Helping young artists turns out picture-perfect - The Great Frame Up sponsors a program that teams local high-school art departments with small businesses - Brief Article

Nation's Business, Sept, 1996 by Roberta Maynard

A program that teams small business with local high-school art departments has made the grade for both students and the programs sponsor, The Great Frame Up, a franchised chain of art and picture-framing stores that is based in Franklin Park, Ill.

The company's goals were to soften the blows of budget cuts for art departments by donating materials and to give art students an opportunity to exhibit their work. Meanwhile, The Great Frame Up hoped that the company and its franchisees would enjoy enthusiastic community response and garner local publicity.

In the initiative's first school year, all these goals were met, says the program's national coordinator, Tara McGrath.

Each of the 46 participating franchisees provided mat board throughout out the year to its adopted school. In the spring, the franchisees used their stores to host art shows featuring the students, work. Each franchisee paid the company $700 to participate. The funds were used for administrative costs. Franchises also donated the more than 28,0000 pounds of mat board given to students and $20,000 in cash awards for the best-in-show artists.

The company itself gave the students 22,000 portfolio cases and 12,000 T-shirts; it also gave each student 10 show invitations for family members and friends. More than 7,000 people shows, one store had a turnout of 300.

Careful planning is the key to making a program of this type work, says McGrath. She began in 1993 by conducting sessions with focus groups to learn how best to help the art departments. The next step, which she says was critical for fine-tuning the effort, was a test program at three schools in three cities. She and her staff held training sessions early last year to help stores prepare for the shows; the franchisor coordinated all meetings.

The company, which had revenues of $34 million last year, spent $220,000 on the program last year, including franchisees' contributions. Those dollars went much further than they would have if they had been used to buy advertising, McGrath says.

"It's not a program designed to suddenly boost sales by 20 percent," says McGrath. There,s a movement away from advertising and toward public relations as a way to keep costs down. This is a program that we can do nationwide and that we can be known for."

For the 1996-97 school year, the program will help support at least 150 high schools nationwide, McGrath says.

The company found the experience so rewarding, she says, that it is considering organizing a national art show for students, work, and next year it may coordinate with art colleges to have recruiters attend the local art shows.