Mayor Kevin Johnson's For Arts' Sake initiative has succeeded in bringing music to two school systems and is making incremental headway in reaching some of its lofty goals, including the crucial issue of how to create more public and private revenue streams for the arts.

This week, Johnson released an annual report highlighting the progress of For Arts' Sake – a $250,000-a-year privately funded program run out of the mayor's office that began in 2009.

So far, the biggest success of the initiative is the implementation of the Any Given Child program, which brings arts education and artists to the Twin Rivers and Sacramento City Unified school districts. That effort is a partnership between the city and the Kennedy Center for the Arts.

Any Given Child, with a yearly budget of $100,000 that is paid by a combination of school district and private funding, is meant to level the arts education playing field, said Deborah Edward, For Arts' Sake's program director.

"The way artists get into schools is based on their own relationships, or they may have a kid in the school system or may be a principal's neighbor. That leaves an unequal system," Edward said. "Any Given Child creates a more equitable playing field."

That effort is opening doors for certain arts nonprofit organizations.

"Because of Any Given Child, we were able to give over 30 performances in schools last semester, which translated into us reaching 1,200 kids," said Steven Valencia, artistic director of Sacramento's Compañía Mazatlán Bellas Artes.

"It's difficult for us to get into the schools and reach that many kids, and this program has allowed us that."

For Arts' Sake has also set goals that have yet to be met – like establishing a plan for increasing public funding to the arts by as much as $20 million a year by 2014. That effort, now in the planning stage, would likely require Sacramentans to vote on a "civic amenities" tax, said Edward.

"The (Sacramento) Metro Chamber is now taking the lead in looking into public funding and we're helping them think through a long-term strategy," she said. "We have to make sure we have the right mix of civic amenities that people will think highly enough to say yes to an additional tax."

Another goal is to increase private sector giving to the arts by 10 to 20 percent by 2014. That effort would have to succeed in a city that lags in private sector giving. In Sacramento, 37 percent of the average arts budget is received from charitable and private sources, whereas the national average is 43 percent, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.

Edward said the focus this year has been a specific one. "The whole focus ... was to make sure boards are good at asking for money and that new social media techniques are being applied by individual arts organizations," Edward said.

Carlin Naify, who sits on the board of the Crocker Art Museum and is board chair of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, said For Arts' Sake has set some ambitious goals.

"So far they have initiatives they're working on and so far they have not raised a lot of money that we have seen yet," said Naify. "Although Deborah does have some exciting ideas."

When Johnson kicked off For Arts' Sake in 2009, it was meant as an all-inclusive, regionwide effort of monthly meetings that drew hundreds of stakeholders from arts organizations, large and small. After many meetings and subcommittee meetings, the popularity of the initiative soon wore off. Many wondered what effect, if any, the initiative would have on them, especially small organizations.

"Most of the large arts organizations in town have the infrastructure to participate in the development of the arts initiative in a more active way and probably will be the ones that will have a direct effect from it," said Daniel Paulson, founder and artistic director of the 12-member women's choir Vox Musica. "I will be curious to see how deep the initiative runs and if it will affect us small arts organizations."

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