Connie Bonfy became the first executive director of the Wichita Arts Council in May. She brings years of experience in arts management and education, as well as grant writing and fundraising.
Daniel Caudill spoke with Bonfy about recent funding challenges, the art council’s role in the community and how she ended up in the job.
Some responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Tell me a little about your personal background. Are you from Wichita originally? Where did you go to school?
Well, I am not originally from Wichita, but I did move here 20 years ago to just take advantage of what was happening in Wichita, primarily because of the arts. I could see things were changing, and it was exciting, and it drew me here.
I have worked primarily in three different locations: in Cowley County – around the Ark City location – and in Salina and also in [Santa Fe, New Mexico], so I've had a great career. It's been varied, and I've worked both in higher education and in arts management.
I do have my master's degree (in arts education) from Wichita State.
You said that you kind of studied a mix of business and arts. Did you always know that you kind of wanted to get into the fundraising side of the arts?
Yeah, I mean, in arts management. I think arts management is a business. I think the arts are a business. They're a big business in the United States and in Wichita. And people who run organizations [run them] like they’re businesses … I'm talking strategic planning, very careful budgeting, very careful analytical metrics on the impact of services and that kind of thing. So more like a corporation would run.
Right now, I know the arts council is facing some challenges on the government funding side of things. The county commission, for example, voted to eliminate about $4-to-5,000 off of your budget. I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about, in your view, why you think government bodies should be helping to support the arts.
Sure, I feel pretty passionate about that. It takes multiple funding streams to support nonprofits, often a lot of creativity. And I think that, as well as being an investment that is worth, intrinsically, really benefiting us. You know, we can all talk about that because it touches something very much about being human. The arts are an expression of our humanity.
But as a more strategic way of thinking, the arts are, as I said, big business. They prove to have extraordinary return on investment. So a government body that gets that, that is a strategically thinking government body, will certainly want to invest in them because it will return multiple-fold to whatever their small investment would be.
Last time we spoke about this, you had told me that the county's portion of your budget was less than 10% of your overall budget, but you have a plan to make it an even smaller portion of the budget. Is that right? Could you tell me a little bit about that?
Yeah, I would love to tell you about that. We've got a strategic plan. We call it the “Big Ideas.” We put it together pretty quickly, but because the city had just recently completed their strategic plan, we were able to piggyback off a lot of their data that they've collected during their process, and put together several specific pillars and initiatives that we're going to be following up on.
We believe that that will end up growing our budget quite quickly over the next few years to about $300,000 to 400,000. That's our projection. So how that'll happen is a combination of funding streams, just like I've mentioned here before. But it's also about explaining the pillars that we want to make sure this community knows: why the arts matter and how we can significantly invest back in the community through the donors that are going to support us as we grow.
Beyond just the funding piece for the Wichita Arts Council, what do you envision as the role of the council in the community? Could you just kind of explain what people maybe can expect over the next few years under your leadership?
The arts council board has been an amazing board. They're working on advocacy, they're working on marketing, they're working on the Arts Awards, which we have annually every year to recognize arts excellence in the community.
And they're trying to do a lot with education. So I think that, as we go forward, what I bring to the table is a way to organize all of that.
The arts belong to everyone. It is a demonstration: making music, printing our hands on a cave wall like our forefathers did. It's very much [an] expression of our humanity to try to make marks and express ourselves with music or movement, whatever our particular art discipline is.
I think we shouldn't ever forget that Wichita is an arts city. I would say that that is one of the magical things that hits our visitors right away. It's charming. And as the downtown grows, it's even more charming, you know. So it's just a fantastic place to be. We are an arts city.
What collaborations or events can people look forward to in the coming weeks and months? You know, the most immediate things that they should be on the lookout for.
Well, we started a fun thing this summer before the primary election for the city candidates, we had a Pints and Policies social at the [Wichita Brewing Company] in Delano, and it was a big hit. Lots of pizza and pints were involved. We had candidates from all three districts that are under voting for the city election, and there was an opportunity to talk one-on-one with them.
There's something that we're doing this fall that we're excited about. We just launched the first one at the Ulrich museum last week, and it was an opportunity to learn something at [our] art mixers. People are invited to join us. They’re free for a little snack after work and just a visit.
The other thing I would like to shout out [is] our annual Arts Awards. The Arts Awards are 55 years old. So the 55-year-old anniversary [stone] is an emerald. We’re using the color green, and we’re using this sort of geometric, wonderful little shape that was created for us. We’re trying to make the experience full of what we’re calling hidden gems.
There will be a number of artists actively working in the space the harvester arts, in partnership with some students in a mentorship program they have, are going to be creating the table scapes. There's going to be local musicians. It's mainly going to be a fun party [where] we honor our recipients with their awards, a little capture of each bio of each individual, and just some fun.
The Arts Awards are Nov. 8. Visit the arts council’s website for more information about upcoming events.
