• Home
  • About
    • Engaging Matters
    • Doug Borwick
    • Backstory-Ground Rules
    • Contact
  • Resources
    • Building Communities, Not Audiences
    • Engage Now! A Guide to Making the Arts Indispensable
  • EM’s List
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Engaging Matters

Doug Borwick on vibrant arts and communities

Outreach ≠ Community Engagement

March 20, 2013 by Doug Borwick

NotEqualI  sometimes hear people equate outreach with community engagement. In my ongoing effort to clarify the language we use about these matters, I’d like to differentiate between these two terms. For me, the simplest distinction is that outreach is (at best) done “for,” community engagement is done “with.”  Outreach, as the word implies, keeps the “outreacher” at the center. The “targets” of the outreach are outsiders. The entire center of gravity as well as most of the concern is with the arts organization.

Community engagement is rooted in relationship building. The “what” that is the art grows out of the relationship, factoring in the interests and needs of the community. This is not simply a semantic distinction. The frame of reference of the arts organization impacts the quality (or even the existence) of the relationship. It will also affect the nature of the work presented. If  the art does not bear evidence of community involvement, the work is not a result of community engagement.

Outreach can be more accurately equated with audience engagement-the effort to deepen relationships with current stakeholders and to extend an organization’s reach.  Audience engagement is, properly, self-focused and somewhat more immediately concerned with butts-in-seats/eyes-on-walls results. (Audience development is, of course most immediately concerned with those things.) Some common examples of outreach efforts are:

  • Artists meet audiences (one-way presentation and answers from artists)
  • New population centers (under-served towns, etc.)
  • New Venues (neighborhood centers, construction sites, public parks)
  • Relatable cultural idioms; Familiar/popular forms (often new work)

To me, understanding distinctions between outreach (and audience engagement) and community engagement is helpful in that it supports a broader palette of potential in the service of both organizational sustainability and community service.

Engage!

Doug

Not Equal image AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by holeymoon

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Related

Filed Under: Principles Tagged With: arts, community engagement, terminology

Comments

  1. Habeas says

    March 22, 2013 at 3:01 pm

    Given the distinction you’re trying to draw, how can a presenting company engage in community engagement work, if no artistic creation directly within the local community is taking place? What kind of “evidence” can a presenting company draw on? or is it impossible for presenters to engage their communities, with this definition?

    I am thinking this through, and I think I disagree that outreach is done “for”, unless you consider ALL attempts at education to be “done for” rather than “done with” (especially in the case of playwriting classes, I’m having a hard time imagining how that’s not “done with” ). But I’d like to hear your clarification first.

    • Doug Borwick says

      March 22, 2013 at 3:27 pm

      While presenters do not produce artistic product, they do curate it. They have options about what to present. They can and should have deep ties to their community that can inform their choice of what to bring in. The presenter knowing that their community is dealing with issues related to an influx of Southeast Asian immigrants could book a Vietnamese dance troupe and create opportunities for community dialogue around the event.

      We may need to work on the definition of outreach to address your second point. And, of course, some work that gets labeled outreach may spring from existing relationships, taking the interests and expertise of the community–as learned directly from that community, not assumed by the arts organization–into account. In general though, the word outreach seems to imply “from me to you.” If a project is jointly designed, partnership strikes me as a better word. Specifically regarding education, if education professionals are guiding the creation of programming, it is a partnership. Also, in my experience, outreach is often primarily seen as a means of expanding reach, serving the marketing (and even more immediately, sales) interests of the organization.

      • Habeas says

        March 22, 2013 at 10:50 pm

        I’m hammering away at the first point, for the moment. It seems there is a subtler distinction you’re trying to make between work that benefits a company in monetary/ butts-in-seats ways, and work that doesn’t. For a presenting company, selecting a show that meets the interest of a segment of our community–say, a play that raises ethical questions about science for a community with a concentration of science researchers–is taking into account the “needs and interests of our community.” But I think you would perceive that as “outreach” precisely because it is company-serving: it puts patrons with disposable income in range of our company’s work, thus $ and butts in seats, because they’re interested in our subject matter.

        Given your example, it might take a deeper knowledge of a cultural segment than our organization has, first to identify community issues of which we’re unaware as curators, and second to be able to program either a Vietnamese dance troupe or find local experts to facilitate community dialogue. I take your point that as curators we’re responsible for being connected within our locales so we know what’s going on, and I follow you that far.

        However, presenters run the risk of going off-mission pretty quickly if they chase after community segments based on current events and personal relationships, rather than building core audiences over time. Another way of putting this is: If the framework for engagement efforts is intensely project-specific, why would the last project’s audience keep being engaged in our company’s work over time?

        • Doug Borwick says

          March 22, 2013 at 11:14 pm

          1. “[W]ork that benefits a company in monetary/ butts-in-seats ways, and work that doesn’t.” The issue is not either/or. Community engagement will put “butts in seats” in the long term. That’s wonderful; it doesn’t make it not engagement. Indeed, that’s exactly the outcome for which I advocate.
          2. I am not talking about “chasing after” anything. Engaged communities can become core audiences. If an organization embeds itself in its community, that is a way to expand reach significantly, creating a much bigger core audience.
          3. Effective relationship building must be maintained. It does not stop when an arts event is over. The event is either a beginning or one step of many in an engagement continuum.
          4. The key lies in transitioning our self-understanding as serving art exclusively to serving our communities via the art we have to offer.

  2. Nicole Vasconi says

    March 26, 2013 at 1:27 pm

    Thanks for such an interesting post! Since you define community engagement and outreach as two separate things, are audience participation and community engagement two unequal elements as well? I can imagine that community engagement would result in audience participation, attracting people from the community to attend a certain event at the arts organizations.

    But at the same time, is “audience participation” a label for more general, or even popular, programming, while “community engagement” is meant to be a special type of programming introduced by the arts organizations only sometimes? Do you have to be, or should you be, selective when choosing when, how, and which issues you want your arts organization to engage in? (granted that you’re always following the mission of the organization and that your project makes sense to the community)

    • Doug Borwick says

      March 26, 2013 at 1:39 pm

      I’ve not really thought about this before. So, off the top of my head . . . . Audience participation is something that happens in the context of an arts event. Community engagement is the relationship building process that gets them connected to you and, ultimately, to come to your events. I would probably say, on a first pass, that audience participation is most related to audience engagement.

  3. Joyce Bonomini says

    April 13, 2014 at 4:01 pm

    I am thrilled with this Blog. I have worked in the arts education and community arts field for 30+ years and have advocated the distinction between community arts programs (community engagement, and outreach programs for the past 20+. For me it is simple, one is based on a philosophy of long term commitment and relationship building and yes that for me is community arts/engagement programming. The other is programs that are developed by artists and arts organizations to fulfill a service component of their mission. They do not necessarily build “relationship’ nor is that the intent it certainly serves a purpose of exposure and connection but not ‘change’ catalyst for community building and value that community arts/engagement programming develops. I think your definition is one of the best I have read.

About Doug Borwick

Doug Borwick is a past President of the Board of the Association of Arts Administration Educators and was for nearly 30 years Director of the Arts Management and Not-for-Profit Management Programs at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC. He is CEO of Outfitters4, Inc., providing management services to nonprofit organizations and ArtsEngaged providing training and consultation to artists and arts organization to help them more effectively engage with their communities. [Read More …]

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,552 other subscribers

About Engaging Matters

The arts began as collective activity around the campfire, expressions of community. In a very real sense, the community owned that expression. Over time, with increasing specialization of labor, the arts– especially Western “high arts”– became … [Read More...]

Books

Community Engagement: Why and How

Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States Engage Now! A Guide to Making the Arts Indispensable[Purchase info below] I have to be honest, I haven’t finished it yet because I’m constantly having to digest the ‘YES’ and ‘AMEN’ moments I get from each … [Read More...]

Gard Foundation Calls for Stories

The Robert E. Gard Foundation is dedicated to fostering healthy communities through arts-based development, it is currently seeking stories from communities in which the arts have improved the lives of citizens in remarkable ways. These stories can either be full descriptions (400-900 words) with photos, video, and web links or mini stories (ca. 200 words) […]

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Jerry Yoshitomi on Deserving Attention: “Doug: Thank you very much for this. I am assuming that much of the local sports coverage is of high…” Mar 25, 16:28
  • Alan Harrison on Deadly Sin: II: ““Yes, but it’s Shakespeare!” is a phrase I heard for years in defending the production of the poetry from several…” Feb 17, 19:38
  • Doug Borwick on Deadly Sin: I: “Excellent question.” Feb 11, 16:08
  • Jerry Yoshitomi on Deadly Sin: I: “When I first came into the field and I met our leadership, it seemed to me that ‘arrogance’ was a…” Feb 10, 15:36
  • Doug Borwick on Cutting Back: “Thanks for the kind words. Hope you are well.” Oct 2, 06:58

Tags

arrogance artcentricity artists arts board of directors business model change community community engagement creativity dance diversity education equity evaluation examples excellence funding fundraising future governance gradualism implementation inclusion instrumental international Intrinsic mainstreaming management marketing mission museums music participation partnership programming public good public policy relationships research Robert E. Gard Foundation simplicity structure terminology theatre
Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in