There’s a common theme that pops up in almost every conversation I have with funders, practitioners, and academics about the future of cultural enterprise. Here’s the motif: our mission statements and aspirations are ecological in scope, but our alliances and energies are locked to the particular channel we’ve chosen to serve.
For example, a symphony’s leadership may claim they want to ”engage a wide and public audience in the transformative experience of classical music,” but their behavior often suggests the hidden caveat ”with us as the primary channel.” Or, a public broadcasting organization may claim their goal is to ”provide free and public access to great works of musical art,” but pushes for the preservation of their current business model and broadcast structure to make it so.
It’s as if we silently add the phrase ”through my organization” to the end of every mission statement.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for self preservation. It is a large part of any cultural manager’s job to look out for the health and connection of their specific organization, and the sustainability of their business model. But I’m beginning to see the radical disconnect between what we claim to be about, and what actions we take under that claim.
If a symphony was really about connecting a public to classical music, it would recognize that it’s not the only organization that does that, and perhaps admit that other organizations achieve elements of that goal more effectively. If public radio was really about free and equitable access to great works of musical arts, it would strive to make space for a full range of organizations in its community to support that cause.
As resources constrain and communities refocus, the disconnect between what goals we work for and who pays our salary will likely become increasingly difficult to resolve. If we’re primarily about preserving our particular organization, let’s say so out loud. If we have a broader vision for a more vibrant culture, we’ll all need to give up a bit of our turf.
Christina says
This is a great insight. How many times have we seen not just competition between companies that would better serve their mission through collaboration, but even the formation of new ones just so a few people (donors, often) can maintain their position or control?
The performing arts business model, with its earned income component, will always involve an additional level of complexity in the mission-service question when compared with other nonprofits. The arts community needs more dialogue on this.
rachel says
I was puzzling over this last night, reflecting on the Pixar/Disney deal. Without shareholders to profit, I suppose there is little financial incentive for arts orgs to enter into mergers and acquisitions…but is there truly no good argument for gains in ability to deliver on mission, for actually having the ability to amass enough brand equity to compete with the corporate pleas for our free time?
Why is our desire for the preservation of individual orgs so strong, even when founders are gone? I understand why employees might balk, but why aren’t boards more active in pushing consideration of mergers and acquisitions? Is the legal stuff that off-putting?
Puzzling. Interesting.
Julia says
Rachel asks: “Why is our desire for the preservation of individual orgs so strong, even when founders are gone?”
It’s not just the founders, but the friends of the founders, the descendants of the founders, the people who regard the organization as “theirs,” and the community which enabled the organization to exist in the first place. Nonprofits are founded to serve people, not profits. The people who benefit grow to depend on these organizations not just for the services they provide, but for a sense of their own identity. If, say, a traditional theater company and an avant-garde theater company were to merge in order to capitalize on mutual strengths and reduce overhead costs, there would naturally be a period of mass confusion while the new entity sorted out its donor and audience base. In this confusion there would be hurt patron feelings: “I subscribed to the avant-garde theater to get away from the boring standards–now my money is supporting them? Wha?”
These organizations evolved for a purpose, and to fundamentally change the organization would convey the image that the people who enjoy that organization as it exists no longer matter.
Jenn Post says
I have wonderful memories of an old friend – going to coffeeshops or watching sappy movies late at night; deep and not-so-deep conversations. Certainly, she played an important role in my life. We each enjoyed the other immensely.
But my friend’s life changed: she fell in love, was married, moved away, and now is mother to an amazing, spunky toddler girl. She has a engaging group of new friends in her new town, and has started a new small business. Many aspects of her life are fundamentally different; our relationship is, too. If she had been held an emotional hostage by her old relationships, would she have allowed herself the major life changes that ultimately led to a wonderful new little person and a new business?
In thinking about a person it seems obvious – “to thine own self be true,” we might say. How often do we encourage friends or colleagues to boldly pursue their new ideas, even if it takes them away from us? How incredibly destructive would it be if we instead griped, “No, I hate that idea. That will almost certainly change our relationship. You’re saying I don’t matter.”
Sure, it’s mere analogy, but can’t a creative organization crave that genesis and reinvention in much the same way as a creative individual?
Let’s tell our friends our plans and see where the conversation takes us. When we feel that change is right, let’s drop the fear and *go.*
Joan Sutherland says
I completely disagree. Surely the model you suggest is paternalistic and removes freedom of choice? Isn’t it up to me as a free individual to pursue an art form wherever I want to find it? It’s not a mystery where that might be. I don’t need the local symphony to tell me how to buy CD’s, shop for music books, use the public library, find movies related to classical music, download music on my computer, or even perhaps, how to choose an instrument and find a music teacher.
If individuals in our culture get any lazier about the private pursuit of happiness, we’ll all totally lose our wills to organizations and corporations. This might be the corporate “branding” way, but it doesn’t belong to the live art world, and it has nothing to do with an art-to-audience experience. This has been called I-it rather than I-Thou, in part because of the profundity of the particular and the personal. I love excellence more than branding. I want clearly defined instutions and organizations, each doing the very best they are able to do in their own interest area. Amateurs and professionals and students, each with their different skills and goals. I want the professional organizations to pay well trained people each with clearly defined talents, with excellence of result being everyone’s goal.
The exact point of my local symphony orchestras is to use the particular local players and the conductors they are able to hire, and in a physical and time-based world, present what music they specifically choose and are best able to play, in the particular halls and churches they like best to perform, to an audience made up of extremely particular people. This is the miracle of Locality and Place in the physical as opposed to the digital world. You can’t get any more particular and local than a night out to an arts event. In fact, in my books, this is the very uniqueness that today seems to be the pressing hunger.
That’s what we should be highlighting. That’s the arts mandate. The more they stick to it, the more I am free to also be my solitary and private creative self, moving where I want to go, and getting just exactly what music I too have chosen to get, without a whole stream of advertising and lectures and advice. But do not urge arts organizations to take away excellence in one specific area and therefore my freedom, by attempting to be all things to me.