Innovative Web-Based Program Gets Business On To Arts Boards

June 3, 2002

At its Annual General Meeting in Toronto today The Council for Business and the Arts in Canada (CBAC) announced the launch of Board Link, an innovative web-based program for matching business volunteers to the arts.

"This is really a first - not only in Canada, but around the world." says CBAC President Sarah Iley. "While there are a number of different sites where volunteers can look at posted job descriptions and then e-mail their resumes, we've designed a diagnostic tool that will help volunteers and arts groups assess their own needs online and find potential matches right away."

Board Link is a database-driven online application designed to help arts organizations find skilled business volunteers, and to help business people find interesting volunteer opportunities on the boards of arts organizations. What makes this program unique is the fact that it provides analysis online to determine potential fits between an arts organization's need and a volunteer's aspirations. Arts applicants can even have up to three separate contributors post information which is then compiled to form a job description, allowing the nominating chair, the board chair and the general manager to contribute to the description from wherever they are.

Board Link is the centrepiece of the CBAC's newly-updated web-site. The creation of such an ambitious site would not have been possible without the support of the Government of Ontario's innovative Volunteer @ction Online program.

"The Ministry of Citizenship's support really enabled us to develop a system that has exceeded even our original expectations," says Iley. "We began this project because we had a board recruitment and placement program which had become a victim of its own success - we simply could not keep up with the demand. An internet-based solution seemed the best way to provide the program anytime and anywhere. With the help of a Steering Committee of our own volunteers we invented Board Link, and took our cue from some of the wonderful technologies devised by dating and job matching programs!"

CBAC's original board recruitment and matching program, Young in Art, won acclaim from The Conference Board and the Financial Post as an exemplary employee volunteer program. Even more importantly, it filled an urgent need for arts organizations, many of whom claimed some of their best board members were recruited through it.

The continuing need for volunteers willing and able to provide business skills to the arts has been well-documented in a province-wide study of the arts conducted by the Ontario Arts Council and The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation. Iley hopes business people will rise to the challenge.

"Throughout the International Year of the Volunteer we were working on this project, knowing that many business people would find this kind of arts volunteering very fulfilling. We hope that they will come visit the Board Link site at www.businessforarts.org and try it out."

For more information: Sarah Iley 416 869-3016