DATE: Monday, May 26, 1997                  TAG: 9705230001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   42 lines

GIVING MORE AND MORE ENCOURAGING NEWS FOR THE REGIONAL ARTS-AND-CULTURE SCENE.

Contributions to the arts in the United States by individuals, businesses and foundations are running about $10 billion a year. The Business Consortium for Arts Support this month awarded $733,750 to Hampton Roads arts and culture oganizations.

That's more than the Business Consortium gave last year, and the year before that, and. . . . Indeed, the Business Consortium, which has accumulated 28 members, has upped its giving nine years in a row. Its first distribution, in 1988, totaled $457,500. Consortium members include businesses, financial institutions, professional firms and foundations, all of whom contribute at least $5,000 a year to arts and culture. The Norfolk Foundation underwrites the consortium's administrative expenses.

Contributions to the arts and humanities declined by $270 million between 1992 and 1995; factor in cost-of-living increases and the decline steepens. As a percentage of contributions to the spectrum of worthy causes, private-sector support for the arts and humanities shrank during the same period from 7.7 percent to 6.9.

The Business Consortium's giving runs counter to the tide. That's encouraging news for the regional arts-and-culture scene, which the emergence of the Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival has made livelier than ever.

The Business Consortium's priorities seem right, too. Seventy percent of its funds went to Hampton Roads' largest arts institutions: Virginia Opera, $177,000; Virginia Symphony, $151,000; Virginia Stage Company, $98,000; Chrysler Museum, $96,000; and the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, $38,000. The consortium granted $33,000 to Young Audiences of Virginia.

That a rich mixture of arts-and-culture offerings is among the considerations weighed by many companies and investors seeking opportunities is well-established. The arts' relevance to economic development explains why public and corporate money flowed to the Virginia Symphony to underwrite its recent (rave) debut at New York's Carnegie Hall. The Business Consortium's aid to arts and culture - totaling more than $6 million since 1987 - is a wise investment.

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