Wichita Arts Council launching memberships

You can soon become a member of the Wichita Arts Council to support artist grants and programs.

The nonprofit that advocates for arts and culture in the community is rolling out a way for businesses and people to become official members.

It hopes money raised from memberships will expand existing arts programs, scholarships and grants, potentially paving the way for new projects. The effort comes after cuts in state and county funding for the arts.

“We are changing up our model,” arts council president Arlen Hamilton said. “We’re looking for this partnership-membership model that allows individuals that agree with our mission … to support art in the community. They want to identify with that. They want to be card-carrying members saying ‘we believe in this, we support this.’

“Arts and culture are almost always one of the pillars when we’re talking about quality of life,” Hamilton said. “Having a thriving arts and culture scene in a city makes economic development so much easier.”

The arts council was created in 1966 as an advisory nonprofit to work with the city of Wichita. It now has about 25 board members.

Hamilton said the council started thinking about offering memberships about a year ago. He pointed to social media involvement and public support for Quit the Cuts, a campaign against proposed Sedgwick County cuts last summer.

“We knew that there were hundreds and thousands of people in the community that wanted this quality of life, this cultural investment in our community,” Hamilton said.

The arts council, which helped lead the campaign, lost all $14,013 of its county support in the 2016 budget. State arts funding has not met minimum standards set by the National Endowment for the Arts, meaning Kansas will miss out on about $800,000 in federal and matching funds.

“It became more and more clear to us that we were going to have take a more central role in making sure that arts and culture stayed in the forefront,” Hamilton said.

Positive reaction

Hamilton said the arts council offered a membership model years ago until it “sort of evaporated.” But he said the council has seen a positive response to the idea so far.

“The number one question was: ‘I’m not already a member?’ ” Hamilton said.

Martha Linsner, a board member who has also served as the council’s president, said memberships will keep people “engaged with exciting things in the arts community.”

“We want to make sure that we’re capturing the contact information for like-minded people in our community that are passionate about the arts,” she said.

The council hopes to offer memberships beginning in mid- to late September on its website, www.wichitaarts.com. The first goal is to gain 1,000 members.

The base $25 membership includes a membership card and window cling or sticker. Other memberships ranging from $100 to $1,000 include perks like coffee mugs and tickets to the council’s annual art awards dinner.

More projects

Linsner said membership also will be open to people in surrounding cities like Derby and Andover as the council takes a more regional approach.

Hamilton said memberships will fund projects the council already participates in.

“If it’s extremely successful, then we can expand what we do,” Hamilton said.

He said the council hasn’t reached out to more groups, because “we don’t have the funds right now.”

He hopes a successful membership campaign could allow more bus shelter decoration projects, broadcasting Opera in the Outfield in Lawrence-Dumont Stadium or expanding Old Town’s Sculpture Walkabout west to the Arkansas River.

“We would love to have those on the river where they went down the bank,” he said.

This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Wichita Arts Council launching memberships."