Andrew begins his analysis with a comparison between individual organizations and individual organisms, writing:

We’re calling on existing organizations to evolve to the new environment, as living organisms evolve to theirs. Only, individual organisms don’t evolve. They only cope. So, we can tell a nonprofit corporate organization to evolve just as effectively as we can tell a fish to grow opposable thumbs. Its traits and tendencies were inherited at birth. It can adjust its tendencies, it can retrain its reflexes, but it’s still a nonprofit corporate organization, even if it can do new tricks.

He then rightly points out a couple paragraphs later that there are differences between an organization and a fish:

An organization is a bundle of people, things, processes, and traditions, bound by contracts and covenants, and restricted in its operation by laws, codes, and norms. A fish is, well, a fish.

The distinctions that Andrew makes between an organization and a fish are critical; indeed, it is these very distinctions that would seem to make it possible for an organization to evolve and impossible for a fish to do so.

Moreover, I would argue that (legally constraining, in principle, as the form may be) the nonprofit corporation has demonstrated that it can be rather easily manipulated to ends (goals) other than the (educational or charitable) ones which any given 501c3 organization is presumably formed to pursue. In other words, where there’s a will to evolve, there seems to be a way.

***

Organizations are socially-constructed systems with goals, presumed to be shaped by the contexts in which they are established. Typically, variations in organizations have been perceived to come about primarily through the deaths of old forms and the births of new ones. With the birth of new organizations, variations may be introduced, some of which will be retained in the population.

The introduction of the nonprofit form in theater is a nice example. In the first half of the twentieth century it was relatively rare to find a professional, nonprofit theater company in the US. With the emergence of funding from the Ford Foundation, and later the NEA, the nonprofit form became (in the words of Arena Stage founder, Zelda Fichandler) the apava for resident theaters across the US. In a 2011 talk, she remarked:

There’s an expressive word, I believe it’s Sanskrit – and the word is apava – that translates as “the effective means to make a vision concrete” or workable or real. Our apava, strangely enough, turned out to be the nonprofit corporation. Some of us might take that fact for granted, but we shouldn’t. It’s the basic reality of our existence. Before nineteen hundred and fifty something, theatre was excluded from the benefits given to science, universities, charities, the church, opera, and maybe dance – but not theatre, because it made a profit. We knew that without the nonprofit blanket we could not exist, for it allows us to receive gifts and grants and to be free of taxes on tickets.

Beginning in the 1960s there was an exponential growth in the number of nonprofit theaters. Organizational ecologists would suggest this was a reflection of the legitimacy of the form over other forms and that this growth would continue until the population had reached its carrying capacity, and then it would begin to decline. The carrying capacity is the maximum population size that an environment can sustain indefinitely given available resources.

As an example of the growth and decline in a population, as part of HowlRound’s recent weekly series on Black Theater in the US, Sade Lythcott noted in her essay that “in the roughly ten-year span of the Black Arts Movement in New York alone (1965-1975), over two hundred black theaters emerged; today there are less than ten.” The decline in that population (not only in NYC but across the US) has been considered by some in the theater field to represent the struggle of black theaters to attain legitimacy, resources, support, meaning, etc: they were birthed in a certain context and as the environment around them shifted they were unable to compete and survive.

Likewise, it is rare these days to see a young contemporary choreographer form a permanent company in NYC with a large number of dancers on the payroll, or a resident theater company (in any city) formed with a permanent acting company.

And it’s not just certain forms of arts organization that are now harder to sustain; reading the “bracing” conclusion of the executive summary of the 2010 National Arts Index (as reported by Ben Davis), one wonders if we have reached the carrying capacity for the nonprofit form in the arts generally:

Given the profusion of underfunded organizations, the nonprofit model may have to be abandoned in favor of more experimental or market-oriented business models for the arts.

This is frequently how evolution in an organizational population is seen to occur: through the death, birth, and (importantly) growth of some organizations (and not others) in response to a shifting environment.

But as we have seen now and then, and as more recent research has theorized, it’s not only populations that can evolve. Individual organizations themselves can transform (sometimes dramatically, sometimes incrementally) and do. While a fish may not be able to grow a new central nervous system, an organization, in essence, can.

An organization can “unlearn” practices and beliefs and norms and strategies, and learn new ones. It can shift its “dominant logic.” One paper on this topic (Bettis & Prahalad, 1995 – The Dominant Logic: Retrospective and Perspective) asserts that this “unlearning” and “shift in logics” may be more likely to occur out of a period in which an organization experiences a high degree of instability. (Of course, this is not always the case: other possibilities arising from instability are that the organization will survive and revert back to the status quo, or simply fail entirely).

It’s not hard to identify arts organizations that have been transformed out of periods of duress. The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestras is a musician-owned and –led orchestra that formed after the demise of the New Orleans Symphony. The fact that the name has changed is less important than the fact that many of the same people re-organized and re-formed with new goals and a different structure and relationship between management and musicians.

Or consider the new strategies introduced in the opera world when Peter Gelb traveled from Sony to the Metropolitan Opera (which was, at the time, struggling with declining audiences and financial challenges). Consider the way the HD broadcast adaptation, specifically, has begun to influence the creation, production, and distribution processes not only at the Met but in other organizations, as well, and has begun to change the relationship of audiences to the art form of opera.

Or look at how Diane Paulus has radically re-interpreted the mission of the American Repertory Theatre. She has changed the goals, relationships, identity, structure, and strategies of the organization in response to not only a changed “world” (i.e. larger societal context) but also changed expectations from ART’s “host,” Harvard University.

Of course, organizational evolution is rarely this dramatic. More often, it happens so slowly we don’t recognize it. Paulus did in one season what other theaters took two decades to enact.

We tend to talk about the arts and culture sector these days as though it is “stuck” – unable or unwilling to change – but it might also be useful to consider how the present state is a function of small adaptations (in structure, people, processes, culture) in response to a shifting environment and the persistence of some of those changes over time (i.e., those that were perceived to increase the chances of survival).

Evolution occurs both through adaptation and through the perpetuation of whatever is working well. In The Resilient Sector, Lester Salamon has suggested that we have been witnessing a long creep towards commercialism in the nonprofit sector in the US generally (not only in the arts), because this is, essentially, what the slings and arrows of the US system encourages.

With the lack of subsidies and increased competition for funding, what options exist for staying alive? Do an enhancement deal and produce a new musical; reduce production expenses and beef up the development and marketing staff; find a corporate sponsor and produce a sensational exhibition of some kind; hire a celebrity and charge $300 for tickets; avoid producing works that require a large number of actors or musicians or dancers and more than the standard amount of rehearsal time; replace an unknown work by an emerging playwright with last year’s Tony Award-winning work; or better yet, a revival of a well-known title by a household name.

These strike me as coping mechanisms. Tactics to enable short-term survival.

In this sense, I agree with Andrew. Organizations often adopt coping mechanisms in response to changes in the environment and uncertainty. However, sometimes a coping mechanism, perhaps because it’s working in the short-term, becomes a longer-term strategy. It gets re-framed as a process innovation and becomes a new way of doing business — a model for existing organizations, or new ones being formed, to replicate. Eventually, one adaptation can begin to have repercussions on the audience, the art, and the identity of not just one organization, but on an entire organizational field.

Some of these changes may strengthen nonprofits and their ability to realize their missions and goals. Some may not.

Therefore, from my perspective, the question is not whether or not organizations can (and thus should be expected to) evolve; they do evolve. The question is how, and in response to what?

***

BTW, closely related to this blog, I’ve endeavored to tackle the concept of sustainability in the arts in a recent talk that I’ve given in Minneapolis, Lyon, Salzburg, and Belfast. It’s called, “Holding Up the Arts. Can We Sustain What We’ve Created? Should We?” There is a permanent link in the sidebar “Stuff I’ve written”.

A few weeks back, in a guest-post on Engaging Matters, Roberto Bedoya extended an invitation for others to join him in blogging about “how the White Racial Frame intersects with cultural policies and cultural practices.” The proposition grew out of a series of posts (largely written by a bunch of white people, like me) focused specifically on the Irvine Foundation’s new participatory arts focus and, more generally, on (funding) diversity in the arts. I don’t feel qualified to address this topic and I’m positive I do not do it justice, but this is my sincere attempt to unpack some small part of this large issue. (You can read my previous posts on the the Irvine strategy here and here.)

Prologue on the white racial frame

A  few days ago, DC theater director Eissa Goetschius posted on her Facebook page:

Because I was curious, I just looked through the archives of the Shakespeare Theatre online to try to see how many directors of color have worked there over the years. Unless I missed some – which might be possible as this was only as scientific as googling the names I didn’t know – there have been two in all of their years of existence. Harold Scott directing OTHELLO and Rene Buch directing FUENTE OVEJUNA both as part of the ’90-’91 season. I REALLY HOPE I’M WRONG ABOUT THIS. SOMEONE TELL ME I’M WRONG. ‘Cause this means they haven’t had a person of color direct a show in over twenty years.

In a similar vein, about a week ago someone mentioned to me that it seemed like all the AJ bloggers were white. I don’t know all the AJ bloggers, so can’t confirm whether they are all white; and Elissa also gives the caveat that her search was possibly flawed. But if these figures are true, or even nearly true, they should strike us as remarkable. The question is, do they? On a day-to-day basis? Or do we take for granted that there is nothing all that strange about an absence of non-white directors and bloggers?

I am embarrassed that, for instance, I never noticed all the other AJ bloggers may be white.

When Roberto Bedoya issued his invitation/challenge, I felt I needed to read a bit about the “White Racial Frame” (a term credited to Joe Feagin). Here’s a paragraph I found to be useful (from Wikipedia):

The dominant white racial frame generally has several levels of abstraction. At the most general level, the racial frame views whites as mostly superior in culture and achievement and views people of color as generally of less social, economic, and political consequence than whites—as inferior to whites in the making and keeping of the nation. At the next level of framing, whites view an array of social institutions as normally white-controlled and as unremarkable in the fact that whites therein are unjustly enriched and disproportionately privileged. (Italics added.)***

There has been an ongoing discussion for decades now about the need and desire to diversify the arts sector; and notable progress has been made at individual organizations. But if statistics like those showing up in Clay Lord’s recent graphs, and Elissa Goetschius’s Facebook post are accurate and indicative of the field generally, it would seem that much of the striving is insincere … or the efforts are sincere but ineffective/inadequate … or that we’re striving in vain because we have misidentified the problem … or the goal … or … ???

Growing diversity and the emergence of the cultural hierarchy

In his widely read 1990  book, Highbrow Lowbrow, Lawrence Levine documents the transition in America from the 18th and early 19th centuries—a time when Shakespeare and opera and classical music were popular forms of entertainment enjoyed, re-purposed, and performed by, for, and at the will of the people alongside jugglers, animal tricks, and Yankee Doodle Dandy—to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when cultural hierarchies emerged as a tool for not only defining the “highbrow” arts and segregating them from the “lowbrow” arts (a/k/a “popular”, which became a derogatory term) but defining the “cultural elite” and segregating them from the rest of society. While this history is understood by many in the arts sector, I feel compelled to revisit it in light of the topic of this blog.

Describing the fragmentation and subsequent loss of a shared public culture in the late 19th century, Levine writes:

Theaters, opera houses, museums, auditoriums that had once housed mixed crowds of people experiencing an eclectic blend of their expressive culture were increasingly filtering their clientele and their programs so that less and less could one find audiences that cut across the social and economic spectrum enjoying an expressive culture which blended together mixed elements of what we would today call, high, low, and folk culture. (P. 208)

What was motivating this shift? Levine tells us:

It was not merely the audiences in the opera houses, theaters, symphonic halls, museums, and parks that they [they champions of culture] strove to transform; it was the entire society. They were convinced that maintaining and disseminating pure art, music, literature, and drama would create a force for moral order and help to halt the chaos threatening to envelop the nation. (P. 200)

The “chaos” to which Levine refers related (in large part) to the arrival of new immigrants that “made an already heterogeneous people look positively homogeneous.” Culture was increasingly portrayed as both a force with which to “transform the American people” and as an “oasis of refuge from and a barrier against them.”

Related to (and perhaps stemming from) these contradictory messages, the more people were told that “the arts” were a certain kind of fare for a certain kind of people, (that is, the more they were told that art was serious and sacred and required education and civilized behavior to be appreciated), the more they felt disqualified (and disinterested) to participate. Hence the emergence of two worlds—a cultural gulf, in the words of Levine—moving in opposite directions, each less accepting and understanding of the other over time.

Sound familiar?

While the mid-20th century brought challenges to the cultural hierarchy in America and renewed (and sometimes even sincere) efforts to integrate, diversify, and democratize the arts, Levine suggests that by the close of the 20th century not much progress had been made. In the epilogue to his book, he offers as evidence the key propositions in Allan Bloom’s 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind. Describing views of Bloom (and others—Levine notes that Bloom is not a lone voice), he writes:

There is, finally, the same sense [as existed at the close of the 19th century] that culture is something created by the few for the few, threatened by the many, and imperiled by democracy; the conviction that culture cannot come from the young, the inexperienced, the untutored, the marginal; the belief that culture is finite and fixed, defined and measured, complex and difficult to access, recognizable only by those trained to recognized it, comprehensible only to those qualified to comprehend it. (P. 252)

The emergence of a cultural hierarchy in the early 20th century was a tool for social and ethnic exclusion and from its inception this segregation was led by wealthy individuals in society—at the time, white people, often men. The production of high art may have required patrons (productions costs rose while the patron base shrunk); but, more importantly, patrons demanded that the worlds of high and low art be separated.

I wish I could say that this does not still feel like “the natural state” for the arts in the US.

Disrupting the hierarchy

A few years back Clay Lord interviewed me about the work on intrinsic impacts that Theatre Bay Area and Alan Brown were doing (which, as I understand it, found that a production at a small community theater in the upper Midwest had greater intrinsic impact on its audiences than any production by a professional theater in the study). At one point I said that I hoped their work could “help reframe the conversation about social value and about what it means to be a leading organization.” I asked Clay:

Can we somehow use these new metrics to help us see the world [differently]? … Who’s at the top? Who’s at the bottom? Who’s considered leading? These are rankings that were established decades ago and it’s nearly impossible for even an incredibly worthy and high-performing entrant to displace one of the ‘pioneering’ incumbent organizations at the top of the pyramid. We need data that can help us see the field differently.

Well, it would appear the Irvine Foundation has collected it. Moreover, armed with data and having gained a new understanding of the culture sector in its region, Irvine appears to be attempting to invert (or flatten?) the cultural hierarchy. (That’s my read, at any rate.) Its new strategy is to fund organizations/programs that use hands-on participation to engage nontraditional audiences ahead of (or alongside?) organizations/programs designed primarily to provide passive entertainment for those already inclined to participate. (It’s hard to tell from what’s been written whether the new strategy is intended to complement or displace the old one.)

Understandably, this shift has been a bit of a jolt to the cultural sector of the region. As Nina Simon reported on her blog, the move has been characterized as being “ahead of the field” and has not been embraced by as many arts organizations as Irvine hoped or expected. Throughout its process Irvine has welcomed input and has responded graciously to questions and critiques.

The critical response to Irvine’s new program is telling. Irvine’s new strategy is backed by solid research. As I’ve noted elsewhere, it’s not a capricious move. This strategy is more thoughtfully conceived than many funding strategies to hit the arts sector in the past several years.

So, what’s the problem?

Irvine is disrupting the status quo.

The reason it’s difficult for even incredibly worthy newcomers to rise in our sector is because incumbents continue to be privileged by the system. Over and over again we see rewards (fame, status, economic advantage) accruing to a small number of already established leading organizations—what Robert Merton in 1968 coined the Matthew effect, a term taken from a verse in the bible:

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath.

Even when foundations attempt to support diversity somehow old, large, and largely white, professional institutions seem to benefit. When philanthropists give money to flagship resident theaters to do black plays instead of giving money to small black theaters to simply stay in business they may do so in a sincere attempt to encourage diversity in largely white theaters but what they legitimize is not “diversity” but rather “white theaters.”

And legitimacy cuts both ways. It’s hard to legitimize professionals without making amateurs illegitimate. It’s hard to legitimize large resident theaters without making every other kind of theater (e.g., ensemble theaters, ethnically specific theaters, community-based theaters, grassroots theaters) seem less legitimate.

Let’s stop talking about diversity and talk instead about equality … and policy

Of the many posts contributing to the Irvine/Diversity Funding discussion over the past month, I found myself returning to one by Linda Essig. Inspired by having heard urban theorist and former mayor of Bogotá Enrique Peñalosa speak about his vision for more sustainable and egalitarian cities, Linda wrote a post asking whether it was time for us to stop talking about diversity in the arts and talk instead about equality.

She writes:

One of the basic concepts he [Peñalosa] espouses is that in an egalitarian society, because every bus rider is equal to every car driver, a bus with eighty passengers should be given eighty times the road space of car with a single driver.  Further, bicycles in motion should be given higher priority than cars that are parked. In Bogotá, this meant dedicated bus lanes; it meant bike lanes protected from automobile traffic by a median for parked cars; it meant bike lanes and sidewalks were paved before parking lanes.

Linda then extends the metaphor to a discussion of diversity in the arts asking, for instance, whether we are giving equal attention, space, and opportunity to non-Greco-Euro-Anglo art forms. Reframing this diversity discussion in terms of equality resonates for me.

Awhile back I wrote a post on the extraordinarily high quality of the school system in Finland, which differs from the US education system in several ways, one of which is its focus on social equity rather than excellence.  The policy of Finland: “Every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location.” Education is seen not as way to produce star performers but as a way to achieve social equity.

Likewise the revered Venezuelan social program, El Sistema, which puts instruments in the hands of hundreds of thousands of children. Both programs demonstrate that excellence and equity need not be at odds. Finland has a far superior education system to the US public education system. El Sistema created Dudamel and many other talented musicians.

At the end of the post on Finland’s education system, I asked:

In ten or twenty more years does the nonprofit arts and culture sector want to be the US education system: excellent art for rich people and mediocrity, lack of resources, and lack of opportunity for everyone else? Or do we want to be Finland’s: high quality artistic experiences (or ‘an expressive life’ as Bill Ivey might say) for every man, woman, and child?

We always say that the US has no cultural policy, but is this true? Or is our implicit policy the one that was set by elites at the turn of the last century and served their social goals at the time? Moreover, is it possible that our resistance to creating a national cultural policy has become a method for maintaining those goals?

Late-19th-century policies and practices transformed the US cultural sphere and resulted in the loss of a shared public culture and the disproportional privileging of certain art forms, institutions, and people over others.

Shall this history continue to distort the way we see (and fail to see) our world?

Or shall we make an amendment to our default culture policy?

Photo: Philadelphia Orchestra, 1916

*** (Leslie Houts Picca and Joe Feagin. 2007. Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage. New York, NY: Routledge)

Yesterday, Barry Hessenius at Barry’s Blog wrote a post astutely synthesizing a few of the recent posts on this topic of “funding diversity” (including my own, for which I’m grateful) and offering his own thoughtful perspectives on several issues, including philanthropic coercion:

Individual organizations are less interested in systemic sector wide change, no matter how lofty the purpose or how much they may embrace the concept and agree with the goal.  It’s really not their job to do so.

But, it is the legitimate job of funders; and foundations that have determined that sector wide systemic change (of whatever sort) is one of their objectives, not only have the right, but arguably the obligation to implement strategies – even ones that make demands of their grantees – that they believe may help reach those objectives.  One can argue such strategies are ill conceived, that they don’t work, that being too ambitious without allowing ample time and resource allocation to give the strategies a chance to succeed is a formula for failure – but I don’t think their underlying attempt to make systemic change is necessarily coercive.  Or, if it is, I think they have the right to be coercive (and a lot of change comes about only becomes it is coerced.)  How else can systemic change come about, if no one is permitted to make even the attempt?

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ted Russell’s question the past few days. While I agree with Barry that foundations (to the limits of their tax codes) should be able to set priorities as they see fit, I would suggest that with the power that one wields as a major funder (in a particular field or region) comes the burden to take responsibility for not only where one’s investments are made, but where they are withdrawn.

I once heard a lecture at Stanford University by Jim Phills, Jr. (author of Integrating Mission and Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations) in which he said that the more desperate an organization is for resources the less control it has over its destiny (i.e., the more likely it is to do things that are not in line with its own mission and strategy in order to obtain resources).

To coax is to persuade gently and gradually.

To coerce has many definitions but as I’m using it I would suggest that it entails pressuring another party (through action or inaction) to act in a manner that goes against their will.

For an organization that has a history of funding from Irvine, then the current shift could result in two perceived threats: (1) loss of financial support that is critical and (2) loss of the imprimatur of the Foundation. Given the possible impacts of such losses, such an organization could quite reasonably begin to feel strong pressure to adopt strategies that are not currently in line with its mission, vision or values.

I understand that foundations change their strategies with good reason. As I mentioned in my last post, it seemed that Irvine was quite thoughtful in developing its new strategy. And Irvine may be “coaxing” (from its point of view).

But if its longstanding grantees perceive that they will be out in the cold if they are not on board with the new strategy?

Well, to my mind, this is where coaxing begins to feel like coercion.

In conjunction with the second post, Clay tweeted a question to his followers that drew quite a lot of responses. The question: “Should an arts organization that finds itself located in a more diverse community be expected to serve a more diverse audience?”

Clay asked me a very similar question when he interviewed me a few years back and, as I recall, I responded that I thought that for the major “flagship” theaters in the US it was not at all unreasonable to expect plays to be selected with an eye to reflecting the different values and stories and communities that exist within a the theater’s geographic area over the course of a season or two.

It’s, of course, quite different for organizations that were created with narrower missions. If your mission is to support Hispanic writers and serve Hispanic audiences (because they are under-served by large flagship organizations, even if they may be presenting a Hispanic work every year or two) then why add the burden of being required to also draw non-Hispanic audiences? These organizations exist to compensate for the preponderance of organizations serving white people. On the Boards, where I worked at one time, has distinctive programming that draws younger-than-average audiences who make far less than the medium income in Seattle. This is also diversity.

In other words, the value of such boutique organizations is that they deeply serve particular communities; they are diverse in aggregate. The value of a broad-based organization is that it can more broadly represent the community over the course of a season or two.

We need both.

And, of course, we recognize what keeps the flagship organizations from abandoning their current programming strategies (which are perceived to serve a rather narrow demographic of white, upper middle class, old people) and it is something like Clayton Christensen’s innovator’s dilemma. The major theaters often have loyal, donating subscribers upon whom they depend for annual operating support. As Clay points out in his post, they (rightly) perceive that changing the programming might drive some of them away.

As I’ve written and talked about for years, Centerstage theater in Baltimore went through this. When Irene Lewis arrived the theater was doing white plays with white actors for white audiences. Baltimore is 67%  African American. She felt that the theater was not serving its community and so she began changing the programming and (importantly) the marketing. I interviewed Irene about this once and she said that early on they lost subscribers, some patrons were not at all happy with the shift, and she was challenged on the new direction. Centerstage persevered, however, in large part because Irene (and I suspect others) were deeply committed to the change. Centerstage eventually replaced the lost subscribers with others that embraced the new direction of the theater. Irene told me it took ten years for the change to be fully realized. When I spoke to her about five years ago, the “African  American plays” in their season were drawing the largest audiences of the season.

There are three lessons I get from this story: (1) Change will come in the arts sector when leaders are committed to change. (Throwing money at “reluctant dragons” is a waste of time and precious resource.); (2) If you want more diverse audiences change the programming; and (3) Once you change the programming, be patient. It takes a long time (ten years!) and you need to be willing to lose some current patrons in order to gain new ones.*

When’s the last time you heard of a ten-year (not initiative) grant? As Clay points out, most foundations are not patient. They want results within a “grant period” often designed to accommodate the needs and cycles of foundations rather than the needs and cycles of institutions and projects.

But impatience isn’t the only issue. I was at a meeting awhile back where someone that used to work at a private foundation (as did I) said, “Private foundations can be recklessly fickle.” Indeed. Or at the very least they can appear to be so when they decide to abandon initiatives because they often fail to provide satisfactory reasons for their actions.

Or even when they are transparent and articulate their new “strategies” and substantiate them with research, they overestimate the value and impact of a $300,000 grant on an organization with a multi-million dollar operating budget that has several large stakeholders, each of whom is giving a bit of money and hoping for value alignment in return.

The laundry list of philanthropic offenses is long and well chronicled by others but these are a few that relate directly to this issue of funding strategies around diversity and their impact on arts organizations.

So let’s talk about funding strategies. As many have noted, foundations are rarely content these days to simply be helpful; they feel compelled to be strategic. We hear quite a bit about strategic philanthropy—which strikes me as an oxymoronic concept. Coercion might be a better word for it (Bob Brustein wrote an essay awhile back called Coercive Philanthropy that has influenced my thinking on this; but I would propose that once it’s coercion it’s no longer philanthropy).

I also remember listening to the brilliant Adrian Ellis of AEA Consulting at an Americans for the Arts Conference in 2010 say something like (and I’m paraphrasing from memory so hope I have this right), “The more strategic a foundation is the less able it is to support the strategies of individual organizations.” I couldn’t agree more.

Hence the dilemma of Irvine (which Nina Simon points out in her post about Irvine’s new strategy): Irvine sets a new strategy around audience participation but is experiencing a mixed response from the field and has not received as many strong applications as it hoped (or this is what I perceive to be the issue from Nina’s post).  Irvine appears to be interested in bringing about a kind of diversity (i.e., change) in the arts sector we don’t often talk about: aesthetic diversity. Irvine’s strategy is not fickle. It has done the research. The research has suggested that if Irvine really wants to have impact it will support organizations that engage community members in the co-creation of work rather than organizations that present professional work produced for what are now often referred to as “passive” audiences. I have to believe the research is robust (as it’s a major foundation with sufficient funds to hire smart researchers).

However well-researched and justified, Irvine must recognize (and I think it does) that its strategy is out of line with the missions of a majority of professional arts organizations, which were formed to present work by professionals for audiences that come to appreciate that work, not make it. (Clay also makes this point in his comments to Nina Simon’s post.) It should expect resistance and attempts by organizations to make token adjustments but still appear worthy of a grant. If I ran an arts organization and needed to change the aesthetic orientation of my organization to get a grant I think I would be a very poor leader, indeed, if I applied for that grant in earnest without serious discussion involving the entire staff and board.

There are organizations, like the one lead by the visionary Nina Simon, for whom Irvine’s new guidelines are water in a desert (as she discusses in her post). They share Irvine’s values, and the work they are doing has been undervalued for too long. The Irvine grant is a source of legitimacy for such organizations.

And the rest?

Well, I’m guessing it feels more like a bucket of cold water in the face.

Irvine needs to recognize that it is endeavoring to coax organizations into uncharted territory. It wants to coerce a change that many cannot, or do not want, to make. Again, I’m guessing they know this.  Any organization can do a project here or there in which they let the audience participate in the process. But to reorient an organization away from a structure set up to support professionals presenting the work requires more than money. I reckon it requires a shift in leadership (on the board and staff). It is that fundamental.

So what’s the lesson?

One might jump to the conclusion that foundations should perhaps not attempt to fund change in a system unless they are committed to providing funding for as long as it takes for that change to be realized.

Another conclusion might be that foundations shouldn’t try to change fields and sectors at all, and should content themselves with providing support to nonprofits already doing excellent work that aligns with their priorities.

I seriously question whether funding organizations to make them change works. Has any organization that was reluctant to change made substantive long-term change because of a grant? I suspect any change that happens probably has more to do with leadership, other sources of income, and an intent to change that was already solid before the grant arrived.

And when change fails to be manifested? Well, I would wager that a majority of foundations perceive that organizations are at fault in that case (not the grantmaking strategy). And why wouldn’t they? Organizations write proposals in which they promise to change themselves in dramatic ways for ridiculously small amounts of money and over unreasonable periods of time. They lie about what they can do. They choose to do this to get the money. Foundations choose to believe these lies because it’s convenient to believe that it’s possible to change the world in 3-5 year cycles.

Perhaps rather than trying to change the behaviors of foundations (who have proven to be rather immune to such attempts) organizations need to change their responses to such initiatives. For instance, when that next RFP for a new funding initiative is announced:

(1) Don’t apply for the money, no matter how desperate you are for resources, if the proposal guidelines make you roll your eyes. If this is a foundation that has funded you in the past and this change means you are no longer eligible for funding, write a letter to the Foundation articulating the strategy you are following and why you believe it to have merit. Let them know that you will not be applying for a grant because it would destabilize your organization as it would pull you off what you consider to be a sound strategy. Let them know that if they are ever interested in supporting your organization to continue the good work you are already doing, and the positive impact you are already having in the community, you would be most grateful for the opportunity to apply for a grant.

(2) If you read the application and the funder appears to be interested to support a change you do want to make in your organization (cultivating more diverse audiences, for instance), don’t apply for that grant until you have calculated the total cost of that change on your organization over the next decade and can present that number in your application to the funder, letting the funder know (a) how long you reasonably expect it to take for the change to be implemented; (b) how much you expect it to cost; and (c) the amount you would need from the funder to commit to making the change. If the funder wants you to lower the number and shorten the timeline, or for the program to be self-sustaining after three years, don’t apply unless you have in writing a commitment from board members or donors to fund the program (on top of their current contributions) once the initial funding runs out. If those elements are not in place, write a letter to the foundation explaining the work you want to do that aligns with their values and why you will not apply, and walk way.

I know organizations that are desperate for resources feel as though they cannot afford to say no to the possibility of money. However, I can almost guarantee that you will be better off financially five years from now from having stayed the course with your strategy than from having grown an extra appendage or two in order to get a few grants in the door. We know that such grants have an inflationary effect on the operating budget and the money always goes away too soon.

And on the other side of the table, funders need to be prepared to read such letters, take the heat, and keep walking if they believe they are on the right path. Former grantees may feel betrayed; it’s hard to fall out of favor with a foundation. There will be grumbling by people all over the field, I suspect. (I’m assuming, of course, that foundations are making exit grants to longstanding grantees, or giving them ample notice that funding will not be renewed, and not simply pulling the rug out from underneath them.)

Sure, an honest conversation could lead to a necessary and healthy break up (which is hard), but even this would leave both parties free to pursue their preferred and diverging strategies. But perhaps through a candid discussion common ground could be found; such a conversation might also lead to a stronger relationship, if not now, at some point in the future.

*”Reluctant dragons” is a term that was frequently used by a former funding colleague to refer to organizations hesitant to adopt a particular (foundation funded) practice.

Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, … redefined the measure of success for his city:

“If we in the Third World measure our success or failure as a society in terms of income, we would have to classify ourselves as losers until the end of time. With our limited resources, we have to invent other ways to measure success.”

Instead of GDP or rates of poverty, he focused on a kind of equality of quality of life ~ seeking to create a city of joyfulness for everyone, saying:

“Economics, urban planning, ecology are only the means. Happiness is the goal.”

Suppose we did the same in the arts? Instead of the dollars and cents of economic impact, or the old butt in seats case — what if we focus on happiness?

Margy quite rightly notes that happiness is an area of “serious” economic and sociological research and she provides links to several interesting studies and projects, including the Mappiness Project out of the London School of Economics (previously discussed in a post by Clay Lord), which found that 4 of the top 6 happiness-producing activities for participants were arts activities: theatre/dance/concert, singing/performing, exhibition/museum/library, and hobbies/arts/crafts.

Coincidentally, the day I wrote my post on success I was sent a link to an article in the Atlantic, There’s More to Life than Being Happy, which distinguishes between a “happy” life and a “meaningful” one. I was drawn into the piece because it opens with a discussion of a book I have read many times, Man’s Search for Meaning, by holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl. For those who are not familiar with the book, it is Frankl’s analysis and reflection on why some were able to endure the camps psychologically and others were not. His conclusion: meaning matters and those that were able to withstand the horrors had some purpose for which to live.

The Atlantic article cites the following passage from Frankl’s classic text:

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”

Having a purpose is powerful. I suspect it is one reason why nonprofits are often so resilient in the face of life-threatening problems.

The author of the Atlantic article makes the point that the book’s “ethos — its emphasis on meaning, the value of suffering, and responsibility to something greater than the self — seems to be at odds with our culture, which is more interested in the pursuit of individual happiness than in the search for meaning.” The article goes on to site recent research that examines the differences between leading a “happy” life and a “meaningful” one, which found:

Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided.

Meaning, by comparison, is associated with using your talents to “serve something greater than yourself.” It’s about transcending both the “self” and “the present moment.”

Which leads me to my question: If, as Margy Waller and others have suggested, our goal were happiness—if our aim were to increase the overall level of happiness of a community, or to contribute to the “happiness economy”—what kind of happiness are we talking about in the nonprofit arts?

When I was in primary school there was a certain kind of happiness that would arise if the nuns announced a Congé* and classes were canceled and replaced by a play day. There was another kind of happiness that ensued when I understood the various proofs of the Pythagorean theorem and the gas laws.

What’s the happiness exchange that we’re striving for? We deliver experiences (a play, an exhibit, a concert, an opera) that make people happy (because they are out and about and liberated from mundane chores and cares), and they deliver money to us in the form of ticket sales or contributions and make us happy in return (because we get to stay in business another day)?

Happiness without (much) meaningful exchange?

That’s good – but is it enough?

Disneyland, so it claims, is the “happiest place on earth”. Like Disneyland, one could argue that we are trading  in what are called experience goods (indeed, we’ve spent the better part of the past 20 years improving our  methods in the arts for creating total experiences for patrons). But I would argue that, unlike Disneyland, the arts don’t exist merely to give people a relatively shallow and fleeting high—network television can do that, Broadway revivals can do that, happy hour can do that. (It would seem to be a primary purpose of happy hour.)

And I do not mean to diminish the joy of such experiences—all of which I partake in with some regularity.

But perhaps if we are trying to deliver “mere happiness” we are selling the arts short. I notice that in early mission statements of resident theaters in the US (the subject of my research) the phrase “entertain and enlighten” is sometimes used. It’s good to do both; and I sometimes wonder if, over the years, we have let ourselves off the hook for the second “e”. Many mission statements seem to talk about “delivering artistic experiences” with little specificity as to the purpose of those experiences beyond entertainment.

Perhaps the rewards to society that come with striving to help people find something more meaningful should be our goal (even if many people may be coming to us looking merely for a play day). If so, we need to think about how we measure (account for) not only a happiness that derives from a stimulating evening out on the town, but a deeper happiness that derives from … meaning making … or better understanding oneself, others, and the world we share … or feeling life has great worth or value, etc.

And yes, one might reasonably expect that doing so should deliver something back to us beyond merely another day in business: relevance–what I like to think of as meaningful existence.

Part I: A short story about life insurance:

Morals and Markets is an academic text written in 1979 by sociologist Viviana Zelizer about “the development of life insurance in the US.”  Zelizer recounts that while the first life insurance company was established in the US in 1759 it was not until the 1840s that sales of life insurance began to take off. Then, within a relatively short period of time, life insurance policy sales grew at an astonishing rate. Why had life insurance failed to get off the ground in the late 18th and early 19th centuries? And why, in the mid-19th century did it eventually become adopted with such fervor? While most historical accounts, written by economists, laid the sudden success at more aggressive advertising and sales techniques (most notably the introduction of the charismatic life insurance missionary/salesman), Zelizer felt something else was going on. She ultimately argues that it was cultural factors at play, among them religious beliefs. She writes on pages 150-151:

In the first place, the development of the insurance industry reflected the struggle between fundamentalist and modernist religious outlooks that worked itself out in the nineteenth century. … The cultural incompatibility of life insurance with literalist and fundamentalist beliefs hindered its development during the first part of the century. In opposition, the emerging liberal theology tended to make the enterprise legitimate. … The history of life insurance helps us understand the problem of establishing monetary equivalents for relations or processes which are defined as being beyond material concerns … With life insurance, money and man, the sacred and the profane, were thrown together; the value of man became measurable by money. …  Life insurance threatened the sanctity of life by pricing it. … By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the economic  definition of the value of death finally became more acceptable, legitimating the life insurance enterprise. However, the monetary evaluation of death did not de-sacralize it; far from ‘profaning’ life and death, money became sacralized by its association with them. Life insurance took on symbolic values quite distinct from its utilitarian function, emerging as a new form of ritual with which to face death and a process of the dead by those kin left behind.

Another cultural factor explored in the book is initial resistance that stemmed from perceptions of life insurance as a form of “betting on lives.” That resistance waned after the 1870s, however, when certain financial practices which had theretofore been perceived by a “traditional economic morality” to be “deviant speculative ventures” became legitimized by a new entrepreneurial ethos. Changing views on life insurance reflected this general shift in attitudes about economic risk taking.

In the last paragraph of the book Zelizer writes (p. 153):

America was, and remains, a land of economic magic. In the case of life insurance the trick was to sell futures—pessimistic futures. The task of selling a commodity to a materialist civilization is relatively simple. The task of converting human life and death into commodities, however, was highly complex. The universe of believers and theologians became involved with another universe of hard-headed businessmen. Out of this interaction emerged a compromise credo which was a far cry from the vulgar marketplace linkages and at the same time a giant step beyond simplified heavenly rewards. Theology yielded to the capitalist ethos–but not without compelling the latter to disguise its materialist mission in spiritual garb.

Part II: Redefining Success

In a post on the measures of success in her own life and the lives of artists, Polly Carl describes what has become the “tired trajectory of success for playwrights”:

Theater artist gets trained >Theater artist emerges >Theater artist gets small gigs in small theaters >Theater artist gets big gigs in small theaters >Theater artist gets small gigs in big theaters >Theater artist gets big gigs in big theaters.

She then observes that this journey is problematic because it suggests that success is linear, that we can and should define what success looks like ahead of time, and that success can be measured in terms of economic growth (bigger house, bigger paycheck, etc.). Within hours of reading her post I was sent a link to the NY Times op-ed mentioned above, Can Social Media Sell Soap? on the problem of attempting to calculate the ROI of social media using traditional marketing media measures. The two pieces got me thinking about the yardsticks of success that we now use in the nonprofit arts.

Notwithstanding the past four years where the definition of success seemed to have been temporarily replaced by the more essential goal of simply finishing the year without a life-threatening deficit, it seems that, by-and-large, the sector is and has been for some time now measuring its success primarily in economic terms: butts in seats, increased revenues, budgetary growth, inches of press, and (how could we ever forget) economic impact.

I would extend Polly’s observation of a success-definition-rut among artists, to arts organizations. Lately I keep hearing admonitions to arts groups to shift their focus from “surviving” to “thriving” but how, as a sector, are we defining this thriving?

Has the recession helped us to interpret “thriving” to mean something deeper or outside of the realm of economic measures? Or (despite all the buzz about intrinsic impacts) are we really only comfortable in our skin if we can flash our numbers (and not just any numbers … butts in seats, budgetary growth, inches of press, economic impact).

I get it.

Believe me, after walking away from a great job that I loved (actually two decades of jobs in the arts that I loved and that defined my success pretty handily) I have spent many sleepless nights these past 2 1/2 years wondering how the heck to define success or, put another way, assess my value. Candidly, most days I feel like an under-performing and illegitimate scholar (as all practitioner-turned-academics will understand); a frustratingly sporadic blogger (sorry!);  a hapless stepparent and homemaker; a too-distant and out-of-touch friend, daughter and sister; and a headstrong and difficult spouse.  What I would give for a job that I “was born to do” and through which my value in this life would be immediately recognizable.

But wouldn’t it be even better if I could redefine success so that my life has value even if I don’t have a great job?

Of course it would.

But still. Would anyone in the world buy into my definition, I wonder? I mean, my mom would probably be proud of me no matter what. But it takes a lot of courage to do what Polly is proposing. To live by your own definition of success—a definition that may be illegitimate in the world we live in.

Part III: Big Data

So we are in this pickle. The value of the arts and culture sector in the US has been declining in recent decades (at least by our cornerstone measure of success: butts in seats). It would seem that we either need to get more people to show up or we need some new measures that can tell people that we’re valuable even if the old metrics don’t look so great. I suspect that Rick Lester at TRG would probably comfort us with the knowledge that we are now in the era of “big data”— which shall enable us to embrace a customer orientation and, “armed with facts,” make better decisions about what to program, who to target, with what product, at what price, on what day, etc.  And others (Alan Brown and Clay Lord, most notably) might suggest that big data could also help us make the case for our value beyond butts in seats—that is, for our intrinsic impacts.

It strikes me that these two uses pull us in different directions. (More on that a bit further on.)

I love data more with every passing day, but I can’t help but think that if we make an analogy with Zelizer’s story of life insurance (and the role of cultural factors in legitimizing it as a key determinant of its adoption), that big data (while an important factor) is probably not going to solve our success/valuation problems. Increasing arts participation and redefining success are less dependent on data than on the values and ideologies that underpin our sector and society-at-large.

We may be able to use data to do better marketing but if kids heading off to college in 2030 still have little-to-no exposure to the arts by their parents or at schools is there anything we could target them with in 2040 that would get them to walk in the door of an opera house producing Don Giovanni or a traditional regional theater doing a production of the Death of a Salesman? And if the data tell us we probably could get them in the door if we radically changed programming, would it matter if those leading and funding arts organizations the next twenty years are unwilling to consider such shifts because they consider them to be immoral?

We may be able to use Twitter to, for instance, understand the social impact of a professional theater piece on a given neighborhood; but will it matter if most boards, government agencies, and funders do not consider the impact of a conversation on Twitter to be as or more important than how many people bought tickets and whether income targets were achieved? We may be able to collect data on the social and cultural impact of amateur groups but does it matter if the training programs and the professional arts sector continues to dismiss such contributions as illegitimate?

We may have the possibility of new data, but we seem to be stuck with the same old values and yardsticks.

Part IV: Time to look in the mirror:

Like Polly, I think it’s time to dig deeper. We can start trying to solve our problems with data, but like a prescription of Paxil, it’s not going to be nearly as effective if we’re not willing to acknowledge the disconnect between some of our fundamental values and ideologies and those of society. Moreover, once acknowledged, we are unlikely to make progress by simply bemoaning our circumstances and calling ourselves victims of a philistine society or simply abandoning the social purposes we were formed to uphold and taking the for-profit route because it’s just too damned hard to fight the good fight anymore.

We are, without a doubt, a sector with conflicting values: excellence versus equity (among others). And as the lines have blurred with the commercial and amateur worlds our identity and the values we stand for (conflicting though they may be) seem to be eroding to the point where it feels like we stand for everything (which is arguably the same as standing for nothing).

No doubt society has changed. The alternative ideals that supported the massive growth of the nonprofit arts sector in the mid-twentieth century were out of favor by the 80s and with it, so were we. But we’ve changed too. Perhaps we have been unsuccessful with getting American society to value what we do not simply because their values changed but because ours have. Is it clear what we stand for? It might be clear to the 70-year-old who takes-for-granted that we stand for something important and good because we once did; but is it clear to the 20-year-old? And if we shout, ‘We stand for something important and good!” does that 20-year-old believe us? Based on what evidence?

I’m not advocating a monolithic conception of the sector, but I am (like Polly, I think, if I interpret her essay correctly) advocating for some honesty and transparency about the core, enduring, distinctive identity and values that we do stand for and, with them, our definition of success.

But as we see in Zelizer’s accout, from there begins the hard work of advancing these ideals and values and measures of success.  What changed the religious fundamentalists that initially rejected life insurance? Among other factors, other more entrepreneurial clergymen, who saw the value of life insurance and began to preach about it from the pulpit.

What caused nonprofit arts organizations to adopt marketing practices? Among other influences, corporate boards and trade associations that encouraged and expected them. Marketing, like life insurance, was an idea that was initially downright distasteful to people working in the arts.

Part V: Can we change the measures of success? Do we really want to?

The arts (like life insurance) long ago became a commodity (having previously operated in the realm of the gift economy), though (also like life insurance) one with values (social, cultural, and symbolic) beyond utility. We came up with our own “compromise credo.” As I observe the heated debates on cultural blogs (including, for instance, the dueling that happened in the comments section of my recent post on the arts cliff), I wonder if this compromise position is becoming untenable and, moreover, as a sector we are deeply divided on how to resolve the tension.

It feels to me like we’ve got big data in our corner and we don’t know whether to stand at the bully pulpit and (A) use the data to get really good at selling our commodity and to make the case that we count in this extended era of economic rationalization (a glance at AFTA’s National Arts Index is but one indication that we’ve actually gotten pretty darned good at that); or (B) use the data to make the case that the measure of success in this world should not be limited to growth in the economy and to identify and measure the something else that matters as much or more.

As I wrote in the executive summary of In the Intersection (a report on partnerships between commercial producers and nonprofit theaters), “Recognizing that the metrics of success and the values of nonprofits have changed is one thing. Changing them back is quite another.”

It wouldn’t be easy to pursue path B. We would have to organize and work together and invest resources in creating and living by such alternative definitions and measures of success. We would have to argue against many of the moves we’ve made the past 30 years.

We would have to use our pulpits.

We would have to believe these other things matter.

As I look across the nonprofit arts and culture sector landscape I see some who believe but I perceive that way too many of us have lost faith.

My wish for us in 2013 … that we can find, keep, and spread the faith.

PS I resolved at the end of the year that I would start posting on Jumper more frequently (weekly at least) and failed in the first week. It’s still a goal. Although after reading this, my longest post-to-date, you may be grateful that I’m not posting with much regularity. Congratulations and thanks to any who manage to stick with it to the end.

I have spent the better part of my life arguing that revenue increases are not only advisable, but necessary. It is inarguable that over time, those organizations that reduce salaries of artists and cut artistic initiatives are going to have a harder time raising funds and selling tickets — they will simply not be able to compete for the best talent and for funders and audience members. For not every arts organization is going to be making big cuts–for every troubled organization I can point to one that is doing well at the moment.

Like many who are commenting on our national problem, I believe growth must be the long-term answer.

And a combination of judicious cost cutting matched with aggressive marketing and fundraising aimed at creating more revenue must be the short-term answer.

I agree with Mr. Kaiser’s general point that investments in artistic planning and programming, as well as improved stakeholder relations, are critically important to the long term health and vitality of arts organizations. However, I see some flaws in his analysis of both the nature of the arts cliff and how to avoid tumbling over it.

Michael Kaiser suggests that the arts cliff is a result of “plummeting contributions” and the failure of earned income to keep pace with growth–and that the solution is to be found in driving revenues. However, I’m skeptical of his suggestion that more aggressive fundraising and marketing is the answer. For one, this seems to have been our strategy the past few decades (could we be any more aggressive with our marketing and fundraising efforts?) and it doesn’t seem to have done the trick. But more importantly, I’m not persuaded that the arts cliff is actually a fiscal cliff.

I, too, see a cliff (or, actually, multiple cliffs)– but I would suggest that they stem not from a failure to cut costs judiciously and maximize revenues but from some other failures. Here are four for your consideration:

• The arts education cliff. By-and-large, arts organizations have failed to plunge with vigor and seriousness into the K-12 arts-ed breach and systematically provide comprehensive, high quality, hands-on arts education experiences. We seem to have forgotten that the “taste” that is a critical component of deriving satisfaction and meaning from the arts is not formed at birth or (for the most part these days) at home, or school. Most organizations (still) don’t see arts education as being their responsibility. Years from now I predict we will look back and see a missed opportunity to strengthen our organizations from both a mission and financial standpoint and will be amazed that for-profit providers have successfully moved into this space ahead of us.
• The diversity cliff. Many arts organizations have failed to change the demographics of their boards and staff to reflect the diversity (physical, aesthetic, etc.) of the artists and audiences that they are seeking to serve. Other social sectors, and even corporations, made such adjustments y-e-a-r-s ago. We watched on November 7th as Republican pundits and politicians shook their heads and stammered on about shifts in the demographics of the US and struggled to make sense of their losses. I predict the arts will be doing the same in 10-15 years. The social structures that have long under-girded our sector are crumbling.
• The professionalism cliff. The disparagement of the community arts (aka/ grassroots, populist, popular) sector alongside the promotion of “professionalism” has led to the systematic devaluation of this incredibly important part of the “arts ecosystem”. We are a sector of professional snobs, who have turned our noses up at the community arts for the past thirty years. And I’m not persuaded that this sentiment is changing because individual organizations have begun to collaborate here and there with community-based artists and companies (often in response to carrots dangled by foundations). I predict that before the decade is out we will recognize the folly and vanity of distancing ourselves from our community-based cousins, who will be perceived as being able to do everything many “professional” organizations do but with more heart, less expense, and greater social impact.
• The leadership cliff. When I think of the organizations that are knocking it out of the park these days (and there are plenty of them) it all comes down to leadership. We need leaders who have vision and courage to throw away the staffing, structure, and programming templates and the willingness to fail in the short term in the interest of being better in the long term. We need leaders who identify more with the artists on their stages and the poorly paid administrators in their offices than with the donors they are courting 250 days a year. We need leaders who are not using their organizations to advance their careers but who are laboring in service of something greater than themselves. Talented, forward thinking leaders exist, but we are not doing a great job of promoting them, making use of their talents, and moving them into positions of power and influence in the sector. Some of them are slaving away as #2s. Some of them are running smaller organizations. I wager that all of them are ready and able to run much larger enterprises. Our sector seems to be quite poor at succession planning and I predict that our dysfunction in this area is going to catch up with us–before current leaders are finally ready to ease into retirement (10-20 years from now), but after they have already begun to erode the value of their organizations.

So, yes, the arts are facing a cliff. And we’ve been walking towards it for 30 years. But with all due respect to Mr. Kaiser, this cliff is not averted by simply doing, raising, and selling more.

Recently, I participated in a convening of museum professionals, critics, economists, and others to discuss transformation in the museum field at which one of the participants (someone I greatly admire) said (and I am paraphrasing):

During the recession  one kept hearing the advice: ‘The financial crisis is an opportunity – don’t squander it.’

But I fear that’s what we’ve done. We’ve wasted the crisis.

I fear my art world colleague was right.

We wasted our crisis.

Don’t get me wrong: we’re still talking the talk.

Whether subtle and slow, or radical and swift, there seems to be agreement among everyone in the arts and culture sector that change/innovation/reform/transformation must come. The world is changing and art organizations need to become more porous, resilient, and flexible; they need to be more outward facing and engaged with the world beyond their doors,  more diverse, and less exclusive; and they need to take greater artistic risks, fulfill their research and development roles, provide participatory experiences, take their educational missions seriously, and alter their programming to better reflect and serve their communities.

At least that’s the sector line.

And if you read the occasional report or magazine article highlighting field innovators you might actually comfort yourself with the idea that substantive change across the various arts fields has been happening.

But has it?

Or have most of the changes been cosmetic?

These past four years it seems that many arts organizations have simply hunkered down to wait out the storm. They have once again managed to kick the can down the street (to borrow a metaphor used by another friend a couple weeks ago when commenting on the decades of can-kicking that, she surmised, led to the spate of recent orchestra strikes).

Yes, of course there are bright spots – but most of them seem to be organizations that were already firing on all cylinders before the crisis. There have been bright spots for years and there will continue to be.

But what about the rest? The under-performing? The over-leveraged,  deficit-accumulating, audience-waning, administratively bloated, artistically tired, and community-disengaged? For all the talk about the economic crisis and the opportunity for it to provide the impetus for the arts sector to transform itself into something more intellectually relevant and socially inclusive, it seems that we have arrived at the “new normal” and it looks an awful lot like the old one.

Am I the only one starting to lose faith that widespread, systemic change is really going to come in the professional nonprofit fine arts sector?

We have been telling ourselves that in order to survive in the future the arts “must” transform; but the past four years seem to indicate otherwise. Evidently, the world will not demand transformation from us—it seems we can postpone transformation (or perhaps avoid it entirely) and survive simply by becoming more commercial, or more exclusive, or simply less ambitious and excellent (i.e., mediocre) versions of our former selves.

So, if we want transformation, it seems we will need to choose it (something that NYU professor Paul Light suggested a few years back in his provocative essay on the four futures of the nonprofit sector arising from the economic recession).

While the heat may be off for the time-being, I still believe that transformation of the nonprofit arts sector is necessary, desirable, and possible. Not a transformation that we flee to because there is an ax over our heads, but one we choose because we have come to the disquieting realization that we are on the wrong path—a path that leads to an end that is incongruous with our social purpose in this world—and that it is unacceptable to continue down it.

I haven’t been writing much on Jumper due to an intense term at the university, which has just ended. I expect to resume weekly posting with this post.

So begins In the Intersection: Partnerships in the New Play Sector, the report on the November 2011 meeting, released today by the Center for the Theater Commons at Emerson College (and written by yours truly).

As many will recall, the resident theater movement in the US was perceived to be a revolution: an attempt to create a viable alternative to the commercial logic that dominated the American theater in the first half of the twentieth century. Though things would begin to unravel for the resident theater movement by the end of the decade, at the 1974 meeting it was still confident and idealistic. As I write in the report, an alternative theatrical arena with alternative financing, goals, and values had been successfully created and it was gaining legitimacy. Broadway was no longer the only (or even preferred) destination for new work. Aside from the clear ambitions to align interests on the part of the commercial producers, what emanates most from the report on the 1974 meeting is the sense that nonprofit theaters were still actively defining themselves in opposition to the commercial theater.

By the meeting in 2000, however, collaborations between nonprofit and commercial producers had become commonplace. And while some continued to question whether deals between the two sides would corrupt nonprofits, they seemed unable to persuade others in the room that there were reasons for concern. Commercial/nonprofit partnerships were resulting in high quality (even Tony award-winning) shows, some of which recouped their investments; successful shows brought both prestige and critical income to nonprofits, most of whom were facing an increasingly tough financial environment.

Opinions on commercial/nonprofit partnerships in the theater have been, and continue to be, divided with some seeing them as a positive development (or at the very least benign if kept in check), some as a necessary evil, and some maintaining that they are, or will be, a corrupting influence on the values of the nonprofit theater. There are perhaps those that will read the report on the 2011 meeting and want it to be a clear-cut case for discouraging nonprofit/commercial partnerships; others, the opposite. From my perspective it is neither.

It is the documentation of twenty-five passionate, intelligent, open-minded people who love the theater attempting to grapple forthrightly and personally with difficult realities, among them: the challenge of attracting sufficient funds and audiences to sustain large nonprofit institutions with Broadway-sized venues and high fixed costs; the exorbitant costs of real estate in New York and the seemingly impossible economics of successfully producing on Broadway (or commercially Off-Broadway); the fact that the culture has changed dramatically since the formation of the nonprofit theater sector and, with it, the tastes and values of foundations, corporations, government agencies, board members, individual donors, audiences and other stakeholders; and the reality that it has become increasingly difficult, given these challenges, to produce the ambitious, transformational kind of theater that many set out to make when they got into the theater, much less uphold the original ideals of the nonprofit resident theater movement.

And there is something else. Participants (nonprofit leaders, in particular) grappled with the fact that these deals have gone from being a “dirty little secret,” to being, in a sense, a feather in the cap. They observed that the metrics, or meanings, of success in the nonprofit theater have been changed. And with them, perhaps, our sense of what the nonprofit theater exists to do.

I am close to both the report and the subject (since my research topic for my dissertation is the evolving relationship between the nonprofit and commercial theater over the past 30 years); thus, rather than commenting further on it, I will leave you with a key passage from the executive summary with the hope that it will entice you to read the full report and share any comments you may have. I welcome them.

Here is a link to the HowlRound Web site where you can get access to a free e-reader version of the report. Amazon also has copies for .99 cents. And beautiful paperback copies are available for $15.

I will close by saying that throughout the two-day convening I was struck by two things: the complexity of the issues (which are clearly agonizing at times for those dealing with them) and the generosity of spirit of all who attended the meeting. I am grateful to Polly Carl and David Dower for inviting me to write the report and the participants for trusting me to do so.

“What I’m trying to say is that there are certain ideals that were constructed for the nonprofit theater, which I have not heard a word about in the last two days. We all deviate from the ideals—ideals are meant to deviate from. But you have to know what they are in order to deviate from them. And what I’m not hearing is the fact that there was a time when we were different theaters, we did different things. We didn’t join together to do the same things to please the largest number, to bring in the greatest amount of money, and the greatest subscribers. We did, as a nonprofit theater, most of us did these things because nobody else would do them!” —Bob Brustein

If there was a recurring theme to the 2011 discussion, it was that the nonprofit theater appears to have lost sight of its values and raison d’être. While commercial partnerships were not perceived to be the cause of this erosion of ideals, necessarily, participants acknowledged that commercial transfers from nonprofits have increased in frequency (within organizations and across the field) and—along with box office success, reviews in the New York Times, enhancement income, royalties, Tony awards, working with celebrities, and the other “bells and whistles” associated with them—have become increasingly important measures of success at many LORT theaters.

Collaborations and partnerships were generally considered to be beneficial by the group, with both commercial and nonprofit producers acknowledging that there is work that would not be created were it not for these partnerships. At the same time, concerns were expressed. Among them, that the goals and values of nonprofit and commercial producers can be at odds; that costs and risks associated with enhancement deals are escalating; that artists are often put in the position of serving two masters; that the prospects of a Broadway run can change the artistic process and product; and that such partnerships have the potential to create a legal and moral slippery slope for nonprofits.

If there was a clarion call from the meeting, it was perhaps for clarification around this moral line—what some called the value proposition of resident theaters. There was a sense that regional theaters have been, to some greater or lesser degree, falling down on their watch—not providing adequate support to artists; not taking the artistic risks that they were created to take; not existing first and foremost for their local communities; and, most of all, not upholding alternative measures of success and an alternative set of values to those upheld by the commercial theater. While there was agreement that a larger shift in the values of the culture at large has created an environment increasingly less supportive of the nonprofit theater and that, in many ways, the nonprofit theater has simply turned toward the market (by necessity) along with the rest of the culture—there was also a pervasive sentiment that the nonprofit theater, if it is to have a purpose distinct from the commercial theater, needs to reclaim its lost identity.

PS: Beyond the excerpt that ends this essay, this post draws heavily on passages I wrote for the executive summary of the In the Intersection report.

More than a few said that this was a potentially damaging idea for us to continue to perpetuate in the nonprofit arts as it seems to translate into a justification to pay both artists and administrators far less than a living wage, an action that, some suggested, can result in lower quality performance in arts organizations. I couldn’t agree more with the sad state of wages at many nonprofit organizations. But the point about “in it for the money” was meant to be read in context of the three points that followed.

(2) if you go work for a nonprofit that the nonprofit leaders are also not doing it for the money; (3) that nonprofit leaders are going to do the best they can to fairly and equitably compensate everyone involved in the nonprofit and; (4) those same leaders are going to expend resources in line with the values of the institution (e.g., art, artists, community, education).

“Not being in it for the money” is not meant to suggest that people should be exploited. Indeed, the degree to which the vast majority of arts organizations in this country pay non-living wages to both administrators and artists led me to write a post for the McKnight Foundation awhile back asking whether we can rightly call ourselves a “professional” nonprofit sector or whether we are, rather, a sector made up primarily of “pro-am” organizations. The pro-am frame is not intended to be a negative one (though I imagine some may perceive it as such); I would suggest, however, that it has become a more accurate way of describing the majority of arts organizations.

The thing about pro-ams is that they are doing it for the love and not the money. And if they stop loving it (e.g., become demotivated), they aren’t willing to sacrifice the time (on the side of the day job they often have to hold) for the low or nonexistent compensation that comes with their art work.

Here’s the second point that I was attempting to make above: Asking people to do it for the love and not the money (i.e., take lower wages) only works if everyone is on the love boat. Arts administrators cannot pay themselves rather decently and expect everyone else to happily work for non-living wages.

In any event, returning to the orchestra post, my initial point was simply that money is not the primary motivator for pursuing nonprofit arts work; one assumes that if money were the motivation most people would pursue other work given that nonprofit arts work is often difficult to find and, once found, often involves long hours and low pay (a lot of love, not so much money).

The reason I characterized the recent disputes as “unseemly” (a word that was also questioned) is because, as I understand it, a few involved locking musicians out of orchestra venues or refusing to let musicians play concerts they were willing to play—behaviors that strike me as rather out-of-step with the idea that nonprofit professional performing arts organizations exist, in large part, to support talented artists and the creation of great art works and educational programs: it is the means by which they are understood to achieve their ends. What ends would those be? Let’s call it “contributing to a civil society”–an idea Russell Willis Taylor spoke eloquently about in a recent keynote address.

We presume that nonprofit performing arts organizations exist in large part for the purpose of supporting artists, who (as a colleague in the theater said at a recent meeting) are the workers that make the artistic goods and services around which our institutions are centered. They justify the nonprofit administrators’ salaries; not the other way around. At the formation of the nonprofit arts sector in the early-to-mid twentieth century, many nonprofit organizations were granted nonprofit status first and foremost on the basis of doing just that—providing better wages to artists so that they would not have to hold other jobs, so they would be available for rehearsals and performances, and so that the quality of the performances would improve.

Likewise, a cornerstone of the case for nonprofit status for theaters in the 60s and support from the Ford Foundation was the support of acting companies. To be clear, this wasn’t charity. A case was made that the quality of theatrical performances would only improve if actors could devote more time to their craft and rehearsals and didn’t have to also work other jobs on the side; and also, that no actor in his or her right mind would relocate from New York to Texas without some financial incentive and the promise of being able to play multiple roles within a given season. A key feature that was intended to distinguish the “professional nonprofit” theater or orchestra from the “community” theater or orchestra was the quality of its talent and productions or concerts—quality that was achieved through deeper investments in artists.

So here we are decades later and most theater companies that had acting companies (and not all of them did) have lost them. And now, as I watch the proposals for contracts based on fewer weeks of employment and significantly lower salaries in some professional orchestras I wonder if some orchestras are pursuing a path of nonprofit professional resident theaters (perhaps to a lesser degree, but nonetheless in spirit): outsource as much of the “talent” as possible, but keep the administrators.

I share the concern of Margot Knight who remarked:

What I DON’T see, often enough, is the willingness for pain to shared among EVERYONE that works for the organization in a proportional way. (e.g. EVERYONE takes two weeks unpaid leave which equates to a one-time savings of 4%). Depending on the job and the responsibilities, the time can be taken throughout a year or all at once. And that should be coupled with EVERYONE having a role to play in fund development. There must be some models that are collaborative, that are working, to ease this discord.

We have systematically made the case for administrative growth (and the sustaining of the infrastructure that was built up) over the years—growth that has had the unintended effect of increasing pressure on the artistic product to bring in higher revenues. We now have artists supporting arts institutions. It’s the opposite of the goal at the outset.

I’d like to suggest that one thing that might distinguish a “professional” nonprofit arts organization from an “amateur” arts organization would be that it pays its artists well enough that they can take money off the table (in the words of Daniel Pink, in a great RSA animate video on money and incentives) and invest sufficient time to achieve a level of mastery in what they do. What seems to be at issue in many of the recent disputes is that not only  are wages being reduced to the point where it is making money an issue (i.e., people are sincerely worried about being able to pay rent, support children, etc.), but contracts are being shorted to the point where they are sincerely concerned about the quality of their work.

As Margot Knight remarked, the musicians feel backed into a corner.

Many Americans have, of course, had to accept much lower wages in recent years (and many have lost their jobs entirely). Those working in the arts cannot expect to be immune from this reality. As Andy Buelow suggested, no one is entitled to wages in perpetuity and our wages are, to a great degree, based on our value to society. There was a time when society valued professional journalists and that seems to be waning. There was a time when being a customer service representative, or an accountant in the US, might give one steady employment—now one’s job is likely to be outsourced to India.

Is it troubling that society places less value on orchestras and theater companies and dance companies than it once did?

Deeply.

Do we have to face this reality and respond to it?

Yes.

But in line with Margot’s sentiments, if orchestras have reached the point where they need to dramatically reduce wages and weeks for the band I too would feel better if I saw administrations being radically restructured as well. Indeed, I’d go one further and say that BEFORE we start cutting wages to artists we should perhaps pursue all possible ways to restructure the administration of the organization.

How?

Well, some are evidently trying outsourcing large parts of the administration. I have more confidence in this approach than trimming positions across the organization and trying to make do with a dangerously bare bones staff. But there could be another way forward. In one of his comments William Osborne* quoted a well known report by Richard Hackman on the low level of job satisfaction of many orchestra musicians:

It is true that the most powerful influence on orchestra players’ professional satisfaction is the degree to which their organizations provide them opportunities for meaningful involvement in orchestral affairs. (We also found that professional dissatisfaction was highest in orchestras where the board of directors dominated the decision making process, the other side of the same coin.)

Artistic advisory committees are a case in point. Many orchestras have them, but few orchestras take them seriously. Musicians on the advisory committee may (or may not) meet regularly, but rarely do their views count in developing the artistic direction of the orchestra, in choosing guest conductors or soloists for future seasons, or in deciding about tours or repertoire. […] Players are professional musicians who have much more to give to their orchestras than usually is sought from them—and involvement about artistic matters is one arena in which those potential contributions can be harvested. But it has to be real involvement. Pseudo-participation usually is worse than no participation at all.

Notably, in the same video mentioned above, Pink suggests that autonomy, mastery, and purpose are what contribute to job satisfaction. Does the musician that does nothing but play music feel connected to the purpose of the organization (contributing to civil society through the arts)? Does the administrator that does nothing but execute a marketing or individual donor plan week-in and week-out?

With growth and professionalization of the nonprofit arts sector came specialization—a degree of which, by all accounts, seems to have enabled quality of performances to improve (perhaps even to a degree that many people cannot now fully appreciate). But specialization comes with tradeoffs. And it is sometimes hard to reconcile the myopia that comes with specialization with the full-on, whole-hearted, multiple-skill investments that we often expect (and may increasingly depend upon) from employees of nonprofit arts organizations.

Is it completely crazy to think that one way forward is a degree of generalization (or de-specialization): for musicians to take a more active role in running their institutions? If there is only enough “concert” work to support a 20-week contract, could musicians be paid the remaining weeks of the year to do (not only) education and outreach activities but also to help run the joint (as I hinted at last week when I asked what would happen if all the administrators walked out the door and left the musicians in the building)?

Moreover, is it possible that these entrepreneurial musicians would be more fulfilled in their work than the majority of musicians or admininstrators (working in nonprofit arts organizations) are at the moment?

And that the band would still play excellent concerts?

Is this a better option than shuttering our orchestras when they finally collapse under the weight of their asset intensity ratios?

I’d be curious to hear from those that have been doing this for years, and also those graduating from music or arts admin programs these days.

* Correction: In the original post I inadvertently credited Henry Peyrebrune with citing this particular quote from the Richard Hackman report. While Mr. Peyrebrune initially raised Hackman’s report for discussion it was William Osborne who cited the above mentioned quote in his comments.