Ah, Christmas Break! When no one is around and you can work on all those things you couldn't when the phones were ringing and people were asking you questions. Though I have to admit the absence of others left many unanswered questions like "where do we keep the x?"
One of the suggestions that consistently pops up on our surveys is that we should advertise our events on Myspace.com. For the last few days I have been creating a presence on Myspace for my theatre. I am usually a little reserved about joining in on the newest thing.
First, if the trend is just a flash in the pan you waste time and resources getting involved only to have it wane. Second, I like to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a new trend to see if it really holds any value for me and if so, how to best employ it. I remember the 90s when everyone had to have a webpage but didn't know how best to use it. People were adding every new special effects feature they could. Unfortunately, it all outstripped the capacity of a modem connection and ended up hurting relationships with businesses rather than enhancing them.
In the case of a Myspace presence, signing up is free and I already have images and text developed for my website. There isn't a terribly large investment of time or new resources to make it happen. Also, Myspace has tools that allow you to tell all your friends about an upcoming events with a click of a button. Now all my theatre needs is friends...
One thing I do know I will have to spend time on is making some small changes to how I present the theatre and its events on Myspace vs. our website. Even though there are zillions of people on Myspace they actually comprise a niche market that will react better to a different approach than the one on our public website.
Speaking of fine tuning ones approach, I broke one of my cardinal rules of press release writing today. I quoted a reviewer. My general feeling is that quoting a reviewer is a crutch for the lazy and/or unimaginative.
However, I do think I used the quote in an imaginative way. The performing company had included quotes and newspaper editorials from audience members that were just dynamite. For my press release I essentially said that one might think the group was excellent from what X reviewer said, but when you read that audience members said this, this and this, not only does it sound like the reviewer is being miserly with his praise in comparison, but you can see the group really engages and excites audience members unfamilar with the discipline.
Yeah, I know written here it sounds like I have essentially replicated those movie ads where they have "candid" interviews with people who saw the show. I think my execution is clever and original enough to expiate my sin of quoting a reviewer.
About a month ago I got a call from a reviewer who had some questions. At the end of the call she commented that she really liked my writing style and that my press releases were interesting to read. If nothing else, I know I am on the right path with my efforts to write better releases.
For all those who have had problems with cellphones during a performance and haven't been to the movies lately, attend upon my tale!
I went to see a movie yesterday and during the preview saw something that filled me with great delight. One of the ads featured a guy at a table on a cell phone essentially telling his girlfriend he can't live without them. Suddenly Sidney Pollack comes in and starts talking about how the scenery is all wrong because the colors are too bright. Then he tells the guy on the cell phone he should be red eyed and pacing around the room instead of sitting.
The guy on the cell phone gives Pollack an incredulous look and Pollack says "I'm sorry, is my directing interrupting your cellphone conversation."
I was cackling with laughter and was a little envious that the film format allowed them to do this sort of thing. I am half tempted to have my technical director move the rear projection drop downstage so I can project that little ad on it before the shows.
Though I have to also acknowledge there were 3 additional announcements to turn of cell phones - one before and two just after this Pollack piece. One of them was a screen that sat there static for a minute or so while a voice asked people to turn off cell phones a few times. As funny as the Pollack piece was, it might have been too subtle an approach. (Of course, it too plainly asked for cell phones to be turned off.)
It certainly didn't appear that people understood that the cell phone requests also extended to cessation of all noise. A woman behind me kept chatting in what sounded to be Tagalog for the first half-hour or so of the movie.
A number of theatres have gotten a little clever and produced CDs with cell phone rings that they play preceding a performance to catch people's attention and ask them to deactive the tones. Heck, the Chicago Sinfonietta even integrated them into a performance. But sometimes it seems like a losing proposition to request people turn them off, no matter how many times you ask.
While revisiting some of the resource links on the blog, the title of a piece on the Community Arts Network site caught my eye- Putting Culture Back in Agriculture. The piece is a grant report for the University of Wisconsin Extension, but don't let that dissuade you from reading it. It is not dry in the least and is very inspirational.
As a small town boy who goes nostalgic at the smell of cow manure, there were a lot of tidbits that caught my eye. The first was the vision of one of the earliest university presidents, Charles Van Hise.
"I would have no mute, inglorious Milton in this state…I would have everybody who has a talent have an opportunity to find his way so far as his talent will carry him, and that is only possible through university extension supplementing the schools and colleges."
My imagination was also set afire by the story of John Steuart Curry
"...hired as the nation's first visual artist-in-residence, with a job description of helping anyone on the farm – farmer, farm wife, farm youth – to paint. ...he believed that everyone has the ability to paint what was most alive to him – that it was just a matter of enabling people to do so. He emphasized personal vision over technique. As a result, paintings by farmers who worked with Curry are dramatic, breathtakingly alive."
I am sure the reality isn't as ideal as my imagination makes it given that Curry was going around Wisconsin during the middle of the Great Depression. It is hard to imagine him being welcomed with open arms at least initially. In fact, according to the piece farmers are a little suspicious of artists in these days of prosperity (relative to the 1930s).
One of the observations the grant writers make as they report about the project is that "Rural arts groups have tended to emulate urban arts groups, and management books have suggested that nothing but scale distinguishes urban and rural arts groups. More and more, we are realizing that this is not the case."
The writers openly admit that their initial plan of having a statewide conference where they were setting the agenda was probably wrongheaded. It was only due to having to cut back their planned activities because they weren't fully funded that they feel they ended up stumbling on a much more constructive approach.
In the interests of brevity, I will leave it to you to read how they ended up supporting projects at four locations around the state and what the projects entailed. Some of the project conclusions that jumped right out at me came from the program at a place called The Wormfarm Institute.
Conclusions included: 1) putting “agri” back into “culture” is perhaps more important than putting “culture” back into “agriculture”; 2) culture and agriculture are interdependent and this does not mean that “artists interpret farmers' lives;” nor does it mean “artists are marketers or political mouthpieces for farmers;...
There were a plethora of valuable observations throughout the report at the other sites, including why it was better for them to have taken this route than implementing their initial conference plan. The next thing that really jumped out at me was in the "What We Learned" section.
That “art” is indistinguishable from “culture,” and that this is a good thing and it resonates with people. “Art” may conjure up the stage, galleries, appropriate audience behavior. Even the word can leave people out; where blending creativity with food, traditions, history, meals and conversation communicates and invites people in.
This is a loaded observation for two reasons. First, because solutions to problems like the ones they had getting artists and farmers to talk to each other productively go deeper than just saying culture rather than art. The reporter writers certainly know this. Honestly, I am making this point because I have come across a number of egregious examples of late where people seem convinced they can solve their problems by shuffling terms and buzzwords.
The second reason is that the observation touches upon the whole "What is Art?" and "Art vs. Craft" debate. Yes, they seem to be celebrating rural culture more than art. But they are also saying art and culture are the same and are specifically getting artists, whom they label separately as a group from the farmers, involved in the program so they presumably have something to offer.
So then, is a loaf of homemade bread equivalent to a painting?
The debate has never been clearly resolved in my view but it can be fun to engage in from time to time. Certainly for me a loaf of homemade bread has a greater emotional and sensory appeal than most paintings. I am actually tearing up as I write this remembering baking (and eating!) bread.
I received an email today from the Dean of the College of Performing and Visual Arts at Southern Utah University, Bill Byrnes. He headed up the Theatre Management program at Florida State my last year there. (Though I was five hours away doing an internship that whole year. He has been good about keeping in touch with FSU grads even after he left and has even enlisted our help providing real life information for his students' projects. I actually lent a hand editing and commenting on the last edition of his Arts Management text.
Anyhow, his end of the year letter letting us know how things were going inspired me to check out the training program at his school. The thing that really caught my eye was the Guide for the Prospective MFA Graduate Student.
The guide answers a lot of the usual questions about assistantships, financial aid and admission deadlines. It discusses why one might want to attend graduate school, what sort of jobs arts administration encompasses and the difference between a M.A. and a M.F.A.
What I really liked was that they were very clear about what types of things they would be looking for on a resume that should accompany the application and they included an appendix that specifically outlined what should appear on the resume.
When I was an undergraduate, I had never held a job for which I had to submit a resume. I can appreciate that even with resources in books and on the internet, trying to put a resume together can be daunting. Many of those resources suggest formats that either aren't appropriate or superfluous for jobs in the arts.
Likewise, they provide guidelines for the topics letters of recommendation should touch upon. Most importantly, they emphatically enjoin applicants not to procrastinate about asking people to write the letters, (with an implication that they may have to bug the recommenders a few times).
I applaud the program for providing some direction to make it a little easier on the applicants (and the review committee). The process is going to be tough enough for the prospects as it is and there will be plenty of other opportunities to screw things up during the process. As the title of the entry says, by providing this guide the training program at SUU is helping the applicant help them admit him/her.
Apparently, I am not the only one befuddled by Phil Cubeta's many faceted mind. Sean Stannard-Stockton at Tactical Philanthropy emailed me a link to his blog addressing my entry on the subject last week.
My awareness of philanthropy blogs has been growing by leaps and bounds this past week. I am going to have to start a category in my links section (though I have quite a backlog of links to add at the moment. That's what Christmas vacation is for I suppose.)
In case you were wondering what Tactical Philanthropy is, he outlines the process here and even discusses strategic vs. tactical a bit later on. He gives practical examples of the way to apply some of these ideas throughout the November entries. Some of these take the form of case studies for well-considered planned giving arrangements.
I know I seem to be dwelling on these blogs a great deal of late, but as I noted earlier this is virgin territory to me. Having only just begun exploring, it is all so very interesting and exciting to ponder.
I got a comment on one of my older entries today from a guy who has recognized that many surveys of audience participation say people often choose to attend a performance because others are going or someone else has made the arrangements for them.
Ric Mazereeuw runs Two for the Show, a site specifically aimed at getting people together for event attendance. Better formatted than Craigslist and more focussed than Meetup (though large as neither), the site allows you to connect with people with similar interests without providing your actual email address.
I am going to hazard a guess and say that the service started in Canada given that the Toronto and Vancouver pages have the most people signed up and most of the US pages are flagged "New".
The whole behavior of depending one person to initiate the idea of going to a performance and making the arrangements is so prevelant (at least according to studies I have read) that I specifically ask on our audience surveys how we can make the process easier for the coordinators.
I also started offering a mini-group discount for groups of 8 or more and a larger one for the traditional 20+. People were actually taking advantage of the 8+ discount in satisfying numbers. I probably need to do a better job of prominently promoting it since the highest point of activity was right after the brochure mailed.
It also occurs to me that it might not be a bad idea for arts organizations to link to the MeetUp and Two for the Show sites and direct people there to find like minded with whom to hang out and attend. Last year when I participated in Take A Friend to the Orchestra, I sent out a call and ended up going with people I had never met before.
As I was looking at the sites I was thinking that there might be more participants if only they were advertised more. Then of course it struck me that arts organizations could help by actually directing people there. MeetUp has a page for my city but there really aren't any arts and culture attendance groups.
If I created a group on Craiglist or got Two for the Show to make one for my city, prominently linked to it, mentioned it in my monthly newsletters and encouraged other organizations to do the same, it might get a little momentum going in the community.
Even if it only resulted in a handful of people getting together, the service is free and it takes nearly no effort to point people toward it. If you get 10 extra people coming to a show each year, you are doing pretty well for your investment.
One thing to note, MeetUp is a little different than Two for the Show in that it is structured to help people organize get togethers so starting a group there carries an expectation that you will be getting folks together and does carry a cost.
If anyone else knows of other social networking services that might be helpful in getting people together and their butts moving toward seats, lemme know!
Yesterday I linked to an entry on Where Most Needed blog detailing how to protect against donors who may renege on their pledges. Where Most Needed and the accompanying linked Wall Street Journal article talk about how it can be tricky to broach the subject of a legally binding pledge agreement lest you offend your wealthy and influential benefactor.
What they don't mention is the possible public relations problems you might face as well. Some years ago I worked for a theatre that a well known celebrity had pledged to in return for the naming of one of the performance spaces. Unfortunately, his wife filed for divorce. Seeing large alimony payments in his future combined with some other financial troubles, he chose to discontinue his payments.
The theatre was undergoing some financial problems of its own so the board felt it was irresponsible not to pursue the collection of the pledge and chose to sue the celebrity.
The way it ended up playing out in the newspaper editorials and letters to the theatre was that the organization should be grateful for the money it had already received and stop kicking a favorite son when he is down.
This seems to be one of the trickiest points for non-profits. When someone makes a pledge, I think we would all agree they are doing it out of the kindness of their heart. (With perhaps some advice from their accountant.) I think we can all at least empathize with the point of view that if you, as a donor, run into financial problems, you are going to want to reserve the right to hold on to the money you have earned. You are probably going to feel bad about it, but you are going to see your choice as logical.
The problem for non-profits in situations like the one I mention is that people can empathize. This type of thing easily happens on the family level. You promise your child a car when they turn 18, you run into financial trouble and you find you have to tell your child that if they want to keep the car they are going to have to get a job to continue making payments. The child has to work harder or see if grandma can help with the money.
I think this might be partially what happened in the case of my experience. People in the community could imagine themselves falling upon hard times and didn't like the idea of the theatre coming after them, even for a $100 pledge, because they made a generous gesture.
The public may have sympathy for your non-profit organization because you built based on a promise of money but there is a good chance they are going to see the donor's decision as practical. The expectation is going to be that you will work harder and find other benefactors. The consequence of not doing so in my car example is to take the bus or bum a ride from friends. The equivalence for a capital project is tougher- scaling back activities (not easy if you don't even have a roof on yet) or performing in other facilities.
It would be extremely important to have a good solid public relations plan in place before deciding to legally pursue a large lapsed donation. One wrong move and you can poison the well for donations from an entire community.
I am going to peer around philanthropy blogs to see if there are any detailed suggestions of how to be well prepared in these instances. I would be very interested to learn if anyone has come across any good plans or has executed a public relations campaign that preserved the communal good will in a situation where it may have been lost. (Instances where the donor reneges due to their own financial malfeasance tends to create sympathy for the deprived recipient.)
My intent yesterday was to report a bit further on some of the entries I caught a glance of while listing Philanthropy Blogs in Monday's entry. For those who read such blogs regularly what I saw might seem mundane, but as a new reader I was excited and engaged by what I saw.
As I began to plumb a little deeper into the blogs I became convinced that the philanthropy industry blogs were the site of contentious debate. First was this entry on Gift Hub about the writer of Wealth Bondage calling philanthrophy bloggers Uncle Toms beholden to the wealthy.
I got so wrapped up in reading both sides of the story on the entry and learning about the Wealth Bondage blog that I found myself short on time to do an entry. White Courtesy Telephone notes that WB writer Happy Tutor styles himself as a modern day Diogenes challenging all who linger too close to the blog while on the information superhighway.
It wasn't until I happened to go back and read the comments section on Gift Hub that I saw the author, Philip Cubeta, claim to be Happy Tutor. The satire tags on the entry seem to bear it out as far as that goes. Apparently he is a man at war against himself, casting aspersions at his alter egos. Or may be not.
I am still a little confused and unsure about the truth of the matter. It is intellectual elitism or intellectual rigor rarely seen in these days. Let's just say I walked in a little late on a joke and caught the last line and punchline. I thought I would just shed a little light on the situation, as dim a bulb as I might be, in case others were exploring those blogs and were also taken in/confused.
Among the more interesting entries I came across during my explorations was this one on White Courtesy Telephone about Power and Powerlessness in Foundations. The entry was revelatory for me because it didn't touch upon the relationship between grantors and grantees as I assumed it would, but rather on the internal power struggles of foundations.
Over time I came to believe that my colleagues and I acted out of a sense of powerlessness. Think about it. We start our foundation careers with a diminished sense of self-worth. Many of us ... were lackluster community organizers or so-so [nonprofit executive directors]. We weren’t up for the challenge of real work :-) And for reasons that had little to do with actual talent, we found ourselves in foundation jobs that paid well and were very secure. We were fooling ourselves because as program officers, our jobs were never 100 percent secure. There were always a hundred other people out there ready to replace us.
There was also a great entry on Donor Power Blog- Marketing: No Longer A Department. Blog author Jeff Brooks points out that "It's everyone's job to tell the story [of the organization] in a motivating and exciting way." Not only that, it is incumbent on the marketing department to let them rather than trying to wholly control the transmission of the message themselves.
Where Most Needed blog had two entries that really caught my eye. One on protecting against donors who renege on pledges. The other entry is on dealing with demanding donors.
The final blog entry I wanted to cite today is from Charity Governance where author Jack Siegel makes a case for why the Sarbanes-Oxley Act shouldn't be applied to non-profits. His basic argument is that non-profits lack the monetary and personnel resources (as well as availability of external auditing firms) to comply. The entry is well written and cross-referenced with Security and Exchange Commission and Government Accounting Office publications. (Be warned, you can't avoid finding out about the book he wrote.)
The Chronicle of Philanthropy for this week features an article about non-profit blogging. The blogs it mentions aren't on my favorites list (ones I read already) but might be of interest to you. Some of the blogs give tips about fundraising, others are more watchdog in nature and others are more general in focus.
I will list a couple of the ones mentioned since the article doesn't provide links. Each blog has its own list of links so my small list will start you on your way to greater exploration. Some of the material is more appropriate for people running huge charities and foundations than for development staff of individual arts organizations. There is something for everyone in this little list-good ideas, thoughtful analysis, words to the wise and a couple chuckles.
I wanted to suggest taking a look at the story too as it discusses the different motivations people have for blogging. Some of the reasons might resonate with you and inspire you to blog. The field is pretty empty according the article. Only about 100 non-profit blogs in a sea of millions.
Watch Dog and Critical Eye Blogs
White Courtesy Telephone
Charity Governance Blog
Where Most Needed
Don't Tell The Donor
(Not mentioned in the article. Came across via someone else recently. Can't recall who or where.)
Trent Stamp's Take (written by president of non-profit watchdog, Charity Navigator)
General Resource Blogs
Gift Hub
The Agitator -Written by Direct Mail Fundraisers
Donor InSite
Donor Power Blog - Just a caveat about the advice-- it is written by a for profit consulting firm according to the article. That said, very interesting reading and I there doesn't seem to be a hard sell for their services or areas only available to clients.