Community Engagement: The Route to Civic Stature

Decades ago, orchestras began supplementing their educational and young peoples' concerts with something called "outreach." The term was much in favor, not only by arts organizations, but by funders who urged orchestras to do "outreach," whatever that may have meant. When orchestras (for the most part - there were certainly some exceptions) did these programs, there were usually two reasons: one was to attract funding from new sources, and a second was in hopes of attracting a new and more diverse audience to their main series concerts. When these programs were discussed, boards and managements often thought of them as extensions of marketing departments.

Within the past ten to fifteen years (again, there are always exceptions, and the timeline is not quite so clearcut), this area of work by orchestras began to change dramatically. First the word "outreach" was dropped - people began realizing that it was one-directional and, in fact, a bit condescending. It has been gradually replaced by the term "community engagement," and/or "civic stature."  Secondly, the mentality in orchestras began to change. Instead of thinking of these activities as a marketing stimulus, which was never realistic, they have begun to see them as having intrinsic value in and of themselves.

The truth is that if symphony orchestras only matter to people who attend their subscription concerts, they will truly become extinct. Modern American society will not be willing to fund them to the degree necessitated by rising costs if their value is so narrowly circumscribed. But if orchestras are seen as true community resources, each serving its particular community in unique ways suited specifically to that community, they become significantly more important and meaningful. Orchestras take a lot of money from resources in the community - foundations, corporations, and wealthy individuals. The sense that they deserve that money because they play great music for people who are willing and able to buy tickets to their subscription concerts is out of date, and should be. The questions orchestras now ask themselves more and more frequently is: How can we be true community resources?

By even re-thinking the terminology, switching from "outreach" to "community engagement," we think differently about how to go about being a resource of value. "Outreach" can easily translate as "we sit in our office at symphony hall, think of some nice programs that we're sure the community will like, and go out and offer it to them." But thinking about this as true "engagement" means including community leaders and resources in the conversation from day one - more of a spirit of "we'd love to have a relationship with your particular segment of this community - can we think together about what that relationship might be?"  Programs developed through this process will, of course, be of infinitely greater value and meaning to the people they are meant to serve.
 
From music therapy programs to collecting instruments to lend to children from families who cannot afford instruments, and then teaching them how to play them, to teaching a neighborhood community center how to form a community chorus, to bringing musicians together who play different kinds of musics, the possibilities are endless, and American orchestras are exploring them. The result is a far more vital, broad, and deep relationship between orchestras and their communities than might have been the case in past generations - and I have the feeling that these explorations are still in their beginning stage.