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Engaging Matters

Doug Borwick on vibrant arts and communities

Closet Cleaning

August 12, 2020 by Doug Borwick

For a lot of us, these last few months have provided an opportunity to clean out and organize our closets, cupboards, garages, and workshops. The process involves resolving to do it (!), clearing everything out, choosing what things we don’t need, and putting the remainder back. In some cases, we also choose to add things that will help us make those spaces more functional.

Stick with me, there will be a point to this.

The culling process involves determining how useful/rewarding the item is (I love the “Does it give you joy?” question.), how long it has been since you last used it, or how truly essential it is.

In some cases things we’ve kept are so inefficient that they need to be replaced. In what must have been the Paleolithic era, I bought one of the world’s first electric screwdrivers. It is almost completely useless because the battery can barely turn a screw even when it’s not going into wood or metal. Maybe I’ll throw it out and get a functional one . . . .

For many arts organizations the retrenchment to zero (or nearly zero) we are experiencing has provided the opportunity for similar consideration of what’s “in our closet.” We can skip right past the “clearing everything out” part of the process. That’s been done for us.

Now, as I suggested in Crisis as Opportunity, we have the luxury (note the extreme distance I’m going to find a silver lining) of examining our programming and business models. Are there assumptions that need re-examining? Would it be worthwhile to think deeply about our role in the community? How about connecting with more people–talking with them, learning about them–so that we can develop better means of making the art we present meaningful to them?

When we are at last able to crawl out from our bunkers, the world will be vastly different. We will be required to take our legally mandated commitment to the “public good” (required by nonprofit status) more seriously and vastly expand the public that sees our work as “good” for them. We will be expected to take issues of justice and equity far more seriously than most of us ever have. We may even have to seriously reconsider our funding models. A shift from a limited number of “big dollar” supporters to a much broader range of small donors may be necessary. (This has been a long time coming, unrelated to the pandemic. Skyrocketing costs and a decline in arts-focused individual, corporate, and foundation sources have been conspiring to upend our business models.)

In short, we will need to build close working relationships with more and more of the communities that surround us. We will need to, yes, engage with them.

Not every item needs to go back in the closet. Are there things that are, metaphorically, like my electric screwdriver? The fact that you’ve always done something does not mean it is a good fit for the new world that’s coming.

Let me urge you to consider replacing some of the things in your closet. If you have not done so already in this harrowing time for the arts, think about what relationship building might look like for your organization and what opportunities there might be for doing your art in ways that a more meaningful to those you need to serve.

And if you have a difficult time imagining these things, remember there are those of us who would be happy to give you a hand in doing so.

Engage!

Doug

Photo:

Some rights reserved by peyri

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Filed Under: The Practice of Engagement Tagged With: arts, community engagement, planning

Comments

  1. Janice Hochstat-Greenberg says

    August 12, 2020 at 8:14 am

    Very thought-provoking and something that I have been trying to address with my organization for the past few months.

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 …]

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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...]

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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) […]

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Recent Comments

  • Jerry Yoshitomi on Connect: “Doug: Thank you again for this. You’re suggesting that we must develop new ‘capacities’ or ‘muscles’ in order to be…” Jan 13, 21:24
  • Alan Harrison on Connect: “Brilliantly put, once again. Thanks, Doug!” Jan 13, 02:43
  • Jackie Mathis on Getting the Question(s) Right: “I have been spending a lot of time thinking about this, and there seems to me a huge opportunity for…” Jan 7, 18:06
  • Trevor O’Donnell on Getting the Question(s) Right: ““Connect and then Matter” Brilliant. Should be the new mantra for every arts organization.” Jan 6, 10:35
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