Q&A: Arts Council CEO pivots to pandemic damage control

When the pandemic took hold in March, the Arts Council of Indianapolis fully pivoted its work to supporting artists and arts organizations hit hard by closures related to COVID-19. Julie Goodman, who had been president and CEO of the organization for only a year, discusses ways the organization has been aiding the arts community, which includes launching relief funds to assist individuals and organizations.

Tell us about what the Arts Council does during more normal times.

We are the lead advocacy and services agency for arts and culture in central Indiana. We exist to foster meaningful engagement in the arts by nurturing a culture where artists and arts organizations can thrive.

Why did you want to lead the organization?

So I grew up here. … My childhood was spent here in Indianapolis. I spent most of my professional career in Cincinnati working in arts administration, communications and some corporate communications. And then I had an opportunity to return to Indianapolis with an organization called Strada Education Network.

This was a very big surprise, the opening at the Arts Council. … But I’m so grateful that it worked out. … It’s all of my experiences: the arts education experiences, the experiences I had as a child, going to the Children’s Museum, going to IMA, going to the symphony. You know … now to be in a position of serving those organizations and serving the artistic community is really … a full-circle kind of situation.

You’ve only been with the organization for a year. What’s it been like to lead during a historic pandemic?

We pivoted 180 [degrees] and [put] 100% of our efforts toward supporting artists and supporting organizations in the city during the crisis. The very first thing we did was a quick pulse survey and started to measure how many closures and cancellations we were seeing in the community. And we did a survey that measured the impact on organizations. And we did a survey that measured the impact on individual artists. And what we learned is, we were looking at over 1,000 closures and cancellations and, of course, significant impact on organizations and immediate significant impact on individual artists. … Like so many other sectors, their income just evaporated.

Can you tell us more about the impact COVID-19 has had on the arts and culture sector?

We did another really deep-dive assessment in May. And that really helped us understand what the impact of COVID has been and will be. So we looked at it in terms of existing impact and then forecasting out through September and then through the end of this year and beyond. Based on that assessment, we know that the sector is losing about $8.6 million per month just from the closures. We know that there will be about 30,000 closures and cancellations affecting our sector by September. But then there is an additional cost. So in order to reopen and restart, putting in all of the safety measures and protocols and processes, there’s an additional $20 million in new expense—unanticipated unbudgeted expense—that’s facing the organizations in our sector.

What do the next phases of reopening look like for the arts?

I think most of our organizations had a strong plan for about six months. After that, it gets much more complicated. So we’re just doing everything we can to help support their recovery and safe reopening as it makes sense for them and for their model. But the community’s response has been so important and so encouraging from the very first moments in March.•