About Business Volunteers for the Arts

Business Volunteers for the Arts® (BVA) is a pro bono consulting program that connects skilled business professionals with arts and cultural organizations in need of high-level business assistance. BVA volunteers contribute their carefully developed skills--not just time--to their community and expand their expertise, build personal relationships, and network with other business professionals who love the arts. Through the BVA program, arts and culture groups tap into professional expertise and gain valuable tools to help them fulfill their missions.

The Business Volunteers for the Arts® (BVA) program has been serving the arts and business communities of Greater Boston since 2000, when the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston (AB&C/GB) was organized. BVA was founded in New York in 1975 and is now administered in 14 cities nation-wide as a program of the Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts.

The Business Volunteers for the Arts program offers three different types of volunteer services:

BVA Committee Member

BVA Committee members are placed on ad hoc committees of arts and culture non-profits to do hands on work for a specific function or project. BVA Committee Members serve on the following types of committees:

  • a planning committee for an event or fundraiser
  •  personnel or human resources committee
  • marketing committee
  • strategic planning task force
  • budget and finance committee

BVA Consultant

BVA Consultant matches are project driven. Each project delivers custom-designed consulting services to arts and culture nonprofits and have specific goals and deliverables agreed upon by both the client and the volunteer which are articulated in a Project Request Form.

BVA Mentor

These volunteers work in an advisory capacity to the leaders of non-profit arts and culture organizations. There is no project or deliverable specified for this type of volunteer service; rather, BVA Mentors work as sounding boards and offer advice on a wide variety of business and organizational issues on an as needed basis.