Sponsorship

Muskoka Arts & Crafts values our relationships with our sponsors and, through close collaboration, we strive to promote our brands in tandem as high-quality experiences that support the arts and enrich lives.

Muskoka Arts & Crafts offers sponsorships to businesses and community groups with an interest in the arts, across a number of different sectors.

Our sponsorship packages are individually tailored to meet your specific business development, community relations and marketing objectives. Talk with a member of our creative team who are brimming with ideas for sponsorship, and explore the many ways for you to get involved as a sponsor of Muskoka Arts & Crafts.

Benefits

Becoming a sponsor enables you to:

• Align your product and mission with Muskoka’s most established and well-regarded arts organization that has loyal and enthusiastic customers and members
• Position your business or organization as a supporter of the arts and Muskoka as a Designated Arts Community
• Publicly declare your commitment to the quality of life in our community by helping to bring people and the arts together
• Raise the profile of your organization
• Receive sponsor recognition through our advertising and marketing program
• Make a meaningful gift that will have a lasting impact on the community.

Why supporting the arts is good for business

A community’s overall health can be judged by how successful the arts are: Studies prove how valuable it is to invest in the arts at every stage of life and across every spectrum. When a town, city or a business has made significant investments in the arts and the arts are thriving, it’s often a sure sign that the rest of the community or business is also doing well.

People are drawn to a community with a vibrant arts scene: Today, people can live in one community and work in another. Study after study shows that people are drawn to communities that have a vibrant art scene that includes galleries, museums, public art and live-performance opportunities, as well as a strong collection of individual artists. When the arts scene is vivacious, independent restaurants, pubs, breweries, shops and other locally-made businesses pop up. This type of lively community is a priority for many young people and influences them to choose one community over another.

Businesses vet communities before expanding: We know that businesses carefully scrutinize communities for their viability to fill positions before expanding or relocating. The arts play a major role in that decision because, with a strong arts scene, it’s easier to attract talent from the outside, particularly potential employees with families who are looking at how they will integrate into a new community.

The arts help businesses retain employees: Attraction is one thing, but retention is quite another. Millennials will average four jobs before they turn 32, so keeping young workers is a high priority for many businesses. Benefits now have to include corporate culture and employee engagement. The businesses that have figured out how to bring the arts and creativity to their employees have a better chance of keeping young employees longer because of this investment.

The arts help prepare students for STEM-related fields: The arts better prepare students to work in STEM-related fields (science, technology, engineering and math). Studies show that students who are exposed to the arts, in any of its many forms, tend to have higher test scores, and tend to be better at creative problem solving, communication and the ability to connect seemingly disparate things. They also tend to understand how to work collaboratively as well as independently. These are all skills that many 21st century jobs not only desire but also demand. In addition, if you don’t have them growing up, it can be hard to acquire them later in life. We keep hearing that many of today’s students will work in jobs that haven’t yet been created. We are going to need an infusion of creative problem solvers to address the many issues that will face our towns, cities, regions, provinces, the country and the world, and arts investments—made inside schools and out in the community—will be imperative to developing those leaders.

The arts are a great equalizer: One way to be a welcoming, inclusive community is to invite everyone to participate in the arts and to learn something about another culture or region and in the process, to learn how similar we all really are. From a purely business perspective, we have many job openings right now, and that’s only going to grow in the coming years. Businesses will need people from outside the region to come to our community to fill many of those jobs. We could intentionally grow that subset of our population if we worked harder to make them feel welcome and to invest in their cultural background while introducing them to ours. Diversity is a good thing and the arts can help make that transition much easier and more meaningful for everyone.

The arts just make everything better: Downtowns and shopping areas with excellent architecture, public art, public spaces, shops to visit and green spaces where outdoor performances can be enjoyed are vital to our very being. It’s what makes a community more than a collection of people. It’s what helps us invest in our neighbours, care about our coworkers and work to continue to make where we live the very best place it can be. 

Become a Sponsor

Fill out our Sponsorship Inquiry form or contact Nichole Kitchen, Executive Director, at info@muskokaartsandcrafts.com.

Our Sponsors