At the Vigeland Park sculpture park in Oslo, Norway
February 2018 Norway (Halden, Moss and Lillehammer) Joining a team of area leaders invested in alternative energy, electric vehicles and drone technology, I was invited to Norway by former Fargo City Commissioner Mike Williams. It might seem like a weird mix, but the trip, as Mike explained it, was really about creating a better community.
In Washington, D.C., for Americans for the Arts "Arts Advocacy Day"
March 2018 Omaha, NE After meeting with a number of economic and tourism leaders to talk about their particular model of arts support, I learned that they have incredible financial backing from many of the Fortune 500 companies and foundations in the city. Visit Omaha invests heavily in the arts because the arts fill their hotels, and their chamber president is board chair of the city's opera, Opera Omaha. In short, Omaha businesses understand that when they invest in the arts with their time, dollars and presence, they're better off as businesses. Washington, D.C. I was recently invited by Americans for the Arts to be the state captain for Arts Advocacy Day. Breakout sessions included "The Arts and Mental and Physical Healthcare," an area in which we are definitely interested in being more active. I also connected with arts leaders from all over the country and had great conversations with staffers in both North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s and North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer’s offices.
48
APRIL 2018
I spent a lot of time with other leaders and learned about many new things but also arranged my own meetings with Arts Council Norway, the equivalent to our National Endowment for the Arts. I met with various artists, toured a number of museums and cultural organizations, and spent time with leaders from the American College of Norway. My biggest takeaway from Norway was that they are astonishingly community-centered in their development. Where we have an individualistic approach to getting ahead, they think about what will make the life of the community better. It's a wonderful system and one I hope we can lean more toward. I was also inspired by the way that the arts are interwoven into everything: new technology, development, cultural design and more.
You might be thinking, "There’s no way they did all that travel on one grant, but as a prominent businessman said to me recently, “TAP does more to stretch a dollar than almost any organization I have ever seen.” I stayed with friends in many of these places — in Norway, many of my meals were paid for by the companies I was traveling with — and I ate heartily at the free breakfasts when I did stay in hotels. And you know what? The money’s still not gone! We’re planning either one more road trip or to bring in one of the people I met along the way to be an outside expert to meet with our local leaders on how they are looking at the arts as a positive asset to their work in their hometown. Either way, this has been a transformational series of trips, and I can already see how much of what I have learned and observed is informing the conversations I am having locally and bringing about positive change for the arts sector and the larger community, too. The Arts Partnership TheArtspartnership.net