American way of funding arts

When the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was established in 1965, organizers had different models to choose from.

They could have looked to the French Ministry of Culture, a cabinet-level institution committed to maintaining France’s cultural heritage. Or they could have copied the generous and government-directed support favored by some Scandinavian countries, or even the state-controlled art of their Cold War rivals: the Soviet Union and China.

But the NEA, which the Trump administration wants to eliminate along with Legal Services Corp., the Institute of Museum and Library Services and dozens of other agencies and programs, developed in uniquely American fashion: diverse and independent, with a significant part of the budget distributed to state and local organizations. It also collaborates with nonprofit and private donors.

“Our system is quite different from any of the other countries,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Americans for the Arts. “Most of the other countries use a subsidy system with few or any other sources of funding.”

“I love the NEA model because it was founded on a government-private giving system, and nothing succeeds like having buy-in from the various communities,” said actress Jane Alexander, who served as NEA chair from 1993-97. “I’m a resi- dent of Canada and while there’s a lot of support for the arts it can be hard to get a project off the ground because there’s not a lot of incentive for private giving.”

From the beginning, the endowment was rooted in American political culture. It was founded when faith in government was high and when advocating for the arts was a popular position for an elected official. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had strong public backing to fulfill the goals of the assassinated John F. Kennedy. And the economic expansion of the post-World War II era had led to a growing appetite for self-improvement and increased money and leisure time for artistic interests.

“France seems to have a more unified sense of French culture, while the US is a larger and more diverse nation,” said Donna Binkiewicz, a history professor and author of Federalizing the Muse: United States Arts Policy and the National Endowment for the Arts, which came out in 2004.