“What do you do with the money VCS raises? Why should I give?”
Which is when the rubber hits the road—We are essentially a non-profit choir with three part-time staff. “More” takes resources.
Traditionally, we’ve made do with dues, advertising, and grants. However, as anyone in the arts will tell you, we compete for an ever-dwindling source of grants, and American corporate involvement in the arts has declined steadily and precipitously across the board in the last 20 years. More frighteningly, arts education has declined steadily as well. As one arts manager put it at a recent conference I went to, “It’s not that just that the next generation may not recognize or know the classics. It’s that they may not know who Beethoven is at all.”
Whether you think knowing Beethoven’s 9th from his 5th is important for everyday life, there’s little argument about the ripple effect of what happens when the arts disappear: Our lives become a bit more colorless. We have fewer moments where we’re part of something bigger. And the non-joiners among us have less beauty and music to find solace in when we’re crammed like sardines on the Red Line or surviving that last mile on the Beltway.

image via Healthbuzz
That is why we ask you to become a Friend of VCS.

image courtesy woodleywonderworks/flickr