The recent economic downturn has had an effect on every segment of the economy, and has especially hit hard in the arts. A nationally recognized arts administrator who's known for his record of rescuing financially troubled programs brought his message to Maine today as part of a 50-state tour. That message: that it's not all about the money.

Michael Kaiser knows a thing or two about running arts organizations. He is currently president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Before that, he was executive director of the Royal Opera House in London, the American Ballet Theatre and the Alvin Ailey Dance Company in New York.

Kaiser got his start in what he calls arts triage, as general manager of the Kansas City Ballet. "The only job I could find was running a bankrupt ballet company. I fixed it," he says. "Then I was offered to run the Alvin Ailey organization, which was in deep trouble at the time, and I fixed it. And then it started to become a speciality and people started to know me for that kind of work."

In fact, Kaiser is known in some circles as "The Turnaround King", and his address to a sold-out house at the Portland Museum of Art is part of a national tour he developed called "Arts in Crisis". The response to that crisis, he told more than 200 people gathered at the museum, is fairly simple, but not necessarily easy.

"The only thing that makes arts oganizations healthy, is really vibrant work," Kaiser said. Kaiser's basic message is that when money gets tight, arts ogranizations should focus on their art and on marketing, and let the fundraising follow. "I always say the real fundraisers are the artists and marketers, and that the development departments are the bureaucrats who collect the checks."

For those in the audience, that simple focus seemed to reaffirm the task at hand. "I've been at it for ten years now, and it's always a challenge to continue to raise funds and keep a profile up," says Christine Mackie, director of Maine Fibre Arts in Topsham.

Mackie says much like Kaiser himself, arts adminstrators in Maine have no specific roadmap for solving financial problems. "It's the same way for directors all around the state and for non-profits," she says. "They're making it up as they go, they're enticing people to carry on, and I think he's wise in saying that the general population wants to get to the arts. Many times they don't know how to."

Kaiser says he wants those who hear his talks to understand that the crisis is not all about the money. "I really think it starts from doing exciting art, and I think arts organizations need to take more time to plan their art, and to plan bigger projects for farther out -- three, four, five years away -- so they can take the time to make those big exciting things happen. I think if you do those two things, the money will come."

For others in the audience, Kaiser's talk served as a reminder that artists and arts ogranizations must be vigilant in making their case to a recession-weary public. Donna Rae Warren is a documentary maker based in midcoast Maine.

Frank Ferrel: "Why are the arts important?"

Donna Rae Warren: "The arts are important because people have to have a reason why they get out of bed every morning besides making a living, although obviously that's extremely important. It's understandable that people think in an economy like this there's -- people are worried about folks paying the bills, they're worried about eating, and paying rent
and things like that. Sometimes it's easy to see the arts as extraneous, and it's just not. It's integral, both to our culture and to our economy, and I think we need to do a better job of making that clear.

Michael Kaiser has seven states left on his "Arts in Crisis" tour. The next stop: Burlington, Vermont.