The Method to Our Madness

In May of 2009, Southern Arts Federation deployed a survey to the performing arts community to ascertain their understanding of continuity planning. One hundred percent of surveyed organizations had been through an emergency situation -- 68% still do not have a continuity plan. The top reasons for not having a plan were, 1) Not a priority for the organization's leadership and 2) Lack of expertise in continuity planning. See full survey results.

Many people confuse the terms emergency management and continuity planning - the latter of the two being a key component of ArtsReady. Paul Dimond, Director of the Office of Continuity Planning at the University of California Berkeley, defined the goal of continuity planning as "No matter what happens today, we want to be able to do tomorrow what we were doing yesterday." It is with this goal and with shared expertise, that ArtsReady can address the obstacles for continuity planning in the performing arts community.

View Paul's entire presentation on planning.

Mellon Grant Makes ArtsReady Possible

“Because of our experiences with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we realized how vulnerable cultural resources are,” said Gerri Combs, SAF executive director. “Through this project, we identified a regional role that we could play in improving emergency readiness, response and recovery for arts organizations. We are very grateful to the Mellon Foundation for making this much needed project possible on a national level.” Read full press release.