After building a successful career working with companies and entities including Cartoon Network, the Atlanta mayor’s office, Wells Fargo, and Washington University, Vanessa Cooksey was appointed the president and CEO of the Regional Arts Commission, the largest public funder of the arts in St. Louis. Back in 1985, St. Louisans decided that the arts were not a luxury, and they voted to use hotel and motel sales tax revenue to fund them. More than $100 million and 7,000 grants later, the result is a healthy, diverse, and vibrant arts scene. “We always say St. Louis is a sports town,” Cooksey says, “but we have more arts experiences and organizations per capita than cities twice our size. St. Louis is a sports town and an arts town.”
You’ve worked in an amazing variety of settings. How do the arts compare? The arts always play an important role in everything I do. I believe the arts are the through line of our humanity. Art enables us to connect with others through the expression of our ideas, our beliefs, and our desires. I love the storytelling and building relationships…. Having this opportunity to lead RAC is the coming together of all my [prior] experiences.
You also serve on boards that show your interest in social reform. Does art play a role there, too? The arts build awareness of social issues and can motivate people to act. I’m not aware of any major social reform movement that did not include art. So many people throughout history and in the present use music, dance, and cultural rituals to prepare for events that ultimately lead to social change.
Paul Nordmann
When you’re making tough decisions about who receives a grant, what criteria guide you? RAC organizes its evaluation into three categories: artistic essentials, community benefit, and capacity and sustainability. As a public funder, we also invite the public into our decision-making process. We provide grant review opportunities to patrons and producers of the arts in our community. Our goal is to make sure art is available and accessible to everyone in St. Louis. We provide general operating support grants to large organizations like the symphony. We even invest what I call “patient capital” into small organizations and working artists.
Why call it “patient”? My work in corporate philanthropy was often tied to specific short-term business objectives. At RAC, we are committed to investing in the long-term sustainability of our arts organizations, and we know that our return is more than financial and may occur five or more years from now.
Do you look for art that’s on the cutting edge, that will be popular, or something else? We look for relevance and engagement. Take the Cherokee neighborhood, where 12 languages are spoken. We fund art that resonates with the locals. We favor innovation—not for its own sake but to help build relationships. We want people who are new here—or who have lived their entire lives in one area—to explore arts and culture in all parts of St. Louis.
OUR GOAL IS TO MAKE SURE ART IS AVAILABLE AND ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE IN ST. LOUIS.
How do St. Louisans score in art appreciation? Very high! In response to resident and arts sector advocacy efforts, our city elected officials recently gave RAC $10.6 million, the third largest municipal allocation of American Rescue Plan Act funds in the nation. This funding comes at a critical time, following a dramatic downturn for the arts and culture sector brought on by the pandemic. Despite their own challenges, artists kept creating for us. While revenues for RAC and the arts community have rebounded some from where they were in 2020, a long road is still ahead. St. Louisans believe a thriving arts and culture sector is critical to the region’s growth. The economic impact of our sector is not lost on our residents and civic leaders. The arts and culture sector generates $600 million in local and state economic activity, and we create 19,000 full-time jobs. The business of art needs ongoing public and private support. As we continue to work toward more equity and inclusion in our region, we need greater public-private partnerships.
How does RAC tackle some of the region’s inequities? In addition to our regular grants and capacity-building programs, we have two amazing community-based programs. The Community Arts Training Institute (CAT) prepares artists of all disciplines and their community partners to collaborate in creating and sustaining meaningful arts programs. We focus on under-resourced communities and engage neighborhood organizations, social service agencies, economic development initiatives, and education institutions in our work. The CAT fellows grapple with diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and accessibility in their program planning, partnership development, and hands-on projects. More than 350 social workers, educators, community activists, policymakers, and artists have completed this cross-sector training and are using their knowledge in communities around the world. The Gyo Obata Fellowship is a program for undergraduate students pursuing careers in arts administration. We are partnering with the Gateway Foundation to address the need for a more diverse pipeline of talent in leadership roles within the arts and culture sector. The Gyo Obata Fellowship is a 10-week paid summer fellowship with substantial professional development programming included. We pair the 10 college students with 10 nonprofit arts organizations that receive grant funding from RAC, so it’s a win-win-win for everyone involved.
Everybody’s so stressed these days. Do you worry that it will make us less creative or appreciative of the arts? I think now more than ever, people need arts and creativity to be well. Arts and culture have a healing power. Art inspires hope for the future, especially in young people. When you’re engaged in the arts it makes you fully present in the moment, and that can help facilitate even greater healing for your mind, body, and spirit. Building our individual and collective creativity enables us to think of full solutions to our problems. If you’re going to prioritize anything, prioritize your creativity.
