Creative groups eye future together, or not

Two of the city’s top creative industry groups will meet Thursday to decide just how intertwined they would like their future operations to become.

The Portland Arts & Cultural Alliance (PACA) officially became a subsidiary of the Creative Portland Corporation (CPC) when PACA adopted a new set of bylaws at its May 18 meeting, but with both groups actively trying to solicit an Executive Director, board members thought it would be worthwhile to explore how the two groups might consolidate forces, according to CPC Board President Andy Graham.

“We had a conversation between groups to discuss what the ramifications are for each of us getting a separate Executive Director and the concern was, if we each hired somebody, we would not be likely to move toward becoming one group, we would move parallel or move apart,” said Graham.

Graham said the question is if the two groups, both recruiting with a modest budget, could realistically pool their financial resources and hire a single ED and still be able to pursue their distinct missions.

“We wanted to see whether or not there was a sense of shared long term goals between the groups, what they are, and if because of those, it would make sense for those groups to come closer together more quickly so that a single ED or an ED and a staff person might work with both groups simultaneously,” said Graham.

The two organizations, both with nonprofit 501(c)3 status, have a similar goal, but different approaches.

PACA was formed in 1985 by arts and cultural leaders of Portland including the Maine College of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Public Library, and the Maine Historical Society.

“PACA's mission is to strengthen Portland through the arts, CPC is about strengthening Portland through all its creative sectors,” said Kornhauser, who is also the director of marketing and communications for the Portland Symphony Orchestra.

Established in 2008, CPC's specific mission is to promote jobs in the creative sectors, attracting creative business to city in the form of artisans, writers, designers and manufacturers. “Basically, it's about getting [people] to come here and create jobs,” said Kornhauser.

Thursday’s meeting, to be held at 9 a.m. at the Maine College of Art, will bring the two organizations together to discuss in earnest their plans for the future, and what further collaboration might look like. CPC currently has two members on the PACA board, and is exploring ways for a PACA rep to sit on the CPC board, although Graham said that is a decision to be made by the city council.

“We’re already moving toward better cooperation between them,” said Graham, who notes that PACA being a subsidiary of CPC is not meant to imply that one group is subservient to the other. “We’re really trying not to look at it hierarchically,” he said.

“We want to look at the hopes and dreams of each organization, our long-term planning, and get together to think about who we are as separate organization,” said Graham, who said that it might be worth addressing the issue before tapping their funds to hire separate ED’s “It seems like a bad idea to move forward without knowing what the future is like,” he said.

“They really love what we do, and we really love what they do,” said Graham.