Engagement Principles: Current Thoughts

As part of my new work of providing direct support to organizations in efforts to more effectively engage with their communities I’ve been rethinking, expanding, and refining my thoughts on the most important characteristics and attitudes in doing so. I’m grateful to the Regional Arts Commission in St. Louis for the opportunity to dig down into this with their grantees. Here is where I am now.

Humility
Perhaps the most important requirement for successful community engagement is humility–awareness of both the organization’s capacities and areas of ignorance. The latter becomes especially important in dealing with communities that are new and/or unfamiliar to the organization.

Respect
Directly related to humility is respect for those not expert in the arts–respect as people and respect as having expertise that we do not.

Reciprocity
As I have said almost countless times before, there is no need to “dumb down” anything we do to engage with new communities. They do, after all, deserve our respect. (And if we can’t give it, we’d best stay away from engagement efforts.) However, there is an unconscious tendency to demand a lot from outsiders in order for them to appreciate what we offer–understanding of the history, techniques, and practices of our disciplines as well as background on the individual works we present. It’s OK to demand that for them to appreciate our offerings. BUT, if we are expecting much of them, in fairness, we should invest as much in the relationship. Here are two questions that are good to consider:

• How much does the work we present demand of the community in order to be understood or appreciated?
• How much does the organization demand of itself to understand the community?

If the equation is vastly out of balance, we are not likely to be successful in gaining the support of the communities we seek.

Mutually beneficial collaboration
Effective community engagement stems from partnerships between communities and arts organizations. The most important foundation is that those partnerships must be mutually beneficial. If there is not identifiable benefit to the community and to the arts organization, the work will not be sustainable and it will also not be successful as engagement. In all such work it is necessary to bear in mind that the community brings expertise in community interests and function and arts organizations bring knowledge of art and its processes. They can’t get along without each other.

Core Motivations
Finally, the values that make the arts organization “tick” toward community engagement can make or break the relationship. The three things listed here do not represent all that’s important in making engagement work, but they’re not a bad start.

• Care for the community, those who are served through the art. This is the prime directive.
• Love the art but don’t let it become more important than the people whom the art will inspire.
• Pursue (and achieve) excellence, not for its own sake but for the sake of the community. They deserve it.

Engage!

Doug

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