Arts Network Ottawa, Ottawa Arts Council to merge and expand services
Why It Matters
Arts Network Ottawa and Ottawa Arts Council are well-regarded cultural funders in the capital. Their merger to expand service offerings comes amid a post-COVID squeeze in the arts sector and heightened anxieties for the survival of small nonprofits.
Two of Ottawa’s most well-known arts organizations say they will merge to expand their service offerings and received a warm reception from the capital’s cultural workers in response.
Arts Network Ottawa (ANO) and Ottawa Arts Council (OAC) informed their stakeholders of the merger in late October, two years after the idea was first floated internally, the executive directors of both organizations said.
Although funding for the arts has been squeezed since the onset of COVID, both organizations said the merger was not a financial necessity.
“It isn’t fear-based, it’s possibility-based,” said OAC director Nicole Milne.
“The truth is we’ve both been around for over 40 years, and a lot of our artists and citizens don’t fully understand what we do independently and what we do together. They need a unified voice in order to support the cultural sector here in Ottawa,” she said.
“When you pull two independent organizations together into one, the clarity of who is leading the charge will come through a lot more effectively.”
Both organizations receive significant funding from the City of Ottawa. Unlike other municipalities like Toronto, the City of Ottawa distributes its project-based funding directly to artists.
ANO and OAC both distribute some grants through partner organizations. However, they primarily do sector support work, including research, advocacy, conference hosting, professional development workshops, and developing facilities for artists like performance venues.
Resources and expertise will be pooled in the merger to reduce small nonprofits’ challenges in recent years, such as staff turnover, and to better serve the Ottawa community by expanding services or offering new ones.
“For grant clients like us, it’s very difficult to get inflationary increases on our operating grants,” said ANO director Cassandra Olsthoorn. “We’re advocating for ourselves and the sector at the same time.”
“We want to retain really great talent in our employees. But how do we do that when our operating grants are frozen in?”
A recent survey to gauge the city’s immediate reaction to the news has been overwhelmingly positive, say both directors. Respondents have raised some anticipated questions, like what will happen to the offices both organizations work out of and whether the merged entity could expand beyond Ottawa proper and into nearby municipalities.
“I was happy to see that they were merging,” said Ottawa School of Theatre Artistic Director Megan Piercey Monafu, who has worked with ANO and OAC.
“There may have been a time in the past where having two arts councils to represent two areas of Ottawa was practical and needed. But my sense is that in some ways, their work has started to overlap and be in competition with each other — and that the art community would be stronger in they were working in tandem.”
ANO and OAC’s joint commitment to a community consultation process to guide the merger is an exciting prospect, added Monafu.
Neither parent organization has a plan for the new entity’s mission, governance structure, or service offerings.
Instead, they hope to take in continual feedback from a series of workshops between now and June 2024, when a business proposal will be presented at each organization’s annual general meeting.
ANO and OAC have also enlisted longtime arts nonprofit management consultant Analee Adair, Oolsthorn said. The City of Ottawa was not involved with the merger planning.
Monafu said she hopes a more vigorous advocate for the arts will also help improve access to affordable housing in the city.
As the cost of living has skyrocketed, artists have struggled to afford housing and studio space. In response, Performing Arts Lodges (PAL) Canada is developing an affordable apartment complex in Ottawa with more than 80 units for retired artists.
Leah Cogan, PAL Ottawa’s board chair and an employee with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, said the ANO-OAC merger will help make a stronger case for further housing initiatives.
“At the end of the day, we need to be getting everyone to the table together. A consolidated voice from the art side makes that so much easier.”
Upcoming community engagement sessions will be posted on ANO’s website and LinkedIn.
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