This is part of a series, introduced in Baby Steps, about arts organizations’ initial efforts in community engagement. The premises are twofold. First, since relationship building is the core of community engagement, attempting to do too much too fast (before the relationship is established) will likely not be productive and, in fact, may be counter-productive. Second, there are many things that can be done to support engagement that do not … [Read more...]
Baby Steps
Over the last eighteen months I have begun to put greater emphasis on the need for (and advantages of) simplicity and gradualism in beginning community engagement efforts. [Keep It Simple, Essential Gradualism] Major community engagement efforts (commissioning work, massive collaborations, large-scale productions) are cool but daunting (and sometimes off-putting to the communities we are trying to reach) to organizations new to substantive … [Read more...]
What You Need to Know
Community engagement and its potential for enhancing the viability of arts organizations is too often poorly understood or just plain misunderstood. It is conflated with other tasks and minimized by people who cannot envision its potential. I have become increasingly aware of the need for a (relatively) brief and simple overview of the essentials in order to see what community engagement is and can be and, importantly, what it is not. Over the … [Read more...]
Docents as Engagers
Some time ago in a forum discussing community engagement, someone asked me what the role of docents should be in engagement work. It was a light bulb question for me. My professional background is primarily in the performing arts so I have always viewed box office workers and ushers as important elements in contact with the public and, therefore, in engagement efforts. The question opened up to me a whole world of possibilities since docents are … [Read more...]
Robert Gard on Arts and Communities
When my good friend Maryo Gard Ewell asked me to write a reflection on the Gard Foundation/Americans for the Arts collaborative collection of Robert Gard's writings (To Change the Face & Heart of America), I was more than willing. Eager would probably not be a stretch. When I began teaching arts management, I remember Gard's The Arts in the Small Community almost leaping off the library shelf at me. His insistence on the importance of the … [Read more...]
First You Talk
Typically, when I see a headline like this: Opera Memphis Kicks Off Effort to Diversify Audience, I cringe. Not because I don't believe in diversifying our audiences. I clearly do. However, too often it is done badly and for pretty poor reasons. (See The Self-Centered Pursuit of Diversity) I can't speak to the company's motivations or even to much extent about their practices in attempting this. However–stop the presses–if you read the article … [Read more...]
Education and Engagement
Speaking of education and engagement (as I did in my last post, External Connections), there is topic (or two or three) specific to them that probably bears addressing. Like marketing/sales and fundraising, education and engagement are externally oriented. However, since they do not necessarily have an immediate impact on the bottom line they can be viewed as less important in the arts organization hierarchy. In addition, they are both relative … [Read more...]
External Connections
Fundraising, sales, education, and engagement. All are concerned with making connections between an arts organization and individuals (and groups) outside the organization. The first two have long been focused most on people who have historically been supportive of arts of the European aristocratic cultural tradition. The latter two have spent somewhat more time dealing with those who have not. Fundraising and sales are further related in that … [Read more...]
Community Knowledge
It's no secret that I advocate for arts organizations addressing community interests. (Well, duh!) And, in order to do that, we have to know what those interests are. (Again, duh!) On my website I address some of the ways we can start to discover those interests. (Community Learning) Of course, the simple answer is to talk to members of those communities. And we absolutely should do so. But if this is so important, here's another thing we could … [Read more...]
From Mileposts to Through Line
Mileposts are those small signs we see (or, usually, ignore) as we speed along the interstate that indicate how far we've travelled. It's only in the rarest instances that anyone pays them any attention. Some people probably never do. Arts organizations are event-driven. We maintain in our heads an often unacknowledged chronology of progress from one event to the next. We pay extreme attention to the content and production of each event but this … [Read more...]