RACC Blog

Burgerville to “Feed the Arts” by donating portion of proceeds to “Work for Art” on March 8

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Non-profit provides financial support to more than 80 vital arts and culture organizations serving the Northwest region

VANCOUVER, Wash.  – On Thursday, Mar. 8, Burgerville, a long-standing tradition in Oregon and Southwest Washington, will donate 1.5 percent of all sales that day to Work for Art, a non-profit that supports arts and culture services throughout the Northwest region. Additionally, Burgerville cardholders who make a purchase before 11 a.m. will generate another 5 cents for the program.

“Burgerville is committed to giving back to the communities where we live, work and serve. Our partnership with Work for Art gives us an opportunity to do just that,” said Jeff Harvey, president and CEO of Burgerville. “Work for Art funds more than 80 vital arts and culture organizations each year, and they are an important part of keeping the arts alive in the Pacific Northwest.”

This isn’t the only way Burgerville is giving back to Work for Art; Burgerville employees can also personally donate money to the non-profit through Burgerville’s employee giving campaign. Burgerville believes art and creative vitality are essential to thriving communities and Work for Art perfectly embodies this message.

Burgerville will host two more partnership days with their other payroll-giving partners this year. On March 29, a percent of sales will be donated to the United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, and on April 29, sales will benefit EarthShare of Oregon and Washington.

For a list of Burgerville locations visit http://www.burgerville.com/find-a-restaurant.

About Work for Art
Donations to Work for Art’s Community Fund and Arts Education Fund provide grants to more than 80 vital arts and culture organizations every year – encompassing dance, visual arts, music, literary arts, media arts, theater, cultural arts, and arts education. 100% of all donations to Work for Art are passed through to these organizations – no administrative fees are deducted. These groups provide: Thousands of arts education experiences every year in our schools; Partnerships with the clients of more than 100 health and social service agencies; as well as thousands of performances and events in our neighborhoods and communities. Gifts from employees and other individuals are matched dollar-for-dollar by a challenge fund. Those who give $60 or more to Work for Art will be thanked with an Arts Card, providing 2-for-1 tickets at hundreds of arts and culture events.

About Burgerville
Burgerville is a quick-service restaurant company with 38 locations throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington, serving guests fresh, great-tasting food from a mission to “serve with love.” Burgerville’s values extend beyond locally grown berries, all-natural Country Natural Beef, Walla Walla onions and cage-free eggs. At Burgerville, the commitment to fresh, local and sustainable values is about helping people and communities thrive. The innovative company, established in 1961, is redefining industry norms by providing affordable health care for hourly employees and their dependents, purchasing wind power equal to their electricity use, converting used trans-fat free cooking oil to biodiesel and implementing comprehensive resource stewardship and recycling. For more information about Burgerville, please visit www.burgerville.com.

Media contact
Kathryn Jackson, Work for Art
503.823.5424/kjackson@racc.org

Jamie Godfrey, LANE PR for Burgerville
503.546.7892/jamie@lanepr.com

Artist Shu-Ju Wang’s “The Laundry Maze” Ends March 16

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Project Background: The Chinese laundry is an iconic thread of the early China-to-US immigration story. It was a business that required little start-up capital or spoken English and was viewed as an undesirable task that could be passed on to immigrants without controversy. Regardless of professions they may have attained before coming to the U.S., many Chinese immigrants found this particular small business to be one of the few career options open to them in their new country.

Although the laundry business and immigration patterns have changed a great deal in the last 100 years, in a broad sense, jobs with “laundry” roots still represent work that a wide variety of immigrants find easily accessible regardless of past experience—dry cleaning, housekeeping in the hospitality industry, and private housecleaning services often have a disproportionate number of immigrants filling their ranks—once again doing difficult, lower wage work that more established Americans are happy to pass on. Since our work is such a large part of our identities, a transition in profession brought on by immigration, be it permanent or temporary, can bring about dramatic changes in identity.

Project Description: Using the Chinese laundry as a jumping-off point, artist Shu-Ju Wang will present The Laundry Maze in the Portland Building Installation Space from February 13th through March 16th, 2012. As she began her research, the artist found that immigrants continue to compromise and take on jobs with less prestige as they resettle; those with the most training and the most prestigious jobs in their native countries are generally the most impacted. But the results were more varied than she had initially anticipated—over time quite a few immigrants surveyed were able to make lateral transitions to jobs comparable to those held before immigration, and a few who took on positions with lower responsibility elected to keep those “lower stress” positions.

Drawing on the idea of unseen figures moving from place to place, uncertain of where they will be led next, Wang will create a simple maze inside the installation space. Clotheslines will be installed in a grid pattern with various shirts and blouses hung upon them to define the maze. Sets of “before and after” job descriptions, inscribed on the clothing (or “laundry”) will document the variety of profession transitions that immigrants have volunteered to share with the artist. With their faces and identities obscured from outside view by the maze walls, visitors to the Portland Building will be encouraged to find a path through the maze as they read and share the identity shift experience that immigration demands.

Viewing Hours & Location: 7 am to 6 pm, Monday – Friday. The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland. For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space Series including images, proposals and statements of all the installations selected since 1994, go towww.racc.org/installationspace.

Fall campaigns bring Work for Art to 83% of goal with four months remaining

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Thirty-three workplaces have announced their employee giving totals for the 2011-12 “Work for Art” campaign, and those gifts, combined with other contributions received between July 1, 2011 and January 31, 2012, total $703,326. With several more campaigns scheduled for the spring, Work for Art is on track to beat last year’s campaign total of $765,000 by June.

Among all employee giving campaigns conducted thus far, Portland General Electric leads the pack, raising $78,699 from 238 employees, including the company’s 50% match. Last year’s top company, The Standard, currently ranks second in campaign revenue at $68,094 from 82 employees, including a 100% match of employee gifts. NW Natural also matches 100% of its employees’ contributions, and has raised $55,893 from 119 employees.

The executive director of the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), Eloise Damrosch, also announced today the results of a friendly challenge that was issued last fall by Carole Morse, president of the PGE Foundation and honorary chair of this year’s Work for Art campaign. “Carole and our other top companies went into the campaign with a little competition: which company could increase their number of donors the most? We are thrilled to announce that PGE won that challenge, and their employees stepped up this year in record numbers – 238 employee donors in all, up 59% over last year. Several other companies bested their numbers from last year as well, including NW Natural, OHSU, and Multnomah County employees, and we congratulate them all.”

Overall, workplace giving campaigns account for $367,522 of the total raised thus far. Gifts from individuals not associated with any workplace, and other miscellaneous gifts, have brought in an additional $43,656. And, because Work for Art features a matching challenge fund (which includes the City of Portland, Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties, and RingSide Fish House as its investors), all gifts from employees and other individuals are matched dollar for dollar, adding another $292,148 to the campaign to date.

“We are truly grateful for all of the companies and individuals who are participating in this year’s campaign,” Morse said. “With a little help from our spring campaigns yet to come, it’s going to be a record year.”

At least 20 companies are lined up to help Work for Art raise an additional $146,674 this spring in order to meet its aggressive goal of $850,000. Burgerville, which raised over $16,000 last year, kicks off its employee giving drive this month, culminating in a “Feed the Arts” Day on Thursday, March 8. A portion of every sale at all 38 Burgerville locations on that day will benefit Work for Art.

KeyBank is also gearing up for a strong campaign in March, led by Brian Rice, President of KeyBank Oregon and SW Washington District. “Banks have consistently cared about their community, and this is a wonderful opportunity for us to demonstrate that again,” he said. “At KeyBank, we truly believe that funding the arts is everyone’s business, and we invite financial institutions of every shape and size to join us in raising money for arts education and all of the other vital services that our arts organizations provide in our community.”

Several more companies will be running a Work for Art campaign for the first time this spring, including Bank of the Cascades, the Portland Timbers, and the Portland Business Alliance.

All workplace campaigns are wrapped up by early June, and the official campaign total will be announced before July 1st. A full 100% of all money raised through Work for Art is passed on to arts organizations through RACC’s competitive grant programs. Although Work for Art raises most of its money through workplace giving, anyone can make a contribution and receive the related benefits, including the Arts Card, which provides a full year of 2-for-1 tickets at hundreds of local arts and culture events for donors who contribute $60 or more. For more information, and to contribute online, visit www.workforart.org.

Major private funders renew support for The Right Brain Initiative

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The Collins Foundation and the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation have renewed their support for The Right Brain Initiative with major two-year grants, the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) announced today. Each foundation awarded the program a total of $100,000 to be used over the next two years.

A unique community-wide partnership managed by RACC, The Right Brain Initiative is committed to equity in arts education. In 2009, the program entered 20 Portland area K-8 schools to integrate visual, performing, media and literary arts with math, reading and other classroom subjects. Received enthusiastically by teachers, students and district staff, the program has since grown to serve nearly 11,500 students and 31 schools in five school districts. Further expansion is anticipated each year until the program serves all 110,000 K-8 students in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties.

This funding will directly support the program’s growth, particularly to high-need schools in the region.

These recent foundation contributions are supported by increased private contributions from JPMorgan Chase and the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. Individual giving is also up, due partly to the success of Right Brain’s 2011 Willamette Week Give!Guide campaign, which raised $8,590 from nearly 200 donors (a 30% increase from last year’s campaign).

Private funds currently make up just over 50% of the program’s $900,000 budget. Ongoing private sector funders include:  U.S. Bank/U.S. Bancorp Foundation, the PGE Foundation, The Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation, The Standard and KeyBank. Annual public funders consist of the City of Portland, Clackamas and Multnomah Counties and the five participating school districts. Find a full list of program donors and partners at TheRightBrainInitiative.org/funding

The Right Brain Initiative is a sustainable partnership of public schools, local government, foundations, businesses and the cultural community, which launched its programming in Portland area classrooms in January 2009. The program’s vision is to transform learning for all children through the arts, creativity, innovation and whole-brain thinking. The Right Brain Initiative is a project of the Regional Arts & Culture Council, with Young Audiences of Oregon & SW Washington serving as Implementation Partner. Read more online atTheRightBrainInitiative.org.

The Regional Arts & Culture Council is the local arts agency for Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties, providing grants for artists, schools and nonprofit organizations; conducting workplace giving for arts and culture (“Work for Art”) and other advocacy efforts; presenting workshops and other forms of technical assistance; providing  printed and web-based resources for artists; and integrating  art into public spaces. Online at racc.org.

Regional Arts & Culture Council publishes “2011 Year in Review”

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The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has released its annual report for 2011. The year in review, available online at www.racc.org/2011AnnualReport, includes highlights of last year’s activities in service to artists and arts organizations throughout the Portland metropolitan region.

Among the organization’s highlights in 2011:
• RACC moved to new office on North Park Blocks
• New connections were made through Art Spark and Colored Pencils
• A new public art app was created: Public Art PDX
• Artists and arts organizations received increased funding
• Arts for All offered $5 tickets to arts events and cultural programs
• Work for Art raised a record sum
• The Creative Advocacy Network continues to build support for a dedicated public fund for the arts

Electronic copies (HTML or PDF) of the report can be accessed at www.racc.org/2011AnnualReport – and hardcopies are also available upon request; contact RACC at 503-823-5111 or mbauer@racc.org.