Butts In The Seats

My Terrible Secret

After These Messages...

Before I reveal my terrible secret, I just wanted to direct readers' attention to a piece by Richard Florida in which he refutes the criticisms of his Creative Class work.

Now Back to the Show

The terrible secret that I have been harboring is the fact I have never read any of Peter Drucker's books. For those of you who don't know who he is, it isn't as great a sin as I make it out to be. Peter Drucker is probably one of the most respected authorities/writers on management, economics, and societial and political trends. As a person who purports to be exploring how arts managers can apply business trends to the non-profit world, it would probably be irresponsible of me not to have read some of his work.

Honestly, I have wanted to read his books and feel I am long overdue in doing so. Of what I have read of Mr. Drucker by those who admire him, he seems to be the real deal rather than the management theory flavor of the month. (He has been at it since at least 1950.) His work seems to have a degree of sincerity associated with it whereas many other management theories seem to be tinged with uncertainity and desperation. It is almost as if those systems work and people get paid a lot to write and talk about the theories, but no one is quite certain why it works and for how much longer it will.

Currently, I am reading his Managing for the Future. He has actually written a text specifically for non-profit management but they didn't have it at the library branch I frequent. That will be the next book I read. I haven't gotten through the entire book and I haven't seen a lot that would be applicable to the non-profit world, but there was one area he wrote on that did start me thinking.

He speaks of companies in the same lines of work in different countries banding together. They are run independently of one another, but each one handles an area in which they have greater expertise and resources. One handles the manufacturing for both firms, the other does research, product development and marketing for both.

I have been pondering if the same could be true for non-profits. I don't know if there is any value in international efforts outside of organizations located on the borders. There could be value in local or regional partnerships. In trying to think of divisions of labor, I came up against the insular and protective nature of non-profits that both I and Drew McManus have recently noted. Unless they engaged an outside company to handle marketing and development, I would imagine there would be accusations of staff bias in the areas of promotion and fund raising. Or else one would feel they deserved a larger chunk of the monies since their audience was larger and more affluent and they had more performances.

The Asolo Theatre Company and Sarasota Ballet have both occupied the same building and used the same stage since FSU moved their Film Conservatory back up to Tallahassee. They have completely separate staffs and neither of their webpages mentions the other exists, nor does the other appear on their "other arts links" pages. The separation isn't as readily apparent in the building though. I was just there last month and unless you are watching very closely, you can't tell when you are leaving the theatre's part of the administrative floor and are entering the ballet's.

They do share a box office staff and might share front of house staff. There is no indication that volunteering to usher for the theatre will include working for the ballet. The ballet does perform in other venues so they might need to recruit an usher corps of their own anyway. The ballet may get scenery via the Asolo Scenic Studios, but it isn't mentioned as a client. They might share costuming resources as the wife of the ballet's Marketing and Development Director is listed as a costume designer for the theatre. Considering the co-habitation arrangement was motivated by financial crisis, it is a pity there hasn't been continued exploration of cooperative and money saving efforts.

The areas I could see non-profits pooling their resources or splitting functions between them would be in box office/front of house, accounting, human resource and benefit management, publications/web administration, set & costume design/construction, concessions, physical plant & grounds maintenance. Though organizations would want their own people performing, they might also be able to cooperate on booking outreach events and creating support materials. Cooperative efforts might not be possible in all these areas, but they are probably places in which there could be the least contention about how resources were allocated. Development and promotion would take far more trust and honesty.

If anyone knows of organizations that have a high level of cooperation or you have additional suggestions, I would be interested as always.

Smart Thinkin'

When I was looking around the Memphis Manifesto website the other day, I came across a June 2003 Smart City interview with Ben Cameron who is currently the Executive Director of the Theatre Communications Group. TCG does advocacy and surveys on theatre, promotes some educational initiatives and publishes drama texts, American Theatre magazine and ArtSEARCH. The last publication has been one of my near companions in my job search efforts.

I any case, I stopped subscribing to American Theatre some time ago because it wasn't delivering anything new of significance to me. However, listening to Ben Cameron, I wonder if I should revisit the publication. If nothing else, I am going to listen to more of these Smart City interviews.

He discusses that in the past the focus of the arts has been on presenting quality. Trying to figure out how to do it all better than in the past. This has been reflected by one of the key evaluations of the work--the newspaper review which has discussed the merits of performances based on the quality.

He says when he was working for Target Stores as Manager of Community Relations the message he often got was that the focus needs to be on presenting the value of attendance. Certainly, the work has to be of the highest quality, but just like Target, if people don't see any value in walking through the doors, they never get to see the quality offerings within. He comments that this has only been recently that the arts have begun having a discussion on the value of a cultural experience.

There are 4 areas of value he says:

1) Economic-money spent by the organization and those who patronize the institutions contribute to the economic well-being of a community.

2) Education- arts benefits have manifested in studies showing that high risk students are more likely to participate in math and science, disciplinary problems and absences decrease, graduation rates increase.

3) Community Cohesion- Exposure to cultural expression increases tolerance for racial differences.

4) Civic Vitality- Cites Richard Florida studies of how creative classes contribute to municipal health.

I understandably interested in what he said after the interviewer asked him to discuss a talk he made at a Ford Foundation event that referred to how vaudeville theatre owners reacted to the emergence of film. So much of what he said reinforces topics I have read about and written on.

He echoed a fair portion of the pre-Ford Foundation history of the arts noted in the Leverage Lost... article I cited. (When I originally cited that paper I never realized it would end up having a recurring significance on a weekly basis!) He talked about how the number of professional stock theatres plumetted and how arts production shifted to the non-profit system we have today.

Cameron refers to a book titled The Radical Center: The Future of American Politicsby Ted Halstead and Michael Lind. It is difficult to transcribe the gist of his commentary on the book, but in brief, the authors noted that historically when there is war, technological change and a shift in rural-urban demographics (Civil War, Depression-WW II, etc) the tendency for the American people is to alter the social compact.

Cameron agrees with the authors that we are in the middle of a period when we will reinvent the social contract. Thinking that you can "just keep your head down" and weather the stormy economy may not be a viable strategy for continued success. He feels the challenge faced today is determining what social forces to pay attention to so we are prepared for how the situation realigns rather than waiting and trying to play catch up.

Among the examples he uses of theatres making preparations for the shifting expectations is the shifting of performance times on some nights to 6:00 or 7:00 instead of the traditional 8:00 curtain. They are doing this to in response to people's work and travel schedules and have met with success. This allows people to go to a performance right from work and still be home to kiss the kids good night by 8 or 9pm.

He also notes that some theatres are opening their rehearsals to the public. People are curious to see the process and learn how things come together. (A subject I broached back in February.) Some theatres are apparently taking the Today Show route and rehearsing on street level in a room with a plate glass window. Others are rehearsing outdoors or inviting people in.

The move has required a revamping of rules and expectations. Cameron gives the example of Anne Bogart's company (I assume SITI. He doesn't mention the name.) She tried it for a production and the actors apparently screamed at her at the end of the first rehearsal. She asked them to stick with it three weeks. They had to establish some ground rules for this new way of doing things. Among the questions they had were whether they should be playing to the audience or to the director.

He doesn't mention the answer, but it occurs to me that as simple as the question might be, it does indeed represent a complex situation. Rehearsals are about the director and actors communicating with one another on many levels. Performances are about the actors and audience communicating. Audiences would have to understand they wouldn't be getting that communication. Actors would have to remember that a choice they made that got a pleasing audience reaction might not be a valid part of the director's vision for the production.

The upshot of the decision though is a positive one. The actors told Anne Bogart they never wanted to rehearse any other way in the future. They saw exciting possibilities associated with having the people for whom they were making the work in the same room as them.

Other strategies have been to redesign the physical plant adding cafes, etc to make the theatre a social destination and not just a place you go to see a play. "Theatres thinking not about just how do we make a performance, but asking bigger questions like how do we orchestra social interaction in which the performance is a piece, but only a piece of what we are called to do."

He goes on to talk about the importance of arts organizations to "open our embrace to the fullest spectrum of the inhabitants of our cities and towns." He speaks not only about non-traditional casting and producing shows that have resonance with different segments of the population, but also in encouraging people of diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in the management end of the arts where they can make active contributions.

As I stated earlier, an interesting interview that I am glad I listened to out of curiousity. Some fodder for thought.

Blog Goal

I read a short article in the May 6, 2004 issue of Time about a website that embraced a goal that was similar to the one I have for this blog. Unfortunately, the article is not online to link to.

The article was about an American and New Zealander who have created an e-Parliament website (www.e-parl.net). Their goal is to serve as "a town hall for legislators from around the globe." They created the e-Parliament to allow lawmakers the ability to common challenges. "[There is] no way for M.P.s to learn among themselves, no Google for politics." says co-founder William Ury.

They hope to provide members with the ability to address issues more swiftly and effectively by allowing members to search for global colleagues who have already begun developing policy on issues like early childhood education and counterterrorism. According to the article, they are in currently trying to figure out how tools like email, chat software and intranets can be best employed.

This is a project I would like to grow out of my blogging here--collecting feedback and ideas to create a resource for cultural organizations to consult. Nobody is contributing right yet, but I have only been around for a few months. In time, perhaps....

Creative Tampa

I have been looking around to see what I can find out about the efforts communities are making toward becoming one of Richard Florida's Creative Communities. Of course, I came across the Memphis Manifesto. The links section provides a wide range of links to interviews and organizations across the nation which are trying to organize to revitalize their communities. The community website I liked best was Tampa's--CreativeTampaBay.com

While all the other websites have information on long range planning and goals for their cities, Tampa's front page has a number of ways people from the community can get involved in the efforts. They have salons people can attend to discuss the initiatives they are lobbying for and learn more about the creative community concept.

They also provide people with the forum to suggest their own initiatives to attract creative workers. The forum serves like meetup.com in that it is a central source of information about efforts that are being made in areas like improving transportation, technology, character building and civics, health, greenways and trails as well as arts endeavors.

It is difficult to assess how active each of these initiative groups is. It is good to see that Creative Tampa Bay is trying to harness the efforts of as many constituencies as possible and get them invested in the goal of attracting creative workers. There seems to be an effort to find strategies appropriate to the Tampa Bay area rather than appropriating what was successful for other cities as has been a concern of mine.

National Cultural Policy

Excerpts of my letter to Drew McManus (much of which is covered in the entry prior to this) and his answers appear today on Adaptistration.

This weekend I came across a couple articles that illustrate the effect of national cultural policy upon a nation. The first was an article from the Minnesota Star-Tribune entitled "Music Education Permeates Finnish Society." Essentially the article attributes all the exposure and value placed on classical music by the Finns as the reason why there is such a high concentration of musical talent there despite having a national population only slightly larger than Minnesota's. My favorite part of the article is a comment by an American visitor that he watched 3 television channels one evening. Two had concerts and the third was carrying a debate about whether to build another orchestra hall. In a couple of articles I have quoted, the authors have said orchestras should stop blaming the disappearance of music education from schools as a reason for falling attendance. On the other hand, clearly education and exposure can't hurt attendance.

The second article I came across was discussing the effect of focusing cultural policy on diversity. While the piece refers to British policy, I saw a number of parallels with the US cultural landscape. As much as I believe diversity is going to be a major influence on cultural programming in the US, I take this article as a warning about the negative aspects.

In the article, "Art for Inclusion's Sake", the author, Josie Appleton, believes that by rejecting the old methods for approaching art, current policy has also discarded some valuable principles. The author illustrates this by tracing cultural policy from the 19th century. She notes that Parliment was motivated to fund the creation of the National Gallery by the idea that exposure to the finer things would defuse the unrest among the masses. "In 1841, a Commons select committee saw art as a 'means of moral and intellectual improvement for the people'. The view was that 'men cease to become mob when they get a taste'. The National Gallery, said Peel, would help by 'cementing those bonds of union between the richer and poorer orders of the state'." The National Gallery was therefore placed centrally in London so that both rich and poor would have easy access.

She notes that the elite was acting in its own self-interest to avoid rebellion and were presenting objects that exemplified their ideal of beauty but there was also an egalitarian sentiment. There was a presumption that everyone possessed the intellect to enjoy and understand the art pieces regardless of social standing or ethnic background.

However, in the 1960s and 70s, the idea that there was a universally shared ideal of beauty began to erode. The concept instead was:

All claims to cultural value were merely the personal opinions of a white middle-class male elite, foisted on to the population in order to maintain power structures. A cultural democracy, by these terms, was a society in which everybody was able to express their opinion and create according to their taste. Only by getting rid of value judgements could culture serve everybody's needs.

As the 80s arrived, the onus was on cultural institutions to justify their existence in economic terms. This is still very much a factor in the US where organizations justify the value in regard to how much money they bring to the community by their operations and via what patrons spend on food, lodging and gas when they visit. Even the current mania to become one of Richard Florida's Creative Communities is more about bringing economic prosperity rather than an excitement about how much beauty and truth will enter one's life as cultural activities become available.

During this time, Appleton says, there was such a push to have art mean as many things to as many people as possible, art lost its meaning altogether.

If you value a painting only because it can tackle unemployment or improve self-esteem, then you have no idea what it is really worth. It's all about context, about the way in which you are using the painting, rather than the painting itself. 'Cultural diversity' policy blossomed as an expression of this situation. Uncertain about how to evaluate artefacts, cultural institutions celebrate difference as an end in itself. 'Diversity' here is really a metaphor for cultural disorientation.

She notes that museums have begun putting pieces by the Old Master's into storage and have started asking people to bring in objects from their own lives and are putting them on display. The aim is to provide a sense of worth to a person by acknowledging that their belongings have some value. "Because cultural institutions no longer believe in cultural value, their collections of Rembrandt and Constable look shamefully narrow and exclusive. By collecting the most everyday things from the most marginalised in society, museums are engaging in self-admonishment, castigating themselves for once being so high and mighty."

She notes that by using piece of art and artifacts define personal meaning, museums are actually working counter to diversity. If an object is used to learn more about ourselves, we aren't learning anything about the others who made it, what their lives were like and how they contributed to our current existence. It is self-centered rather than contributing to empathy with people different from ourselves.

This result almost sounds like Orwellian newspeak--"Self-Centeredness is Diversity." It is this along with an unintentional disempowerment of the participant I see as most worrisome and something to be wary of as arts organizations move into the future. Appleton says:

"This policy also has a low view of its visitors. The assumption is that visitors are uninterested in or unable to learn about the world. Each person is seen as trapped within his or her own private bubble, in constant need of affirmation and recognition. The idea seems to be that if people fail to see their reflection in exhibitions they will feel worthless and excluded...The image is of people wandering around aimlessly, unsure of their right to exist until their family photographs are valued by the museum. With this view of their visitors, it's no surprise that museums have put the Great Masters in the backroom."

Another criticism she has for diversity focused policy is that it shifts the criteria for success away from attracting large crowds to attracting large crowds with a certain color skin. For example, "Islamic art is not valued for its intricate, proportioned design, or because it provides us with an insight into one of the great historic civilisations; it is valued because it gets the right kind of punters through the doors." She asserts that this engenders a segregationist mentality that demeans the intellect and curiousity of different racial groups by assuming they are only interested in collections that reflect their background and experience and wouldn't understand or care for pieces connected to other traditions.

The situation in England provides some lessons for arts organizations in the US. In a pursuit of diversifying and expanding our audiences, we certainly need to provide a product that is accessible and appealing to our communities on more than a token basis. The most enthusiastic audiences are those who have a relative performing. The problem isn't just that we can't possibly present something that has some personal relevance to everyone in the audience. The problem is also that when people come to see their relatives, they aren't paying attention to how well the show is done or thinking about the themes it is communicating. You aren't engaged in audience building activities when you program with an eye to pleasing niches. The niche disappears from the seats when the element significant to them disappears from the stage.

This is why education programs like Drew McManus' docent proposal are so important. Audiences need to be provided with insights into the value contributed by all the nieces and nephews involved with a piece. As the public is able to make choices on television, radio, and the internet that reinforce an increasingly narrow worldview, the arts may end up being the last forum in which a dialogue about wider issues can be presented.

Volunteers to the Rescue!

I have been closely watching a series of articles Drew McManus is writing on the topic "How to Save Classical Music." He is using the docent program at the Denver Zoo as a case study of how to use volunteer labor to aid in the revitalization of orchestras. He begins by defining the problem, then talks about the Denver Zoo program and has most recently written on how to apply these lessons to orchestras. Volunteer programs are of special interest to me so I have already put a fair bit of thought into his entries. I suspect that additional consideration will so occupy me that this entry meant for Friday won't be posted until Saturday.

Drew starts out with the premise that while most arts organizations inevitably have education as part of their mission, the focus of education departments is typically on school programs rather than on audience education. He suggests training and empowering docents will provide support in the areas of marketing, public relations, education and outreach. Docents are traditionally individuals who do tours and lectures at museums and cathedrals. Mr. McManus' suggestion is to minimize the teaching posture and position docents more as knowlegeable companions.

He goes on to discuss the similarities between the Denver Zoo and orchestras which make the comparison valid. He also mentions the problems facing orchestras echoing the sentiments of the McPhee Knight Foundation speech I cited last week. The solution, he says, lies in adopting the Denver Zoo's aims:

They facilitate people in their community with the tools they need to become an integral part of the zoos mission instead of looking at them as merely check writing automatons. The zoo gives up a measure of its own control over the institution, but in turn they create a passionate group of stakeholders that perpetuate ongoing community interest and involvement with the zoo. They enable members of the community to become involved partners as opposed to static participants. In turn, the zoo entrusts these individuals with the important responsibility of communicating with the public the value of their mission and to create an interest in the actual “product”.

Personally, I have always been interested in getting volunteers more involved in the organizations for which I have worked. However, I have been concerned about the administration's committment and investment in the volunteers. This is why I would be cautious about starting such a program in an arts organization.

The problem I have faced is that administration often looks upon volunteer help as a forgone conclusion. There is a Field of Dreams assumption similar to the one made about audiences--if you are offering the opportunity to volunteer, then certainly people are going to want to do it so they can be associated with the wonderful things the organization does.

One place I worked had often discussed, but never held, a volunteer appreciation event in the 15-20 years of the program. I felt victorious at having been the first to successfully organize one. When it came time to plan for the next one, I was told money wasn't the issue but in light of the fact that after 20 years without an event, only 40 out of 350 invitees came, maybe it was better to have it every 2-3 years.

I was extremely annoyed. We had started doing performances at a 1000 seat venue that was much more accessible to major roadways than our other performance spaces, but with which our audience base was not familiar. The first show we hardly had 200 people attend. However, we didn't abandon doing shows there but worked on increasing awareness of the venue. In my mind, we could have done the same thing by noting the party date 6 months out on every piece of correspondence sent to participating volunteers.

As a result of perceiving an exploitative motivation with little thought of appreciation, I have never proposed additional programs in which volunteers could be involved. I do, however, collect ideas such as Drew's against the day I am in a position to direct policy.

In the second day's entry, McManus discusses how the program of the Denver Zoo is structured. I was impressed by the amount of training the docents underwent and how much they were invested in the zoo. One of the biggest compliants the volunteers had was that the program became too formalized and that full time employees assumed functions they once performed. It is to the volunteers' credit that they feel such ownership for the program. The zoo is so happy with the program they intend to double its size to 600 docents in the near future.

In his third entry, Mr. McManus discusses the problems with orchestras and how the docent program can help. One of the biggest problems, he says, is that orchestras devote an increasingly larger portion of their ticket revenue to market to the same, ever decreasing, segment of the public. When they do try to attract more diverse audiences, "it often comes off looking like a tragically unhip old guy trying his best to look young and cool."

Educational information that is provided is usually in the form of reams of printed material utilizing arcane terminology and might be supplemented by a brief pre-performance lecture. What it lacks, he says, is personal face to face contact with someone who is passionate and knowledgeable, but like you, doesn't have all the answers. He also suggested essentially gutting the PR department of everyone except an editor and let docents write press releases.

My reservations about the exploitation of volunteers aside, I found his suggestions very exciting. Certainly the training of docents would have to be well planned and executed. I know that some people volunteer for the social prestige association with an organization or art form brings. People who want to impress others with what they know may only compound the intimidation a novice feels. Excluding a volunteer from being a docent can lead to a whole other set of PR problems.

The benefits for this program could be enormous. You could offer any level of interaction from having docents mingling in the lobby answering questions to offering a low intimidation program people register for in advance. In the latter program you might have a docent contact a person on Wednesday saying "Hey, why don't I meet you for coffee before the show Friday night, my treat. Then I will make sure you get to your seat, we can talk at intermission and after the show. But if you have to get home to your kids, you can always email me with questions."

If your worst problem is that the new attendee ties up your docent by wanting to meet for coffee before every concert, is that really a problem? You can always introduce new attendees to each other and encourage them to meet for coffee as a group. (Then hit up the coffee shop for a program book ad at the very least since you are sending so many people his way.) You can also direct people to internet tools like meetup.com (which includes classical.meetup.com and theater.meetup.com) and evite.com that make it easy for those who share interests to organize discussions with people they have never met.

The idea about volunteers writing press releases was very intriguing. I am not as confident about the writing skills of volunteers as Drew is, but I have never tried it. This actually may be the answer to the boring press release thread Greg Sandow brought up. If you have docents submit press releases that highlight why they are excited by the piece or person performing, you excise the boring "professionally" written junk. As Drew suggested, all it takes is an editor (who can resist the temptation to insert boring stuff) to polish it up and perhaps reorder some points so the release starts out with the attention grabbing details.

Drew also suggests that docents could be valuable in attracting new audiences from the diverse communities they live in by disseminating information and generally acting as an advocate for the insititution. My thought was that unless people from these communities were already experimenting with attendance and just needed to be empowered by such a program in order to gain the confidence to volunteer as a docent, there wasn't much chance of achieving diversity.

I mentioned this to Drew and he agreed drawing docents from the current audience would only serve to continue drawing the current audience. He said instead "the trick is to get the program started with a core group that is not entirely representative of the current audience. A few ideas I've had is for orchestras to utilize individuals such as private music teachers who have adult students, retired school teachers." This sounded like the most prudent course to me.

A variation of the Denver Zoo docent program could certainly be worth the effort to implement. I didn't check out the Denver Zoo marketing budget, but the fact they estimated it only cost them about $25,000 to run a 300 person docent program is probably a miniscule portion of the budget. However, according to Drew's survey they heavily depend on the program to enhance the visitor’s attending experience, educate visitors about the zoo’s mission, provide staffing for in-school and summer education programs and provide paid staffers with time to attend to zoo operations. The docents are essentially the public face of the zoo.

I took a quick look at Baltimore Symphony's 2002 990 return. They reported 1.5 million for marketing. Even if Drew is wrong and a docent program only reduces expenses by 10% instead of 25%, $150,000 is still a fairly significant savings. Imagine what sort of docent training program you might have if you added half of that savings to a current volunteer budget?

To make all this work requires the docents to be invested in and well informed about the organization they represent. This level of investment and information can only be achieved if the docents have control of their program. It is straight from Management 101 that when you assign people responsibilities, you need empower them with the authority to act. The program also needs to receive the full support and cooperation of the organization administration. Essentially this ties in with the concept of open source management I wrote on back in February.

Drew doesn't think this is likely in symphonies due to an insular nature that resists releasing authority and transparency of information. His fear is that "Without their continuous support and involvement, the program will come across as nothing more than another propaganda tool that orchestra’s are already well known for."

Drawing from my background in theatre and popular music, I would say it depended on the age of the organization and how entrenched current management was in their ways. If it was relatively young in its institutional development, I would say there was a fair chance such a program might be adopted. Otherwise, I would have to agree with Drew that there would be too much inertia in the corporate culture to make progress. It seems that the biggest contributions of innovation and change in areas of business like the tech sector come from people who admit they didn't know any better. I imagine it change in the arts world would originate in the same place.

Of course, this is not to say that old dogs can't learn new tricks. Looking to the tech sector again you have IBM who have shown they can do just that. We should always strive to do better at every age.

Educated Giving

Since I talked about funding yesterday I thought it might be useful for readers to know a bit about how funding decisions were made.

Foundations typically ask for mission statements, information about programs, goals that have been met and financial statements. The information they require is often similar, but just different enough that you spend as much time recasting existing informaiton as you would had you written it from scratch. This is why the paper I cited yesterday encourages foundations to consolidate their reporting.

All this basic information is available to the public by law. The IRS and most states hold this information on file for public viewing. It can be very difficult to find out how to acquire it though.

Another option is to visit Guidestar.org. Many donors and grantors go there to learn about organizations they are considering giving money to or to find out what organizations meet their giving criteria. Anyone can access the information there.

Some of the information is provided by the organizations themselves so the amount available tends to vary from place to place. You can pretty much depend on at least finding the 990 filing. The latest filing I could find for most places was the 2002 filing which covers the 01-02 ficial year. The 990s give information on earned and unearned revenue, revenues and expenses, mortage information, etc. You can also discover the salaries of the highest paid officers and employees. A 990 is a good place to look if you are considering a job with a non profit and want to know about the financial stability of your future employer.

For most organizations, Guidestar also lists profit/loss and balance sheet financial statments. You can get the same essential information from the 990s, but it is much simpler to read in this format.

As mentioned earlier, you can also learn about the institutional missions and goals, the names of people serving on the board of directors and types of programs the organization conducts.

Guidestar is very easy to use. Check it out if you are even the least bit curious about an arts organization.

Shifting Funding Criteria

Yesterday the Artful Manager entry referred to a statement by the board of directors of the Independent Sector calling for a change in the way non-profits were funded. In addition to calling for the support of indirect project costs as Mr. Taylor noted, it also allayed some concerns I have had.

In an earlier entry, I discussed my fears that foundation funding criteria might not recognize the evolving arts environment quickly enough to sustain the organizations they support. The Independent Sector statement urges foundations to move away from short term project support to long term core support of organizations. It also strives to make foundations aware that in many cases, though they may not be aware of it, their support is crucial to the survival of the organization.

"Funders should be responsive to the capitalization needs of organizations, and to the forms of funding necessary to sustain them. Funders should not assume that an organization will become self-sustaining or that others will fund it after they have ceased supporting it....Where possible, a funder planning to exit a high-performing organization should assist the organization in obtaining funding following its exit."

This concept seems to reflect portions of the "Leverage Lost.." paper oft cited in my entries. Among the things the author wrote were:

"While these gifts were often significant in the life of a given institution, they were rarely associated with a formally constructed plan for that institution's progression, and even less often with a grand scheme for systemic advancement of the entire arts field."

"In addition to the already noted strategic goals of the Ford, it is highly significant that the Foundation viewed itself as a catalyst for these major developments, but not as the perpetual funder. "

"The most obvious, though rarely acknowledged, reason that it could not last indefinitely was that the institutional money supply could not continue to grow. An early assumption of many arts funders, including Ford, was that high leverage funding would stimulate other sources of contributed income for the arts, most notably from government, that would provide a steady and expanding flow of revenues: the so-called "pump priming" or "seed funding" strategy. Meanwhile, government was using the same logic to justify its arts funding."

In short, the problem seemed to be that everyone was following the Ford model. Everyone was giving short term money with the idea that it would lead to long term support. The problem was, no one was giving long term support.

The IS paper says that "Reliable, predictable, and flexible support is the lifeblood of nonprofit organizations. " It goes on to suggest that long term support will enable more intelligent institutional growth that is not diverted by the need to constantly reinvent themselves to look appealing to grantors.

"Because project grants, which are often favored by funders, usually have a completion date, it is not surprising that there may not be many renewals. The focus on project grants encourages grantees to continually propose new ideas to funders that possibly might fit narrow grant guidelines instead of focusing on building institutional capacity."

In another entry last October, Andrew Taylor also touched upon the destructive effects of this funding model:

'Grow, Grow, Grow' - The bulk of foundations, throughout history, have funded projects rather than operations, with an additional bias toward NEW projects. To get funding, arts organizations had to add new projects and increase the scope and size of their activities (and their staff, and their budget, etc.). As a result, many nonprofit arts organizations find themselves bigger and more complex than they need to be.

The IS article also suggests that funders of specific institutions cooperate with each other to develop an unified set of reporting criteria with which to evaluate and perform due diligence. The idea, of course, is to relieve organizations of the burden of producing myriad reports for all their funders so they can focus on institutional development.

The paper also mentions a number of barriers that might prevent foundations from shifting to this model. Among them are lack of confidence that their goals will be met via core support rather than project support, mistrust in an organization's ability to wisely manage the money and lack of interest or approval of all institutional activities.

Naturally, in return, the non-profits are expected to exhibit excellence of product and strategic planning. Long term support does not imply eternal funding at a constant level. The grantors are always encouraged to seek new entities to fund.

I would say that foundations becoming entrenched in supporting a select group of organizations is the aspect of the long term funding approach that causes me the most concern. If the measure of ones philanthropy shifts from how many organizations you have aided to how long you have been providing support to specific entities, it would be very easy for a foundation to gravitate toward funding those that garnered them the most prestige and recognition. One of the barriers to funding that the IS paper cites is "A funder may desire more individual credit for an organization’s success than is possible when it is one of a number of funders contributing core support." In an age where arenas and stadiums bear corporate logos, it isn't hard to imagine a grantor consolidating their support into a select few and encouraging relationships with other foundations to lapse.

Arts organizations are already wary of the local and regional entities with which they compete for funding and audiences. Imagine the animosity and resentment that would develop if they suddenly realized they had little hope of securing grants from major funders no matter how much they improved because the money "traditionally" went to a select few.

They might end up better off than those who secured the support of big "sugar daddy" foundations. Once a foundation goes from being a major supporter to sole supporter, artistic choices are sure to be measured against the foundation's values (or even just the grant officer's personal values) than they are currently.

Of course, just as there are angel investors in the for profit world who prefer to focus on less established up and comers, there are sure to be major foundations of the same bent. I would say that it is incumbent upon arts organizations to study this issue a little closer and then begin a dialogue with their funders about moving their support structure in this direction. Many foundations are large, somewhat ponderous bureaucracies so internal change might require pressure from the thousands of constituents they serve.

Other Viewpoints

I was reading an article on Artsjournal.com that mentioned quite a few Broadway shows originated elsewhere (in fact Prymate is opening this week directly from Florida State University which is rather uncommon.) I was wondering if anyone had collated the names of the shows which originated away from Broadway before moving there. I didn't find any (if anyone knows of an article, I would be grateful for the info) but I did come across a couple interesting sites.

The Door Swings Both Ways

I often talk about how the arts need to watch current business trends and assess how they can be applied to the arts world. I came across a Fast Company article from 1999 that spoke of a class at Duke that examined what the arts have to teach the business world.

"Leadership and the Arts" is taught by Bruce Payne. He brings his class to NYC from NC for four months. The class spends the time going to see theatre, dance, opera, orchestra concerts and art museums and discusses the lessons that can be derived from the experiences.

"In the new world of corporate America, everybody is worried about how to achieve excellence in smaller and flatter organizations," says Payne. "That means finding styles of leadership that work well with smart, self-respecting professionals. Since everybody knows that hierarchy never worked well -- and these days, it works less well than ever -- what styles of leadership really make the most sense? The people who succeed in the arts these days are people who have solved that problem. They know how to coach, they know how to encourage, they know how to praise, they know how to love. And they know how to express a vision that excites rather than intimidates."

The romantic view of leadership sees it as a kind of ectoplasmic magnetism, in which followers in variously sized groups -- from teams to cults to companies to countries -- are drawn mystically and irrevocably toward a central source of inspiration. A more practical view of leadership suggests that real leaders have identified and mastered a secret tool: emotional observation. If you can watch people -- and, by watching them, figure out what makes them do what they do -- you might be able to get them to do something else, something better. That leadership principle, Payne believes, makes the theater a perfect laboratory for anyone who wants to brush up on what makes people tick.

There were a couple parts of the story that made me wonder if I should open a consultancy business. There are topics it identifies as important that most arts people know far too much about.

"According to Payne, arts organizations, especially small repertory companies and dance troupes, serve as useful models for a world that reveres the startup. "The performing arts have always had to do more with less," says Payne. "All arts are essentially entrepreneurial."

Business books and seminars have picked clean any number of occupational metaphors to teach management and leadership skills -- sports, the military, wilderness survival, religion. Yet, perhaps more than people in any of these other fields, people in the arts have learned to deal effectively with impossible deadlines, tight budgets, temperamental employees, and the perpetual challenge of selling a product with a short shelf life to a fickle, demanding consumer base.

For inspiration on creative ways to lead a company -- or to chart a meaningful career -- there's no business like show business"

All Around the World

I also came across a website with the results of a world wide survey comparing the social norms of a number of countries on topics like Social Welfare, Sports, Religion, Politics to picayune details like whether a period or comma is used as a decimal point. Another website breaks the responses down by subject area.

It is all very interesting reading and the questions seemed to have been set up so that answers were reflecting the same criteria. For example, being late for a meeting was measured in increments of when you mutter excuses, when you apologize profusely, and when the lateness was intolerable. Many cultures it was 5 min, 10 min and 30 minutes, respectively. In some cases though it was 30 minutes and 1 hour, respectively.

I did wonder about the validity of the survey or at least about the age of those answering the questions when it came to the arts section because everyone almost uniformly answered "You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's likely you don't see that many plays, either," or a near equivalent. It made me wonder if the reputed esteem that Europeans bestow upon the arts was a myth they liked to reinforce so they could feel superior to the U.S. or if it is just likely that the type of people who spend enough time on the web to answer lengthy cultural surveys aren't inclined to go see shows.

Nonetheless, it is all very intriguing.

More Power of Blogging Thoughts

Last month I did an entry on Bloggers as the New Arts Critics. This past weekend, Terry Teachout touched upon the same subject in an interview on Studio 360. (The whole interview is very interesting, but for the portion pertinent to this entry, click the forward button on your media player twice to the third segment and move the progress button to about 5:15)

During the interview, Mr. Teachout mentions that he writes so prolifically for his blog in addition to providing reviews and commentary for print journals and authoring books (a fact noted in a recent Washington Post article) because contributing to a new medium and interacting with his readers is so exciting and engaging. He goes on to talk about how he sees serious arts coverage naturally migrating to the web as less time is devoted to coverage in papers and television. He is confident that good bloggers will gain credibility and influence. He says of blogs, "They empower the amateur. Anybody can write one. And whether you have any credentials or not, if it is any good, believe me, it will get noticed."

He was then asked if more amateurs blogging necessarily meant there would be more talented people in the world rather than just a lot of people churning out a lot of mediocre stuff. Teachout mentioned he now interacts with many very talented people who he had never heard of prior to coming across their blogs. These people don't have access to the traditional media channels through which to make their reputation but are doing so on the web.

The interviewer also brought up the point that the ease of self-publishing on the web circumvents the reflection and review process that one goes through before submitting work for print publication and removes the outside point of view of an editor. Teachout responds by pointing out that it is also easy (and widely lauded by the online community) to go back and insert an update or retraction in an entry saying you were wrong in your initial assessment.

He did feel that the way Amazon has set up their review process was not conducive to the rendering of honest, quality reviews. He does mention that he can find some really excellent writing among the other reviews, mostly from people who are amateur experts with a passion for the subject matter.

I find this whole conversation on the future of blogging very exciting and intriguing. I had a brief email discussion on this matter with Adaptistration writer, Drew McManus. He pointed out that another article I linked to about publishers sending free books to top Amazon reviewers didn't address the issue of payola for a favorable reviews. I had mentioned this as a possible dark side of blogging reviewers in my blogger as new reviewer entry. As I said then, how do you guard against it? If you are getting paid nothing and working hard to produce quality work, it is easy to favor those who provide you with even modest considerations.

The obvious answer is for today's noted bloggers to come up with a policy of behavior that will establish a precedent while blogging with the intent to influence is still young. The problem is that there is no recognized source of authority (and isn't lack of a dictating force part of blogging's allure?) for people to organize around. Drew McManus' opinion is that it will be another decade before companies find a way to make the process profitable for the writers. What happens in the interim? He points to the fact people choose news channels most closely aligned with their own views as a harbinger of the end to an effort of objective reporting.

While the idea that one may soon be able to go through life without having their world view challenged is rather frightening, the silver lining would be more writers would find employment satisfying the demand for niche writing. (I can even imagine someone becoming fabulously wealthy providing material that reinforced opposing views.)

As Terry Teachout said--interesting times and technology to be contributing to and taking part in. Of course there is a reason why the sentiment "May you live in interesting times" is considered a curse by the Chinese.

Ballet of the Speedway

Last night the Roanoke Ballet Theatre presented NASCAR Ballet. Their website explains it best:
"NASCAR Ballet centers around 20 ballet and modern dancers (who represent cars) who circle a forty foot horseshoe track that banks around the corner complete with break away railings."

When I read the story last week in the Toronto Star, my first thoughts were akin to the Penelope McPhee accusations I quoted earlier this week-- I felt it was an example of dumbing down the arts. I may have agreed with Ms. McPhee that this was an attitude that needs to be discarded, but I also admitted I recoil at anything that smacks of dumbing down as well.

Of course, I caught and scolded myself for not giving it due consideration before I denounced the idea. Since I haven't seen the show, I don't know if it was a good idea. Reading a bit about the development process and the way they intended to execute the concept, I must say I was a bit intrigued.

Good concept and execution or not, it does present a good test of the shift in attitude Ms. McPhee espoused. NASCAR probably represents the antithesis of the arts, at least sterotypically. The reality of NASCAR demographics probably conforms to a "sophisticate's" perception as well as a "plain folk's" concept applies to arts attendees.

The company has done some other non-traditional pieces in the past so the regular audience won't be totally taken aback by the show. I imagine, though, that a traditionalist might be scandalized by "gauche" elements of production which include: three huge monitors. One presents a sportscaster calling the race and interviewing drivers. The second shows the "pit" where dancers/cars bedecked in sponsors' logos are serviced. The third presents commercials by the show's sponsors.

When I really got to thinking about it, I couldn't see why a contemporary subject like death defying racing was any less proper a subject than courage in the face of enchantment is in Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

The company seems to have acknowledged the reality of their situation and embraced the outlook suggested by McPhee and the creative communities monograph I recently cited.

"We are hoping through this production to expand the traditional dance audience to include others who may never have experienced dance. The race is represented in a fun, wholesome environment and respect for the sport is at it's heart.

"In order to keep the arts alive, it is up to us to produce higher quality, exciting, never-before seen extravaganzas. We have to entice the audience in, we can no longer just expect their participation. By opening up our thematic interests, we open ourselves to a whole new segment of potential dance lovers...We need to keep experimenting, keep inventing. We have to be willing to take risks. We can't be scared into thinking small." says Jenefer Davies Mansfield, Executive/Artistic Director of Roanoke Ballet Theatre. "These elements are integral in keeping the arts alive in a fiscally conservative environment.""

I wish them good luck with this and future events and will be interested to see if what they are doing becomes more prevalent.

Arts Education

My cable modem's insistence on not working seemed to imply I should take advantage of the turn in the weather to warmth and sun. Thus I do not have a long, involved entry today.

Instead, I bring you some resources for education in various fields. There are a great many organizations with good education outreach programs. The ones I list here have lesson plans and classroom resources or have scads of links to websites that do.

General Links

Arts Education Partnership has the most comprehensive selection of links to sites with education resources for all disciplines I have seen.

ArtsEdge, Part of the The Kennedy Center's education website has a very extensive selection of lesson plans for every discipline.

AllLearn (Alliance for Life Long Learning) has online courses run by Yale, Oxford and Stanford. While you do have to pay for their courses, the link I list here takes one to a page with links to a number of academic subjects, including Dramatic Literature, Classical Music, Dance and Visual Arts.

Theatre
The Utah Shakespearean Festival has some excellent articles on themes from all of Shakespeare's plays, plus all the non-Bard shows they have done. Many of the articles are from their Insights publication which they make available to patrons.

Opera
Opera America offers links to study guides by opera compnaies across the US as well as guidance on additional programs.

Orchestras
I didn't find any resources with lesson plans, but Playmusic.org had links to the children's pages of orchestras across the country (San Francisco, Dallas and Baltimore were my favorites!). These pages have a lot of activity suggestions for kids to do on their own or for their teachers to do in school. These were some of the best interactive education pages I saw in my search. (Translation: I spent a lot of time playing)

Visual Arts
The Getty and The Smithsonian both provide good lesson plan resources for the visual arts.

Dance
The New York City Ballet's study guide for George Balanchine's The Nutcracker was the only resource I could find at this point.

I am sure there are more study guide resources out there. If people want to make me aware of them, I will assemble this list on to a resource page.

Misc. Tips

I have assembled a small collection of ideas related to marketing and constituent relations. Thought I would share some of them today. I am not including donor benefits today because they could go on forever.

Volunteer Relations
April is National Volunteer Month so it is always nice to show your volunteers that you appreciate them. Some organizations I have come across have:

-Had volunteer dinners with entertainment and awards.
-Had a Holiday party where the volunteers were invited to bring an ornament to decorate the tree. This publicly exhibited how strong the volunteer corps was and how involved they were since few people ever saw more than a handful of them at one time.
-Annually nominated a volunteer of the year for a United Way recognition dinner and then noted the fact in the volunteer newsletter.
-A couple places I worked required the entire cast and crew to help strike the set at the end of the run. The volunteer guild would make a big pot of spaghetti or chili or bring a 4 foot subs for dinner. This let the volunteers rub elbows with the cast and also allowed the strike to move along on schedule.

Marketing/Public Relations

For Resubscriptions some organizations have:
-Had resubscription dinners with buffet/heavy hors d'oeuvres, sometimes with a concert/one act play as added incentive.
-Taped cards with Hershey Kisses attached the seats of season subscribers. The cards said "X Theatre Loves Their Subscribers! Exclusive Subscriber Ticket Sales End X." This showed the subscribers they were appreciated and created a buzz among non-subscribers wondering what it was about. A curtain speech explained it all. (Have to credit Lisa Jones at the Carolina Ballet with this one. I adopted it from her. Works fairly well.)

For Public Awareness/Relations Some Organizations Can:
-Do short, pointed curtain speeches and be available at intermission for questions/comments.
-Speak at Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club meetings. Offer special business packages.
-Hold backstage tours, playtalks and advanced discussions about themes in shows.
-Give discounts on tickets for people who bring food donations for the local Food Bank.
-Have free First Monday play readings taking advantage of the theatre being dark
-Set up special "get you to the theatre on time" seating and menus with restaurants
-Have pre-show orientation talks in a room off a lobby or restaurant (promoting dinner, talk and show packages)
-Approach a local bookstore about having staff do talks about shows, costuming, lighting design, opera, etc or with significance to a best seller. In return, book store will put up window display promoting a performance with props, posters and perhaps a dress form. (Actually started this process with a Barnes and Noble and got agreement but my employment contract ran out before it came to be.)
-Similarly, approach churches (they are groups of people who go to events regularly as a family unit after all) to do talks about topics of interest. (I met an executive director with an art history background who spoke at evening church talks on the fact that some of the implications in The DaVinci Code that famous people belonged to secret societies were based on fabricated forgeries a la The Hitler Diaries)
-Encourage actors/directors/technicians/musicians, etc to blog. I mentioned the benefits and pitfalls of which I discussed at the end of this earlier entry and the beginning of this one. Just today, I came across these guidelines Groove Networks sets for employee blogs.

-One policy I never was in the position to institute once I formulated it--No disparaging remarks about patrons on the job. One place I worked not only discussed the stupid things people said or asked, they posted a running list on the box office door. I believe this type of thing creates a hostile work environment which subtly insinuates itself into customer care.

Customers are indeed idiots. I should know, I am one. Everyone has an off day. When you deal with a couple hundred people each day, there are bound to be a few having their off day (as well as the chronic idiots). One easy solution to this is the old money in a jar routine whenever someone complains about a patron. Then take the jar to a bar after hours and use it to buy beer and pizza and complain your heart out there.

Anyone else have some tips they have found useful? Some of the things I have done and come across have been sort of corny, but they were successful. I would really be interested in knowing what people have done. I will compile a list and post it as a resource people can consult when they need inspiration.
Clicking on "Joe" at the end of the entry will let you email me.

Emperor Has No Clothes

So I am of mixed feelings today. Yesterday, the last place I worked enthusiastically welcomed the news that I would return for two weeks to help them run this year's festival thereby confirming that my skills are indeed valued. But I also got a letter from Wayne State saying they are hiring someone else for the position which, of course, introduces doubts to my mind.

One thing I didn't mention before-when I got to Detroit, I learned the woman who had held the position for three years was applying for the job as well. Apparently it was an instructor position and was being made a tenure position so she had to re-apply. At the time, I was a little annoyed at not having been told that because I wasn't sure I would have agreed to fly out knowing I was challenging an incumbent. But I also knew it didn't matter. These people had flown me out, fed me and had set a lot of time aside so I could discuss a topic about which I was passionate. (No, not myself, arts management!) Overall, I figure I got a pretty good deal.

This conflicted state of mind seemed like a good springboard for introducing today's topic---My criticisms of the arts. Last week I mentioned all the reasons why I still possess an idealistic attachment for the arts and what I do and why I would seriously consider returning to work for idiots who fired me. This week I want to talk about the detrimental aspects of this thing I love so much.

I have often felt guilty that I perceived the people I worked with and for had the wrong attitude. They worked hard and were trying their best with limited resources. Who was I, as someone relatively new to the arts, to judge their outlook? However, emboldened by the remarks I read by Penelope McPhee at a retreat for symphony orchestras funded by the Knight Foundation, and having accumulated a decade or so more experience, I have to say I still think they were wrong. So, I am taking this opportunity to level some general criticisms about the state of the arts.

First of all, I would highly recommend reading the speech. Though I have a habit of quoting half an article in my entries, I am going to try to abstain from doing so here. Right from the beginning of her speech, she said something that resonated with me.

"Today, I would argue vehemently that communities don't need an orchestra just for the sake of saying they have an orchestra. The mere existence of an orchestra in a community does not contribute to its vitality. Communities need vibrant, relevant orchestras that give meaning to people's weary, humdrum lives.

I am increasingly convinced that orchestras that are not relevant to their communities do not contribute to their health and vitality. And I'll go even further — the more orchestras peel off three to four percent of an economically elite, racially segregated fraction of the community, the more they'll be part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

The caliber of the playing, the renown of the conductor, the architecture of the world-class hall mean little or nothing if the sound doesn't resonate throughout the community."

A little further on she says:

But if you agree with me, and accept this as your mission, you first have to fundamentally change your attitude toward your audience. You have to stop blaming them and start looking inside your institutions for answers.

From my perspective as an outsider who loves the music but is not an expert, I'd argue that for the most part, orchestras have nothing but disdain for their audiences. The whole notion that doing it differently is "dumbing it down" is disdainful. The attitude you communicate to us audience members is that you're doing us a favor to let us pay for you to play what you want to play. You want us to pay our money and eat our spinach because it's good for us.

Not only do you want us to eat the spinach, but you want us to choose it over ice cream every time; you want us to eat it in your restaurant at 8 p.m.; you want us to like it the way you've seasoned it. And, God knows, you want us to eat it pure, not in a souffle or a salad.

And, oh yes, if we've never eaten spinach before, we're barely worth serving it to anyway, because if we've gone this long without tasting it, we must be rubes anyway and we'll never appreciate it.

So if we're going to be serious about serious change, we first have to get serious about this question of mission.

This essentially goes to my biggest complaint about the arts world. The "Field of Dreams" expectation that if you perform or present it, people will and should come. Yes, I have been absolutely guilty of the type of thinking I quote above. (It is especially easy to think everyone is a cretin when you are doing a job search!) Yes, I absolutely think that the arts possess incredible value for people's lives. But I have empathy for the "great unwashed." I don't believe everything performed is of interest or significance to me. I feel intimidated going to gallery openings and symphonies--and I know some of the rules. (I play follow the leader to avoid clapping between movements, but still have no idea how to tell the end of a movement from the end of a piece.)

Of course, the Field of Dreams view doesn't only apply to attendance, but funding as well. I have worked for organizations who lost the faith of thier audiences and launched huge "save us" campaigns. I know that a desire to keep ones job factors into it, but I think it is rather egotistical to expect foundations and governmental bodies to bail you out because you have mended your ways and may possess the potential to contribute something of value to your community again.

On the other hand, I have been employed by organizations who have worked for 5-7 years to develop solid relationships with foundations and politicans. I am not talking about throwing a lot of money at them and wine and dine schmoozing, but painstakingly proving oneself over time. When the organization gets a sizable chunk of funding, smaller organizations cry foul and write editorials saying we were favored because we were the big kid on the block.

Yes, this is essentially true. When you are a small, volunteer run organization, you can't expect to get the money an institution with a full time development director can get. In many cases, those smaller organizations are getting funded at a much higher ratio to the effort they expended securing the money than my organization was. There are a lot of arts organizations out there working damn hard for what they get and they have very few assets with which to grease palms.

There is no god given right for every arts organization to exist. Everyone has the freedom to give it a try, but it doesn't mean people have to come see your shows or pay for you to stay open. You can decry the soulless commercialism of the place across town and do avant garde stuff, and the more power to you. You just need to be aware that there are consequences for every decision. You may have to work harder to attract audiences and suffer being labeled as obscene.

I interviewed at a place this fall that didn't have its own performing spaces and instead presented in churches and outdoors. They were still held in a higher regard than the theatre companies that had their own stages. The theatre companies all competed tooth and nail with each other, insisting that each remain autonomous rather than uniting to focus their energies to achieving common goals.

I used to blame the non-profit system. The fact that non-profits were placed in a position of having to compete for funding to get the majority of their money from unearned revenue. But I realized community service was becoming an increasingly smaller concern for many organizations as they focussed more and more on just keeping the doors open. It might almost be better if some of them became for profit. Although, there is the danger of finding box office receipts unchanged regardless of classification. Audiences seldom make entertainment decisions based on tax status.

I don't have any easy answers for combatting these perceptions of audiences and each other. Certainly improved empathy and communication will be essential elements in any solution. McPhee's speech makes some suggestions, but I don't think they will completely resolve the problem.

For all the critical aspects of Ms. McPhee's speech that I agree with, there were also some observations in which I saw some hope. She comments:

"But newspaper journalists, decrying diminishing subscribers, worry that the democracy is at risk because people aren't getting the news — from them.

Orchestras, being mostly led by tyrants, aren't concerned with the death of democracy. But they do believe the very fabric of Western Civilization is at risk if people don't get classical music — from them...

...They're confusing the content with the delivery system. In fact, people are getting much more news, much more quickly, than ever before. The difference is that the content is coming from lots of different places, and newspapers no longer own the franchise.

The solution she suggests, may be found by emulating newspaper's who now offer both print and internet access to their stories.

And here's another important parallel. They've given up on the crossover idea. They are no longer expecting readers who get their news on the Net to decide to subscribe to the traditional paper. The Internet news is not a marketing tool for the "real thing." They have thousands of new readers for the "new thing." I hope if Magic of Music does nothing else, it will put to rest the idea of crossover and adopt the idea that we can sell multiple products to multiple audiences.

To me, one of the promising findings of the market segmentation research it demonstrates is that there's a vast potential audience of living, breathing individuals with different — but real — connections to the art form and to our orchestras. These aren't uninformed rubes who need us to show them the light. Neither are they look-alike, think-alike mannequins receiving the Canon as dictated by us. These are individuals who make purposeful and highly personal decisions. Some of them have actually tested our product and found it wanting. The question is are we listening to the very clear signals they're sending. And, are we willing and able to let go of our prejudices and respond to the message in diverse and innovative ways?

For me, these data validate everything we've been trying to accomplish in the Magic of Music. They tell us unequivocally that whether we want to strengthen, deepen or broaden ties to the orchestra, we need to do something fundamentally different than what we've done before. We need to put everything — repertoire, musical genres, ensemble configurations, venues, performance times, guest artists — everything, on the table for review and negotiation. The data also makes it clearer than ever before that there is no one solution. No magic bullet. Different folks need different strokes. And we must be nimble, flexible and open enough to allow for that."

"I believe wholeheartedly in that mission, and I do not believe for a minute that listening to audiences is pandering or diminishes quality. I think it's just good business."

This was very reminiscent of the portion of the "Cultural Development in Creative Communities" monograph I excerpted last week. I had cited it because it counseled different strategies for different communities (as McPhee's does here).

I also stated some concern for the idea that arts organizations had to diversify their services and offerings. Part of my concern was (and still is) that by offering a little bit of everything, organizations would do no one thing with a level of excellence. Part of this was a fear that people's view of the arts not be debased.

I was also concerned that by answering the expectations of the community, arts institutions would diverge from what funders expected of them. I was encouraged by Ms. McPhee's speech because it showed that a funder not only understood this was a trend for the future, it also encouraged organizations to embrace the changing times.

So there you go. My candor may not be helping my employment prospects, but the mission of my blog is to provide solutions. The only way to do that is to recognize some problems to comtemplate and discuss.

Well Laid Plans

At the risk of being derivative of today's Artful Manager posting, I too would like to call attention to the Washington Post article on the planning process that went into the Arena Stage's 2004-05 season. Since some of the themes of my past entries have been to bemoan the lack of space newspapers give arts writing and to champion making people aware of the process that goes into creating art, I was pleased by the article on both counts.

I thought the article did a good job talking about the myriad decisions that factor into season selection. I won't mention all of them because they are outlined fairly well on The Artful Manager. A couple of things I wanted to note from my own experience though--

First, I was amazed to see the season selection starting so early. They started in September/October. Most places I have worked at have started taking suggestions and reading scripts around December, the holidays put things on hold so nothing happens until January. The whole process of balancing things has to be crammed into February because marketing needs to start printing up brochures for season renewal in the beginning of March. (more on that later)

Why don't things start earlier? Well typically people are so busy with trying to get the new season started in September and October that they aren't thinking about what they are going to produce at that time next year. The Arena has a leg up because they have a fairly large Artistic and support staff that provides the decision makers a little more free time to begin contemplating. Most theatres don't have one dramaturg. Michael Kinghorn is listed as Senior Dramaturg which implies that there is more than one person acting in that capacity. (What is a dramaturg you ask? Glad you did, check here and here)

Don't get me wrong, the Arena operates at a level where they need this size staff in order to endure the quality that their patrons expect of them. I just wanted to make it clear that the article was not representative of the majority of theatres though pretty much every theatre strives for the balance the Arena reached regardless of staff size.

The other thing I noted about the article was the absence of input from a marketing staff member. Marketing people aren't always on a selection committee and even if they are, they may not attend every meeting. However, with the amount of time the process takes, (and it doesn't appear that the Arena is very different), the marketing department is always clamoring for a decision to be made soon because there are brochures to design and mail, press releases to write and a resubscription campaign to launch.

I don't know what it is like in other art forms, but in theatre if you have a season that only runs part of the year or if there is a portion that you consider your "high" season, you make tremendous efforts to start your resubscription campaign for next season before the last show of the current season starts (sometimes even the second to last show).

The reason is it is easier to get people to resubscribe when they are handed a brochure while watching something they enjoy. (Thus the reason many seasons end with a high energy musical or familiar classic. Arena is ending this year with Tennessee Williams, next year with Eugene O'Neill.) It is difficult enough to get people to subscribe at all these days, trying to start in the summer when they are thinking about things other than a show they saw months ago is insane. The decisionmaking and approval process on the designs and text of a marketing campaign is almost as involved as the selection process and compressed into a tenth of the time. It is no wonder marketing people intone "Are you done yet?" as their personal mantras.

One side observation on this last point-with the exception of one instance, in my experience if a show does well, the credit goes to the artistic choices. If it does poorly, the blame goes to marketing for not pushing it enough. This seemed to be such an undeviating trend that when I experienced the exception, I immediately approached the marketing director. Because it was just an atypical experience, I filed her obvious answer as reinforcing my "When I am In Charge" credo.

She said that while the executive director did tend to micromanage things more than she would like, both he and the artistic director were aware of and approved of all the marketing and advertising decisions and accepted responsibility for the result.

This may seem quite obvious. In most of my experiences, the top leaders would either nod agreeably at the explaination of why more money was being invested in promoting some shows than others or they would say they didn't want to be bothered with the details. In both cases, the marketing director would be called on the carpet if attendance was disappointing.

This is essentially the main reason I won't handle marketing anywhere I don't feel my supervisors comprehend that artistic decisions and social trends can contribute to how well a show succeeds independent of how much effort and money is put into promoting it.

I would be interested in knowing if other arts marketers had similar experiences. Just click on my name at the end of the entry and drop me a line!

Enough About Me

The entries over the last couple days have been about me and my family so I decided to get back to researching and exploring implications. Turning to my "Good Ideas" file, I found a monograph co-authored by the Artful Manager, Andrew Taylor for Americans for the Arts, "Cultural Development In Creative Communities." The monograph discusses how cities are attempting to revitalize themselves by attracting the "Creative Class" described by Richard Florida. Right from the beginning they warned against trying to exactly replicate strategies that other communities had successfully employed . Since I had railed against this in an earlier entry, I was glad to see the injunction so prominently placed.

Something near the end of the paper (page 8) caught my interest. In discussing the evolution of arts and culture in communities, the authors wrote:

"Some have already noted a dark side to the positioning opportunity engendered by Florida’s book: conflicts among major institutions and cultural facilities, small arts organizations, individual artists, and the formal and informal arts as each vies for a piece of this new—or re-made—pie.

This struggle is not new to the cultural development field. Our definition of culture has steadily broadened as the field—including major institutions—has reached out to informal, participatory, neighborhood, and community based
arts to embrace them as vital components of a local cultural ecosystem.

Audience research suggests that cultural consumers aren’t very interested in boundaries either, but freely graze as cultural omnivores among a range of choices from country music to opera, bead work to Cézanne, experimental film to the latest DVDs.

As we broaden the definition of cultural activity there is no need—and, in fact, great harm—in defining out existing institutions, audiences, and supporters."

This monograph provided additional insight to my earlier ponderings about the next evolution in the ways Americans will experience arts and culture. Their assertion seems to be borne out in the trends written on in newspaper and journal articles. What I am reading indicates that the transition to this new format may be rather uncomfortable and since I am trying to eke out an existence in the arts, that worries me.

One of the biggest impacts will apparently be in funding. In a different entry entitled "What About Discussing 'Worst' Practices", Andrew Taylor talks about how important rosy results are to attaining funding:

"Given our funding structure, our advocacy efforts, and our culture of feeling constantly under seige, we seem to lack an open place to discuss what we do wrong. Almost every foundation report I read about a funded project carries good news (underserved audiences were reached, goals were achieved, worlds were changed)....Unfortunately, the system we've established has a bias toward vaguely positive spin. Anyone receiving a major grant, and hoping to get another one someday, will want to show how wonderfully they managed the project and the cash. Most publicly promoted research on the benefits of the arts is prepared and presented by organizations with a direct financial stake in showing those connections."

In a Newsweek article, Douglas McLennan made some related comments on arts funding:

"But for a decade now, public arts agencies that should have been promoting the best artistic vision have instead been following behind the public, trying to find a denominator that, if not lowest, is most common. The arts are not most common. The arts ought to lead. Public arts funding is important—for better or worse, money is how government signals what it thinks is important. "

What happens when things change? How do you track who is being served when people make their attendance decisions at the last moment when it is most difficult to collect data about them? Does grant reporting move further into the territory of outright lying? Do funders need to change the criteria by which they evaluate programs they underwrite?

Since it costs more to attract new people than it does to retain existing audiences, how are arts organizations going to remain financially sound when attracting new audience members consumes so much more money?

What of the missions of organizations as strictly defining oneself becomes more of a libability as the monograph suggests? Does the focus of arts organizations become so diverse that they dabble in a little of everything in order to attract the widest base, but do no one thing well?

While I think a situation close to what the monograph suggests is inevitable, I don't think things will be as grim as my questions imply. (Though certainly many of the questions will prove to be pitfalls for some organizations.)

I do think that it is important right now to change the criteria that foundations and granting organizations use in determining who will receive their support. This will be especially true for governmental support. If public art support lags behind as Mr. McLennan suggests, it would not be surprising to see a handful of change resistant arts institutions begin the thrive for a short time as governments reward them for conforming with their views. Disaster would probably follow as the government support was suddenly shifted to catch up with the new public values.

A campaign to gradually shift the expectations of funders to reflect the changing reality of arts and culture would reduce the consequences of support lagging too far behind the trend. It might be good if the new reporting procedures valued institutional self-education and growth and required providing information on successes and failures. Open recognition of areas of weakness would allow organizations more freedom to mobilize their staff to address them. (Rather than exerting effort to mask problems for fear of losing funding.) Discussing these problems at conferences will also help others to avoid them and can make use of the assembled brain power to create solutions for those who face them.

On the other hand, technology may make this whole funding structure obsolete. It is becoming increasingly possible to track individuals by the signals cell phones, etc. give off. Is the ability to accurately assess the complete background of every person being served by a theatre, symphony, pottery class and poetry reading too far off?

The frightening Big Brother implications aside, wouldn't knowing so much more about one's audience help to serve them better? As long as a new funding system didn't reward people in direct proportion to the number of transponders which entered the doors, technology may have some promising implications for better audience relations and the distribution of funds.

Love What You Do

**Unlike most of my other entries which have some thoughts on the implications of situations and suggestions, today's entry is essentially a discussion of why I remain passionate and involved in the arts.**

An interesting thing happened while I was writing my entry yesterday. I got an email from the place I last worked asking if I was interested in coming back to help with the festival for two weeks.

A little background first-I worked at this place for 3 years handling the operational end of concerts and the large outdoor music festival. A year ago Feb, they found out I had been searching for other work, not for the sake of getting out, but to better my lot in life. After the festival was over in June, I was told that they were afraid I would find a job in the middle of the season and that even with the 30 days notice I was required to give, there wouldn't be enough time to find a replacement and so..adios.

Rather annoying to say the least. But they did give me 6 weeks notice, didn't hesitate to pay me for my 4 weeks of unused vacation and didn't impede my unemployment claims. I left on fairly good terms with a general letter of recommendation and they have been attentive about writing specific letters of recommendation for some positions.

On the other hand, unemployment has run out and their optimistic belief I would be snatched up for another job hasn't emerged. (And I have applied outside the entertainment industry if I thought my skills were applicable.) Honestly, I feel that I should be angrier than I am. I had saved well, so money isn't an immediate problem and my sister is allowing me to live with her so that is another problem solved. I just can't be angry at them for the sake of being angry I suppose. I just wonder if that means I have an evolved outlook on life or if I am delusional and insulating myself from my anger.

Outside of examining the whole psychology of the matter, I have started to think upon the way people become enamored of the arts. Despite knowing the negatives full well, people gladly devote their lives to the arts. Even though they know that they will probably end up waiting tables or temping more than performing and will search couch cushions for food money while friends buy houses, they are full of hope and optimistic about their future.

Now even as someone in the arts, I have pretty much viewed these folks as living in denial and self-delusional. It is to escape that fate that I have eagerly embraced my interest in the administrative side of things. I may not make much, but it is steady so I know where rent and food is coming from and I usually get some basic health benefits.

Yes, my current situation belies all that, but it shall not always be so!

But the thing is, as I am sitting here seriously considering going back to a place that fired me, I have come to a renewed understanding of myself and these folks who flock to NYC and LA with the hopes of making it big. In our own twisted ways that defy logic, we can't help the fact that we love this stuff.

At some point in the life of every person in the industry, someone speaks the phrase "If there is a part of you that can see yourself doing something else...do it." I still remember the guy who said it to me. At the time, like most people, I was so young and enthusiastic, I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else.

Now that I am older, more jaded, disillusioned and cynical, I have to say it is still pretty dang hard to imagine doing anything else. Even worse, I take notes and collect information from everywhere I work and interview at with the ultimate goal of eventually returning to teaching people how to do what I have done. Of course, I am teaching them the right way to do things so they are well prepared! I also utter the phrase warning them to turn elsewhere if they can imagine another path with the sincere hope some of them will.

I don't want any of them to fail, but am certain most of them will experience some very hard times. I just see it as my duty to try to turn from the path those whose love of the arts can't stand against a doom and gloom lecture in a classroom. Their love of what they do has to be strong enough to ease the pain of the bad times. It is because of my love for what I do that I am tending toward returning to the festival.

I have a real sense of ownership in that festival. I put a lot of effort into it and the successes of each of them were due to me (the problems were due to the weather). As far as I am concerned, the festival belongs to me and the people who preceded me in the job and to those who follow. Even now that I no longer work there, I feel it belongs to me more than it will ever belong to the rest of the staff regardless of how long they work there.

Yes, it is ego, but it is also true. It is physically and mentally draining, but when you are finally able to lift your head again...ah the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment! It buoys you the rest of the year and helps you to forget what you hate about the process by the time the event comes around again.

Because she is entering the fraternity of festival coordinators, I have actually been corresponding with the woman who replaced me and have given her tips to avoid the problems I faced. I had intended to volunteer for the festival day to provide guidance as the woman who preceded me did for me. The fact they want to pay me to do it and will put me up makes the decision seem all the easier. I will be going in knowing my fate, doing what I enjoy, see old friends on the staff and volunteer corps but won't have to work or worry as much as I have done for past festivals.

Like a love a mother feels for a recalcitrant child, arts people defy all sense and logic for the opportunity to reconnect with that part of what they do that excites them. In the visual arts, there are pieces that people find incomprehensible and that others pretend to understand. Then there are those who smile quietly and say "ah, yes."