MILWAUKEE — When you walk down the hall at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center around 4 p.m., you’ll hear a miniature symphony emerge behind the closed classroom doors. 

In one room, a group of middle school-aged students practices the flute, while a quartet of high schoolers hones their violin skills. 

It is a familiar site at the performing arts space just north of downtown Milwaukee. 

Chad Tessmer is the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center’s (MYAC) executive director. 

While he takes an active role in the programming that takes place at the center, funding and finance are major components of his job. 

Tessmer said MYAC, and other arts-based organizations around the city, rely heavily on private and corporate donations. 

Wisconsin is far from the top of the pack when it comes to public arts funding. 

According to data from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Wisconsin ranks 49th when it comes to per capita spending on arts funding, spending around $0.18. 

Comparatively, neighboring Minnesota leads the nation at $9.67. 

Tessmer said it means many arts organizations in Wisconsin rely much more on private donors than any public funding. 

“Funders are tired. They are overtaxed,” said Tessmer. “As we well know, Wisconsin does not provide the safety net of funding that peers like ours do across the country.” 

Many performing and visual arts groups saw significant impacts in terms of funding and support during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In addition, audience habits changed. It is something Tessmer said many arts groups are still reckoning with. 

“The pandemic did not create that disruption — it exacerbated it, it accelerated it. But in many ways that was existing already. That hesitancy to come out and consume culture and entertainment content,” said Tessmer.

Christine Hojnacki recently took over as executive director of Imagine MKE, an organization founded in 2019 to advocate on behalf of Milwaukee’s arts community. 

Hojnacki said pushing for more public funding is one of her top goals right out of the gate. 

“We need to come together as a community. We came together to build the assets. It has taken decades to build the creative economy that we see in greater Milwaukee and the region. We really need to come together, as a community, to have a shared vision that we can take forward to advocate for public funding,” said Hojnacki. 

Hojnacki and Tessmer said they agree that private and corporate donors in metro Milwaukee are generous. 

Tessmer said Milwaukee’s philanthropic community “punches way above its weight” compared to similarly sized cities. 

However, relying too heavily on private donations for funding can lead to problems. 

“No longer can the community carry this burden, it’s what it is becoming for the arts in the community,” said Hojnacki. “What we need to do with the shared vision is find a solution where there is a balance of both public funding and private funding and have the city, state, and have legislators step up and say, ‘This is important.’”

For Tessmer, it means getting state and municipal leaders to realize the important role he feels the arts plays in the community. 

“Let’s agree the funding is necessary, that it is an infrastructural investment in our future in the same way that roads are, in the same way that health care is, the same way that education is,” said Tessmer, “A thriving arts and culture sector will provide dividends. We just need to get to work.”