For the many of us reeling from the recent election, middle class communities are much on our minds. I’ve written about it twice already: Blindsided and Should We Bother? I thought it might be good to dig a little deeper into what this might mean for community engagement.
The beauty of my operating definition of community–a group of people with something in common–is its flexibility. I know it is woefully inadequate in sociological (or most other) realms but it works perfectly for community engagement planning. We can use it to identify groups with which we want to develop relationships and proceed to the work of doing so.
Ronia Holmes recently pointed out here (Your organization ‘sucks’ at community and let me tell you why) that our field–both funders and arts organizations–has inappropriately identified community engagement as work with marginalized communities. And as she also pointed out, the attempts at cultural colonization that often result are far too frequently condescending, wrong-headed, and breathtakingly ineffective. I have long held that middle class communities (and many other non-marginalized communities) are communities that should be considered for engagement.
So how might we proceed? The principles are the same regardless of the community we are trying to engage. Most importantly we need to learn about the community before daring to create programming. There are questions to ask that can provide helpful insight. At the risk of repeating myself, here are two sets of questions I’ve presented here before.
When you think of our [city, state, region] what are the most important things that come to mind about:
- Geography
- Climate
- Regional History and Historic Events
- Cultural Expression and Heritage
- Creative Legacy (e.g., artists and inventors)
- Food and Drink
- Character of the people
- Athletic Teams
On a more personal or individual level, the following can be good conversation starters. They also demonstrate that you are truly attempting to get to know them.
- What about your community makes you proud?
- What is important to you about your community?
- What about your community do you wish were different?
- What do you wish others knew about your community?
- What are particular creative or cultural resources (people, organizations, or activities) that might help others better understand it? Or Who are the cultural workers/arts makers in your community?
The answers to these questions can help us understand communities with which we might be unfamiliar and inform our work with them.
What might we learn in asking these questions of rural communities or middle class suburban and urban ones? Some of the key concerns/points of pride might include:
- Home and family
- Their children’s education
- Their geographical community and its history
All of these have natural connections to things the arts can highlight and support: participatory family activities, arts and education (!), and community celebrations to name a few. There will be, of course, many items specific to a locale as well. The first step is developing a willingness to be a resource for these communities. Then we need to enter into dialogue to develop trust, just like we must do with more obviously marginalized communities. It’s a nearly unaddressed issue within the nonprofit arts industry that we are widely viewed as elitist and irrelevant to “the person on the street.” Overcoming that impression will take commitment and a considerable amount of conversation up front. Mutually beneficial programming can follow and will lead to greater support.
Engage!
Doug
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First, may I humbly ask a vocabulary question…do you think most people describe themselves living in a “community”? I know it sounds trivial, but it is the language of sociology, grant writers, and pundits (the rest of us live in places like neighborhoods, towns, and even subdivisions), You are right that being “widely viewed as an elitist and irrelevant” is a problem…and talking that way is the first step down that path.
You are absolutely right in the “need to learn about the community before daring to create programming” But realize that people want to live their life…they are not there to be “converted” to fit the mission and vision of an organization. And that may mean to engage requires a servant’s humility rather than a taste-maker’s pride. If organizations mission is to deliver Beauty (art, music, theater) in a town/neighborhood/&c with residents that desire a little more Beauty in their lives, that is probably a win. But if your organization’s mission is to “convert the heathens” from their small lives to radically transform society, then your “learning” will be quickly viewed as condescending.
So before talking programming it means asking hard questions about whether the values of your organization will be supportive of the community values. And that means values that say what is AND what is not important. If Idi Amin and Mother Theresa could both agree to your values, you probably don’t know or are not honest about what your values are. And you will be called out as phonies.
So ultimately, engagement needs to be authentic and in service, not about proselytizing to change others core values. And great Art in service can open people’s eyes. And that is Beautiful.
My use of “community” is simply internal for arts organizations. The operating “definition” is a group of people with something in common, whether or not they acknowledge that commonality. Organizations need to choose with which community or communities they want to build relationships.
I take it you are not a regular reader of my blog. The basic principles of my approach are, in order: humility, respect, relationship building, then (and only then) the collaborative development of mutually beneficial programming. It has nothing to do with “converting” or proselytizing.
One more thing, I’m violating one of my long-held practices in approving and responding to your posts. I’m not enthusiastic about dialogue with someone who chooses anonymity.
Mr. Borwick, I thank you for your response.
Re: “community” For all the efficiency gained through its use especially for communications among arts professionals, I think it does risk many of them to look at towns and neighborhoods as targets rather than people…and make those people feel as if there are bulls-eyes on their backs. I’ve even seen (way too often) some arts professionals showing a tin ear by explicitly addressing the public as “community members”.
If your takeaway was that I thought you personally proselytize with your work, I apologize. I was trying to extend your observations to note that understanding and relationship building only work so long as the next step is not to say “now that I think I know you, I will execute the program I planned to do anyway at the beginning of the process”. In that way, I agree with how you have collaboration following (and presumably informed by) relationship.
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Re: my nom-de-plume. Once burned, twice cautious. A few years ago I was surprised when my email address was outed by another blog host (not you!) for stepping on the third rail albeit with a mildly worded comment and I have had to move to another email. But I use a consistent nom-de-plume for commenting that I’ve used for a couple of years…perhaps more like a costume than a mask.
I am a daily reader of artsjournal.com, and therefore a somewhat frequent reader of your blog. Assuming your core readership are arts professionals, I am not part of that core. But I read artsjournal.com daily, as the arts are important to me, and I find things that challenge my thinking (and cause me to see and listen to things I wouldn’t). I have performed classical and jazz music professionally (but now only as an amateur). I have been a marketer and therefore very attuned to the challenges of understanding a market, and choosing the right tonality to communicate with it. So my comments are experiential, albeit with a different lens.
Because 1) your writing does practice what you preach with respect to humility, respect, relationship building first. 2) I truly sympathize with you working to bring the benefits of art to a broader set of communities., and 3) as a consumer goods marketer, I’ve often struggled with how to understand what my archetypical consumer is thinking…in a way I might be able to increase your sample size by one with qualitative observations. So that’s why I took an hour last night to share a couple thoughts in hope that it would advance the dialog, and hopefully help a writer I enjoy reading.
I hope my comments are in accord with your principles (which certainly reflect a Good worth striving for!), that they are of value to you and your readers, and that you might choose to accept them in the future (which is why I spent another hour I didn’t have to respond today!). But if you cannot, I do understand and thank you for having accepted the ones that you did. In any case, all the best bringing art to more and more people.