Arts succeed.

Carissa Ray, the founder and director of GreenCraft Media, said she first launched GreenCraft in February 2020, helping different organizations and people with virtual marketing and support. Now, she is using these skills to help these non-profit organizations get the custom content and attention they need.

Ray said that while only nine groups are currently involved in the pilot program, other organizations are expressing interest in joining. Ray said multiple people and groups were involved in making the group a reality, particularly ArtsWave and The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation.

“This would not be possible without their support, which is so fantastic, and ArtsWave does such a great job,” Ray said. “[And] I feel like so many of the actual arts institutions in this region would not be accessible in the way they are, obviously, without the Haile Foundation.”

Stacy Sims, the founder and director of The Well, echoed her thanks for the Haile Foundation and ArtsWave. Sims also said that marketing isn’t the only thing that smART4Arts will help these organizations with. It can also help to provide administrative support, development support and more.

“We get to focus more on big picture things, impact, programs and growth,” Sims said. “It’s super exciting. And I have to say we’re just really delighted. ArtsWave and Haile were along with us for the entire journey of this.”

Through collaborating with GreenCraft, Sims said organizations get an opportunity to access a variety of different resources that weren’t available to them previously. Sims also said that the organizations pay different amounts depending on their annual budgets.

“It is such a pleasure in a busy work day to ask someone for support and have it come back ready to go,” Sims said. “I’m just so excited … Hopefully more people will know about our work and allow each of us doing the work to be able to be a little more focused on impact.”