As a Member of BftA, you contribute to programs which reach cultural organizations across Canada. Our Members enjoy unique opportunities to participate in our core programs and events, which provides greater visibility to your business, while offering your employees and clients interesting ways to engage in the arts.

artsVest is a matching incentive program created by Business for the Arts (BftA) in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Culture, the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Canadian Heritage. The program helps develop new, mutually beneficial partnerships between business and arts organizations, providing matching incentives for businesses to partner with the arts and training for arts organizations to approach the business sector effectively. In the past three years, artsVest has created funding partnerships between 374 businesses and 132 arts and cultural organizations in eleven communities, more than doubling the initial matching investment. The plan is to expand the program to 25 new communities over the next five years.

artsScene is a program designed to engage young business professionals in the Arts through volunteerism, patronage and support. The program is run by an artsScene Directorate of 25 young business professionals in Toronto who organize monthly events behind the scenes at diverse arts organizations, promote major arts fundraiser parties throughout the year, host CEOs from Arts and Business for intimate breakfasts and connect peers to arts boards through live boardLink events. The group is also spearheading the launch of our new Arnold Edinborough award, recognizing the dedication of a young professional under 40 to the Arts in Canada. New this year: The Toronto directorate is working with other young professionals in Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal to launch artsScene groups in their cities.

Awards: Business for the Arts administers three prestigious awards recognizing innovative business partnerships with the Arts, The Globe and Mail Business for the Arts Awards, The Edmund C. Bovey Award and the new Arnold Edinborough Award, recognizing young business volunteers in the Arts. Nominations for the 2008 BftA Awards are received in the Spring, and the winners are celebrated at a gala dinner in the Fall.

boardLink connects business professionals to arts boards, both through an on-line tool as well as live events. The boardLink events include board governance sessions with an expert in the field, an arts symposium hosting guests from the business and arts community, and a live matching event where we connect arts organizations with business professionals looking for volunteer roles in the Arts.

The Canadian Arts Summit was co-founded by The Banff Centre and Business for the Arts in 1998. The Summit is a unique national leadership forum which is held in March of each year. It brings together the chief executives, artistic directors and board chairs of Canada's largest 50 not-for-profit cultural institutions: symphony orchestras, theatres, opera, ballet companies and art museums.

Surveys: Since its inception, BftA has provided the only Canadian annual surveys into the financial state of performing arts organizations, art galleries, museums and now festivals and presenters. Initiated in 1976, they provide for time and trend analysis, enabling us to measure the growth of private sector support. New this year: an on-line benchmarking tool for cultural organizations to measure performance.