The panelists included Prerana Reddy (a contributor to Building Communities, Not Audiences), José Rodriguez from the Queens Museum of Art, and Michael Christiano (former Director of Education at SECCA and now Director of Education and Interpretation for the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago). Our topic was It Takes a Community: Lessons Learned from Engagement Practices. I provided a frame for thinking about engagement while Prerana, José, and Michael did the heavy lifting in discussing their examples of engagement and the lessons learned from it.

I’m not going to repeat their presentations here. The point of this post is to introduce another tool for highlighting community engagement work. In the process of developing the panel, we concluded that it would be worthwhile to attempt a project to capture examples of museum community engagement work. To that end, Prerana constructed a website where anyone can list information about such projects. The results will be visible in map form.

The data entry is easy: a simple program description, location information (inside or outside the museum), nature of audience involvement (participant or observer), target audiences (if identified), what worked/what didn’t, lessons learned, and a rating of success (from “Abject Failure” to “Beyond our wildest dreams”).

It is our hope that compiling such a dynamic listing will be helpful to museums and communities. This is in some ways new work and we need to pool the lessons we have learned as soon and as well as possible.

Here is the URL for the project: https://museumsengage.crowdmap.com/. All four of us hope you will take a few minutes to include your project(s) in the database. I’m confident it will prove helpful to others interested in or struggling with this work.

Engage!

Doug

A while back (in Bimodal Engagement) I mentioned that I have been hearing leaders of national service organizations weighing in on the importance of substantively engaging with or involving community. Dr. Bell, in his introduction of the conference theme (Creative Community) said, “Creativity is our tool; community is what we build.” That’s a pretty direct commitment to the centrality of community in the work of the museum. The idea that the ultimate function of museums is community building is radically different from what had been my unexamined understanding of the role of museums: guardians of the past. Of the three legs of museum work–preservation, research, and interpretation (education)–community building is the child of education.

But the quote that has set my mind spinning came a few moments later. He said there was a need to understand that museums are “public utilities not private amenities.”

Those five words could launch a two-fold revolution. They should be the rallying cry for reframing the debate about cultural policy in the United States. However, the related revolution, that must come first, is for the museum community, and now I will reframe my focus to the arts community, to make that distinction true.

The public utility argument will work only if arts organizations view themselves as servants of the public. The fact is that, for the most part, they do not. Service to community, broadly understood, is rarely at the forefront of mission statement in the arts. This is a problem in that most of them are 501(c)(3) organizations and public service is supposed to be the reason they hold that status. Moreover, until they adopt a public service frame of reference, the public utility argument will hold no merit in public discourse.

But what a game changer living out the reality of that role would be.

Engage!

Doug

• In what direct, tangible ways are the lives of specific people in your community outside of the arts world made better by your programming and other activities? [A key here is whether the beneficiary recognizes the benefit and its source.]
• Are you actively involved in on-going, mutually beneficial partnerships with individuals and organizations that had to be convinced you were trustworthy and/or did not initially believe the arts to be truly important? In other words, individuals or organizations who/that were not “true believers” going in to the project(s). (It sometimes comes as a surprise to arts professionals that there are individuals and segments of our communities that, as a result of direct, negative interactions with the arts community, are not simply apathetic about the arts but are hostile to the arts establishment.)

Those questions are not definitive (or sole) indicators of community engagement, but they highlight the depth of and commitment to the work that is required. As I have said previously, I know that many arts organizations do not (currently) aspire to this kind of engagement. My calls for doing so are a separate subject. Here all I’m working on is clarifying the nature of the engagement for which I advocate.

Since my posts sharing Dr. Matelic’s charts on audience development and community engagement, I’ve begun trying to develop a similar side by side comparison of audience engagement and community engagement. Here is what I’ve got so far. Remember that this is a work in progress.

This is clearly not finished and is certainly not definitive. But since I am trying to develop a way for us to discuss these issues–we do need to have common language (or at least common understanding of our different uses of language)–I wanted to get this in front of you early on to see how it can be improved and expanded.

I anticipate your (gentle) suggestions for improvement.

Engage!

Doug

Last week, Karina Mangu-Ward from EmcArts contacted me asking if I would review their Audio Postcards featuring the audience engagement efforts of arts organizations in Cleveland. Harried though I was in preparing for the trip, I agreed to do so as soon as time allowed. I’m glad I did.

Watching those short descriptions of the work of 12 organizations helped clarify for me some of the issues I have had around the word engagement. In the recent past, I have written several times here about audience development, audience engagement, and community engagement. And at least some commenters have taken me to task about the words and phrases used.

Let’s acknowledge that many of us (most especially me) have deeply held convictions about what these words mean or, more accurately, should mean. There is also an issue about how they are understood outside of the world of professional marketers and community engagement activists. That’s a subject for another post.

Listening to EmcArts’ capsule videos helped capture for me an important distinction between audience engagement and community engagement. Simply put, the former maintains the arts organization at the center of the process. The latter puts community improvement at the center with the arts and the community as partners working toward that end. For me, audience engagement is outreach; its end result is more attendees: expanded “reach.” Community engagement is focused on developing partnerships, deep ones; its end result is trust and understanding from which expanded reach can be pursued.

The good news about the reports from Cleveland is that everyone there seems to have gotten over the “If we build it . . . .” mode of presentation. (Indeed, that Field of Dreams quote came up several times.) Each organization was spending considerable time thinking about its audience. But with only a couple of exceptions, the work put “art at the center” of everything. There was little evidence that relationships with the “audience” had much or any impact on the art being presented, at least not that resulted from any communication with those being reached. Seeking younger or diverse audiences did cause some alteration in content, but that alteration did not come, so far as I could tell, as a result of dialogue, much less work, with those audiences.

One organization described its considerable efforts to be more “welcoming”–a worthwhile effort, but not community engagement in the way described above. At the risk of reading too much into it, that sounds like their role is central and they’d love to have “outsiders” visit. How different would the work be if what the organization sought was “partnering”? Another organization’s approach was “We have something for you.” Again, this mindset places the art at the center. The formulation is a means to entice the community to experience what the arts organization has already decided to present. Without a pre-existing relationship, ts relevance to the community is unknown.

One exception was Cleveland Public Theatre that described itself as “creating great theatre with [its neighboring] communities.” But the engagement Oscar, among the featured groups, goes to Karamu House. (Why is it not surprising that this is an African-American arts organization, self-described as the oldest in the country?) They see their role as serving an “economically challenged community.” Among other things, they are sometimes the site of funeral services for area residents.

No, I’m not advocating our concert venues and museums become funeral parlors. It’s the depth of the relationship that blows me away. How could being that valued by a community be a bad thing?

It will come as no surprise that my favorite quote from their Executive Director, Gregory Ashe, was “once you engage, you don’t have to think about marketing.” He said it; I didn’t. [Note to the professional marketers that I know I continually irritate: I don’t mean that marketing is not important  or valuable or difficult. I certainly do not mean it’s not necessary. It is. And of course the quote is hyperbole. But community engagement, as described here can provide an incredibly valuable platform from which to market.]

For me, community engagement must seek a deep relationship, the focus of which is service to the community. I know many arts organizations do not imagine themselves that way (nor even want to). My rants about why they should are elsewhere (and will follow). Suffice for now to say that it is possible (if not inevitable) to learn much about your art, yes, to deepen it, by developing such relationships. And I will continue to limit my use of “community engagement” to work that attempts it.

Engage!

Doug

My post (One Way) on Michael Kaiser’s discussion of “audience engagement” garnered enough interest (and a little heat) to make this worthwhile. While some of Dr. Matelic’s language is a bit stronger–the left-hand column is a little too dismissive–than I would adopt in making the distinctions (I *do* understand the merits of audience development), her perspective is advocacy for robust engagement. Like her, I would prefer we not get stuck in the first door as there is so much of merit (though it will be long-term rather than immediate) to be found if we walk through it to pursue deeper relationships.

Developed by Candace Tangorra Matelic, CTM Professional Services. Source: Comparing Audience Development and Community Engagement

—————————

On a personal note, I am going out of the country on Friday to participate in the inaugural conference of the Asia-Pacific Network for Cultural Education and Research. I’ll be in Singapore next week. Since I’m certain that jet lag (Singapore is 12 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone) and conference activities will be conspiring against me, I’m going to take a week off. In the meantime,

Engage!

Doug

On the Technology in the Arts blog, Andre Bouchard introduced the idea of Cash Mobs. In a nutshell, it is a flash mob that shows up at a local store and buys stuff to support that business. From the Cash Mob website (you read that right), we learn that:

The general idea is to encourage people to go into small, local businesses and spend their money, en masse, to give the business owner a little bit of economic stimulus. We’d help businesses grow, we’d make people happy, we’d get stuff for ourselves, have a great time, and maybe we’d get a drink to celebrate afterward.

They even suggest “rules.” My favorite is #8: The business must be within one block of a locally-owned watering hole. (That’s because another rule is that everyone goes out for a drink afterwards!)

The reason I’m bringing this forward should be obvious. It’s a *great* idea. And, since arts experiences represent (potentially) attractive gathering points for people, there is certainly going to be a way to make use of this in attracting people. But here is why I’m grinning as I write this. There is no (effective) way for the beneficiary of the mob to set it up. How artificial (and sleazy looking) would that be? It demands that some one or ones outside the target business think supporting that business is a good idea. (And I would warn anyone considering a trip around that bit of etiquette to consider how easy it would be to be “caught out” and how bad that would look.) This means that the most effective way to encourage people to “cash mob” you is to develop relationships with them! Two-way, meaningful relationships. I just can’t wipe the smile off my face.

I continue to believe that relationship-building with many, as Arts 2.0 can facilitate, is one of–if not the–best means of attracting financial support to the arts, one small bit (but many, many bits) at a time. Here’s a possibility. But heed the implementation warning. Reaping the benefit of a cash mob has to be a spontaneous outgrowth of sincere engagement.

Engage (and prosper)!

Doug

Coming from a performing arts background, it’s fascinating to see what’s up in the museum world. But the main hooks for me were the conference theme (Creative Community) and the fact that some museum types asked me to be on a panel with them discussing, you guessed it, community engagement. I’ll write about our panel and its aftermath (we plan to set up an on-going project) in another post. I wanted today to talk about one session in particular.

I dutifully made note of all the sessions that had community and/or engagement in the titles or descriptions. Interestingly, there were so many, I could not get to all of them. However, the first one I attended was so important for me that I’ve got to do two posts on it.

I attended a session called “Engagement Tools for Building Creative Communities, Placemaking, and Partnerships” presented by Candace Tangorra Matelic and Candace Lee Heald. Dr. Heald spoke about her New Bedford, MA program, AHA!. (Art, History, Architecture) It’s a free Second Thursday arts and culture night that began in 1999 and has become a  highly successful program supporting the creative economy, cultural tourism, and a plain old healthier New Bedford. They have put together a “lessons learned” booklet that would be helpful for replicating the project. I will try to find out if there is an online version of it. If so, I’ll share it with you.

But the real knockout punch for me was Candace Tangorra Matelic’s presentation on tools for engagement. In particular, she shared two lists that captured much that I have been trying to say for years about what community engagement is and is not. The first I will give below. (I asked and got permission to do so.)

Developed by Candace Tangorra Matelic, CTM Professional Services. Source: “New Roles for Small Museums.” (Click on article title halfway down the page.) In Toolkit for Small Museums. Nashville, TN: Altamira Press. 2011.

This is a succinct statement of the essence of substantive engagement. It (the left-hand column) requires an alteration of mindset on the part of organizations that are attempting to engage.

Her second chart, comparing audience development and community engagement, I will save for a later post.

Engage!

Doug

But all of this is simply preamble to the content of this post. What interests me here is a commentary on shifts in the philanthropic world that I only saw because I have a foot in the not-for-profit pool. (Oddly disconcerting metaphor, I know.) Recently, an article in The Nonprofit Quarterly (Another shout-out: One of the best journals on any topic, bar none), Community Philanthropy: It’s Not Just for the Wealthy Anymore, dealt with the fundraising aspects of serious community engagement. Beginning with an international perspective, focusing on philanthropy in the developing world, the article discusses shifts both in focus and in results when communities and their welfare are seen as the core of philanthropy. The article begins by saying:

Until somewhat recently in the U.S., community foundations were pretty much the province of the wealthy. The same goes for the rest of institutional philanthropy—family foundations, donor-advised funds, etc. But something may be happening to community philanthropy in the U.S. and around the world that reflects the “mutuality of philanthropy,” the sense that “community philanthropy is for everyone,” according to Nick Deychakiwsky, senior program officer of the C.S. Mott Foundation.

In particular, the article cites Tewa, a Nepalese foundation with 3,000 donors, at least some of whom are also recipients. This model creates some problems (both cultural and practical) in connecting with traditional, top-down development agencies. However,  incorporating local voices into the mix presents the potential for a great leap forward in impact. The World Bank is struggling with how to respond to local initiatives like Tewa. The article acknowledges that local does not necessarily mean “better.” Sometimes local efforts reinforce, through inertia, existing power structures–the status quo. But they also offer real opportunities for supporting solutions well-suited to on-the-ground reality, unimaginable by remote financiers.

But Engaging Matters, for better of worse, focuses on the arts in the U.S. What’s the point of this? I have argued (and continue to do so) that engaging with communities will provide us access to more and different kinds of funds than has ever been possible to date. Crowdsourced funding (a Web 2.0 version of what the NQ article is discussing) is one of those options. The article identifies “an emerging U.S. transition from community foundations into community development philanthropy. ‘It’s not giving just to do good . . .but giving for change.’ The key is not (or not just) how much money is being raised and distributed . . . but ‘how many people are giving, how many people are involved in the governance. . . Participation . . .is the new endowment.’” [Reader beware: if tapping new funding sources is the only motivation for change, it will not work. To be successful, engagement must be systemic. This potential new approach to funding is simply one of the many side benefits of engagement.]

The ultimate point, for the purposes here, is found in one of the closing statements: “community philanthropy in the sense of ‘local people helping each other, by sharing resources for the common good,’ is a naturally occurring asset, found in all communities and cultures, and encouraged by all major religions and traditions.” Where arts organizations are positioned as community members working shoulder-to-shoulder with others to make lives better, they will be able to participate in this new form of community philanthropy. This will not be possible for business-as-usual arts organizations. But for those seriously committed to substantive engagement, it will.

Engage!

Doug

Mr. Burbage points to groups of which he is a member. For arts administrators, the mutual therapy possible via a small group is valuable (if not essential). It can be a lonely, if not discouraging, life. Having a group of peers with whom you can “let your hair down” and talk about the Board, the artistic director, (the executive director), or the vagaries of artists is a means of maintaining sanity. I know that the Association of Arts Administration Educators’ annual conference serves that role for me and many of my colleagues. (Come join us at the end of May, we’re a very entertaining, if somewhat wacky group. Conference info is here.)

But what Mr. Burbage’s post really got me thinking about was the potential of small groups as a means of community engagement. Imagine if there were hundreds of “cells” of “opera people” or “orchestra people” who gathered on a semi-regular basis to talk about the arts and other interests. Such small groups could eventually be self-organizing. (Well, maybe not totally self-sufficient, but they need not have their hands held by arts organization staff at every gathering.) Technology could make these simpler to arrange than used to be the case. They could also provide a mechanism for dialogue–communication and feedback–with the organization.

What I’m talking about here is a bit like a book club or supper club with the arts organization or the art form as the common bond. This is more than pre-curtain talks. It is an ongoing mechanism that is largely implemented by the participants. It is a structure that could support my goals for the arts–substantive, lasting engagement.

Anyone out there got a good example? I’d love to share it with people.

Engage!

Doug

Photo: Some rights reserved by kahunapulej

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Michael Kaiser writes about engagement. (Engaging Audiences) So far so good, although see below regarding the title of the article.

He also ends the article with the following: “[T]his effort will not be sustained if there isn’t real commitment to on-going implementation of the engagement strategy. Audience engagement cannot be the flavor of the week; it must be a core element of long-term strategic effort to accomplish our missions.” Excellent. And true.

It’s the stuff in between that gives me pause. Mr. Kaiser begins by saying that “. . . for decades, the mission statements of most not-for-profit arts organizations include explicit mention of the desire to influence, educate, inspire or entertain specific audiences — in other words, to engage them.” [Emphasis mine] And here is where I begin to hit my  head on my desk. Influence, educate, inspire, and entertain are unidirectional words. They are one-way transactions. (Granted education should be two-way, but . . . .) At best, they align perfectly with the notion that the arts are observational rather than participatory activities. They place the arts at the center with all (and everyone) else revolving around them. Of greater concern to me, though, is that they do nothing to nudge the arts in the direction of identifying the needs and interests of those who are not predisposed to be interested in their work. From a simply pragmatic view focused on expanding reach, they are not helpful; they require those outside to come to us. In either case, they do not define or even encourage engagement.

This is particularly highlighted in the article’s title. An audience is a collection of individuals, but its primary meaning in the arts is a collection of patrons or ticket buyers rather than people. That may seem a nitpick, but it’s indicative of how some (unconsciously) see “the audience.” I would be happier (and the results would be far more successful) if this were framed as engaging individuals. That would imply (at least to my mind) a two-way process of discovery. And I would be happier still if it were framed as engaging communities. (Surprise, surprise!) “Communities” includes people not already part of our world in a way that “audiences” doesn’t. This is a vital issue for the future of the arts. As I say elsewhere (yep, it’s in Building Communities, Not Audiences–inching it’s way to availability, ca. June 1):

Perhaps the most critical transformation necessary is a re-imagining of the arts world’s understanding of and relationship with the community in which it exists. Our communities should not be seen as a collection of market segments to be tapped in an effort to sell tickets or extend “reach.” Communities are not resources to be exploited in the interest of furthering the health of the organization or even the arts as a sector. It is from community that the arts developed and it is in serving communities that the arts will thrive.

I have said before and will do so again that while I am gratified by all the discussion of “engagement” that is going on in the arts world today, I am deeply concerned about cheapening (or limiting) its meaning. Engagement can be a powerful tool for healing communities and for (re)vitalizing arts organizations. However, it is a complex, time-consuming process that requires deep commitment and significant re-thinking to be an effective strategy for the arts.

Engage!

Doug

Picture: Some rights reserved by Brandon Doran