Createquity.: About a decade ago, as a fresh-faced summer intern halfway through my MBA program at the Yale School of Management, I found myself given the extraordinary task of helping one of the largest foundations in the United States map out the first-ever logic model for its $20 million a year performing arts program. My colleagues on the program team had come up with a set of well-articulated impacts that spoke to the foundation’s goals for its performing arts grants. But we had not tried to connect these impacts to the foundation’s overarching mission statement emphasizing human welfare. Shouldn’t we close that gap, I wondered? When I brought it up, I was gently told that wasn’t part of the plan, and being the fresh-faced intern that I was, the matter quickly dropped.
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Why art? It’s a question I’ve been asked a million times (usually with the caveat of ‘why not engineering? You’d make so much money!’). And every time I’m asked I have an answer in the back of my head that really can’t be put into words. Just a jumble of ideas and feelings that all vaguely relate to my chosen profession. If I could actually answer it would probably look like a combination of macroscopic societal change, existential curiosity, thrill seeking, and a hint self-hatred. But normally I just reply ‘because it’s fun’. I don’t think the fancy MBA’s and researchers and philosophers would appreciate that answer. They want a reason, a cause and effect relationship, something they can hand off to CEOs to justify their art subsidy programs. I don’t know that there is an answer. I don’t think you have to quantify the benefits of art to know it’s important. We just know. It’s in our nature. People intrinsically create art, and enjoy art, and find themselves wanting to support art. Regimes get scared of art, people destroy art because they think it’s too powerful. They respect art, incorporate it into daily life. You see it everywhere you turn. Can you imagine how many billions of dollars and hours and resources were given to artists and people don’t even know why? There’s something to be said about an industry that has no quantifiable purpose but everyone in their heart finds important.
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