John F. Stevens, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Senior Consultant

Louise K. Stevens, Founder, President and Executive Consultant
Sean Becker, Research Director/Senior Consultant

Sarah Elliott, Research/Administrative Assistant

E'Vonne Coleman, Senior Associate Consultant

Joan Lounsbery, Senior Associate Consultant

Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Consulting Associate

An experienced corporate leader and facilitator with an extensive background in management and research, John F. Stevens has steered ArtsMarket through significant growth since joining the firm full-time in 1995.  John oversees research and planning projects, staff and contractors, and overall operations. It was through Mr. Stevens vision and management that ArtsMarket expanded its products and services, and created a research division for media, tourism, civic and education clients. Mr. Stevens works closely with clients, taking the lead consultative role in feasibility, economic development, and financial planning projects.  Recently, he led the Economic Impact Analysis that was conducted for the Louisiana Arts Commission.  John’s career spans 24 years in newspaper editorial, management and executive positions at The Beacon News (Aurora, IL), The Milwaukee Journal, the Cape Cod Times, and The Standard-Times (New Bedford, MA). He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at the Indiana University School of Journalism.

E-Mail Address: jstevens@artsmarket.com

Louise K. Stevens founded ArtsMarket, Inc, in 1982, to consult and provide research to cultural institutions, agencies, and funders to guide cultural development.

Ms. Stevens has led planning, evaluation, and special initiatives for over half of the US state arts agencies, and has consulted to scores of local arts and cultural agencies from coast to coast, in cultural development planning, agency planning, feasibility analysis, audience development, arts education program development and design.  Her clients also include hundreds of nonprofit cultural institutions throughout the US.  She has done extensive consulting to the National Endowment for the Arts, including management of external review of applicants for the former Advancement, Challenge II and Challenge III grant programs.  She conducted program evaluation of the NEA’s Locals Program specifically focusing on ensuring effectiveness of the funding set aside for underserved populations, and has done extensive work with its Arts in Education Program.  She also served as consultant to former NEA Chair Jane Alexander and the NEA executive staff in designing outcomes based program evaluation models for NEA program review.

Her clients have also included major foundations and corporations, city governments, and universities and colleges.  Foundations she has worked most closely with include The James Irvine Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and The Ford Family Foundation.  Since moving ArtsMarket to Montana in 1996, Ms. Stevens maintains an on-going relationship with the Montana Arts Council, assisting it in strategic planning, economic impact analysis and currently in multi-year evaluation of its Building Arts Participation Program, funded through the Wallace Foundation.

Ms. Stevens’ consulting expertise encompasses feasibility planning for cultural development, audience development research and target-market development, stabilization and cultural-development planning, organizational planning and evaluation, and educational planning and evaluation.   Her  current work includes facilitating cultural plans for cities in New Jersey, Michigan, and South Carolina, leading arts and economic development/audience development clients including the City of Mesa and the Cincinnati Business Committee, feasibility studies for cultural facilities in Montana, South Carolina, Indiana, and Washington, and consulting to institutional clients including Indianapolis Repertory Theatre, San Diego Opera, Carolina Ballet, Vincennes University, the Fleet Science Center, and the George Eastman House International Center for Film and Photography.  She also presently consults as a program evaluator to The Ford Family Foundation for its Artists in Rural Schools initiative, and to the Oregon Arts Commission.

Her work is consistently vetted by funders, winning major implementation support for her clients.  She led the Indianapolis Cultural Tourism Plan which upon completion was funded with a $10 million grant from the City of Indianapolis and Lilly Endowment.  Her recent feasibility analysis for the creation of the Red Skelton Museum at Vincennes University has just won a $5 million lead matching gift.  Her 2002-2003 market analysis for the EcoTarium science center in Worcester MA won a $980,000 lead implementation grant.  Similarly, her cultural development plan for the State of Oregon resulted in legislation signed by the Governor and maintained by the legislature through extremely difficult deficit years, winning millions in new funding for the Oregon Cultural Trust to fund cultural development statewide. 

The Arts in Education Plan Ms. Stevens facilitated and researched for the City of Boston resulted in $2 million of new funded line-itemed by Mayor Thomas Menino.  Her analysis conducted jointly with ArtsMarket research director Sean Becker for the Yakima Capitol Theatre (downtown redevelopment around cultural facilities) won the Best Research Award for 2003 from the International Economic Development Council, and has to date helped that venture win over $2 million in seed funding.   Her analysis of audience development needs by California arts organizations for a consortium of The James Irvine Foundation, Walter and Elise Hass Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation led to The Irvine Foundation’s funding of a major audience development initiative in San Diego.  Similarly, her audience development analysis and recommendations resulted in major implementation funding by government agencies, foundations and corporations in cities including Columbus, Fort Wayne, Sacramento, and statewide in Montana.

Consistently interested in break-through analysis and new solutions for cultural development, Ms. Stevens was engaged in 2002-2004 to develop a new foundation of analysis and recommendations for cultural development in Cincinnati, by the Cincinnati Business Committee, which in response has formed a blue ribbon leadership group that has, for the first time in that city’s history, begun a broadly inclusive approach to funding all cultural institutions and organizations.  Her methods created there were published in the 2003 summer edition of the Economic Development Journal, “Using Gap Analysis as the Foundation for Economic Development through the Arts.”

Ms. Stevens is currently writing a book on new models for cultural development in the US.  She is author of the Cultural Planning Work Kit, the first book published on cultural planning, commissioned by the NEA in 1986.  For the NEA, she also wrote and published “Through A Mirror, a Guide to Program Evaluation,”  “Documenting Success,” and “Planning to Make the Arts Basic, a Report to the National Endowment for the Arts on the Impact and Results of the Arts in Schools Basic Education Grants.”  Ms. Stevens is author of papers published by The Independent Sector, The Journal of Arts, Management and the Law, and in book The Arts in the New Millennium, edited by Valierie Morris and David Pankratz.  Ms. Stevens writes a monthly E-mail newsletter for ArtsMarket, addressing arts and economic, education, community and audience development.

Ms. Stevens has designed, conducted and facilitated forums, and workshops, led panels, and been a speaker for organizations throughout the US, for organizations including the National Arts Marketing Association, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Americans for the Arts, the Montana Arts Council, ArtServe Michigan, Arts Northwest, Idaho Arts Commission, Arts LA, Massachusetts Arts Council, Phoenix’s Alliance for Audience, and many others.  She was keynote speaker for the first Indianapolis Mayor’s Cultural Tourism Summit, and for the San Antonio Cultural Tourism Summit.

Prior to founding ArtsMarket, Ms. Stevens managed a variety of non-profit cultural and university-affiliated organizations, taught at several universities, and served as arts critic for major newspapers including The Chicago Daily News and The Milwaukee Journal, which twice nominated her for the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in the arts.  After earning her undergraduate and master’s degrees from Northwestern University in music performance and history she was awarded fellowships for further study from The Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Ms. Stevens has been married for 22 years to co-ArtsMarket owner and CEO, John F. Stevens.  They have two sons, 10 and 7, and are active community volunteers in Bozeman.   All are passionate fly fishers and alpine skiers.   

E-Mail Address: lstevens@artsmarket.com

Appointed Research Director in April 2003, Sean Becker manages research design, implementation and assessment and is ArtsMarket’s chief economic and quantitative analyst.  With a complete working knowledge of statistical analysis, database management/design, econometrics, data-mining, direct marketing and research techniques and technologies, Mr. Becker brings ArtsMarket a strong research background in such diverse subjects as social cognition, gender bias, organizational psychology, business management, and technology transfer.  Trained in academic research fellowships and commercial research firms such as IMPLAN and SCAN-US, his professional experiences include work with US Congress, US Census Bureau, the US Department of Commerce, plus several hundred municipalities, economic development authorities and consortia of businesses and non-profits.  

Based on the success of Mr. Becker's work, he has been asked to speak on economic development and the arts from coast to coast, including the 2003 and 2004 National Arts Marketing Conferences.  In a statewide Louisiana Division of the Arts economic impact study, Mr. Becker revealed $1 billion worth of non-profit arts impacts and presented The Economics of Creativity: How to Build on a Foundation of Culture at the 2002 National IMPLAN Economic Impact conference in New Orleans.  This research supported investing in Louisiana’s creative industries, which, under the leadership of Governor Blanco, has resulted in $500 million in new investments.  The campaign developed out of the Louisiana impact study is available to browse at http://www.artbuilt.org/.  More recently, at the 2004 IMPLAN conference Mr. Becker presented The Starring Role of Film Production in the Montana Economy, a legislative development project created to inform the design and implementation of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer’s Big Sky on the Big Screen Act.  The film production tax incentive has been designed to build the local film industry by incentivizing use of Montana workers, equipment, products & services. The bill was signed into law May 2005 and the research awarded an honorable mention for the Best Cluster Based Strategies in the US from the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) in September 2005.

Mr. Becker’s seasoned analytics have led to many proven successes.  State agencies, municipalities, regional consortia and individual organizations all over the United States have requested Mr. Becker to evaluate their own economic development strategies.  An example of this type of work is the research conducted jointly with ArtsMarket president Louise Stevens to support a culture-based, urban renewal / downtown redevelopment initiative in Yakima, WA.  This work was awarded the prestigious International Economic Development Council Category Winner for Best Research Report for cities less than 50,000 population in 2003 and has to date helped win over $2.5 million in seed funding.  Mr. Becker has also recently conducted economic development studies for the State of Montana and the cities of Berkeley CA, Evansville IN, Monroe LA & Mesa AZ.

E-Mail Address: sbecker@artsmarket.com

Sarah Elliott, Research/Administrative Assistant

Currently a senior at Montana State University, pursuing a degree in Exercise Science and soon applying to physician assistant school for the school year of 2006 – Ms. Elliott is assisting ArtsMarket in office management and research.  She grew up in Juneau, Alaska adventuring the ocean and the mountains as a daily activity.  Bozeman’s great outdoors and competitive downhill skiing program brought her to MSU with powder days on the ridge at Bridger Bowl keeping her love for Montana alive and well.  Prior to joining ArtsMarket, she was employed by the State of Alaska, Alaska Glacier Seafood’s, Greens Creek Mine, and MSU.

E-Mail Address: selliott@artsmarket.com

E’Vonne Coleman has worked with ArtsMarket as a Senior Associate Consultant since 1994 and served as Executive Director of Durham Arts Council, Inc. from 1992-2000.  Currently she is Assistant Director for the Office of Continuing Education and Summer Session at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.  With more than 20 years of experience in the arts and cultural fields, E’Vonne is an active management consultant and national speaker on cultural policy. For seven years she served the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), first as Assistant Director of the Expansion Arts Program, and later in an advisory role as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the NEA. E’Vonne has won numerous awards for her outstanding service to the arts, including the National Endowment for the Arts Distinguished Service Award. She is co-founder of The Association of American Cultures, a leading advocacy and service organization for people of color and the arts, and she serves on the boards of Downtown Durham, Inc., Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, University of North Carolina Center for Public Television and ARTS North Carolina. E’vonne holds a BA with honors in Dramatic Arts from North Carolina Central University and an MA in Performing Arts Management from The American University in Washington, DC.

Joan Lounsbery, Senior Associate Consultant  

Joan Lounsbery has worked with ArtsMarket as a Senior Associate Consultant since 1989.  Ms. Lounsbery’s career in arts administration spans 35 years.  Following graduation from UCLA in 1965 with a degree in music history, she served as Assistant to the Director of Programming at Carnegie Hall until 1971.  She then became the first Assistant Director of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for seven years.  From 1978 to 1992, she was Executive Director of Milwaukee’s Artist Series at the Pabst, one of the country’s leading chamber music presenting organizations.  She served on APAP’s board from 1985-87, on the faculty of its one-week summer basic workshop and as chair of its national conference in 1989.  She also served on the board of OPERA America and Arts Midwest and on review panels for the NEA, Chamber Music America, Arts Midwest, United Arts Funds of Minneapolis and the Wisconsin Arts Board.  In November 1992, she became Managing Director of The Skylight Opera Theatre, steering it into its new home, the Broadway Theatre Center in Milwaukee’s historic Third Ward, in October of 1993.  In 1994, she received the Performing Arts Leadership Award from the String Academy of Wisconsin and was appointed to serve on the Advisory Board of the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts and Humanities.  In July of 1999, she returned to California as Executive Director of the Santa Rosa Symphony.  She stepped away from that position in 2002 to again devote full energy to her first love, arts consulting.  She is currently on the board of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras, and serves as Chair of its Governance Committee.

Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Consulting Associate

Dr. Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer is the President of R.E.A.L. Experiences, Inc. (Realizing Excellence in Adult Learning) and a frequent consulting associate with ArtsMarket.  Through R.E.A.L., Dr. Sachatello-Sawyer has consulted to museums nationwide on exhibit and program planning including the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, University of Colorado Museum, El Paso Museum of History, Yellowstone Historic Center, Museum of the Yellowstone, The New Enterprise Factory, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Kentucky Historical Society.  Currently, she is working with ArtsMarket on a project with the American Drugstore Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Formerly the Division Head for Exhibits and Public Programs at the Museum of the Rockies, Dr. Sachatello-Sawyer conducted the National Survey of Adult Museum Programs funded by the U.S. Department of Education.  At MOR, she also organized the NSF-funded Landforms/Lifeforms and Rockies Rise Again projects.  Most recently, she is working with The Watercourse and International Project WET at Montana State University to develop and implement Native Waters, a tribal water education and exhibit program.  Dr. Sachatello-Sawyer received her Ed.D. from Montana State University in Adult and Community Education.  She received her teaching certification in secondary social studies from the University of Denver and completed her M.A. in Political Science at the University of Richmond.  Her undergraduate degree in Political Science is from Vanderbilt University.

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