When last we met, I talked about community engaged fundraising providing the option of gaining us access to more diverse funding sources. [Engaged Fundraising: I (More Pies)] Here, I am revisiting the "math" of a former post (Arts 2.0: 40k x $25=$1M) in which I waxed rhapsodic about the potential of crowdsourced fundraising. (NB: As yet another reminder, in these mainstreaming engagement posts I am addressing only those individuals or … [Read more...]
Cash Mobs
There is a danger of "echo chambering" when bloggers blog about other bloggers' blog posts. And anyone who reads this blog knows I do it all the time. (It saves having to think up stuff.) That said, here is a stunningly cool idea, the ramifications of which for the arts I can only vaguely imagine. On the Technology in the Arts blog, Andre Bouchard introduced the idea of Cash Mobs. In a nutshell, it is a flash mob that shows up at a local store … [Read more...]
Community Philanthropy
I have for a number of years felt like an ambassador serving as liaison between the arts world and the broader not-for-profit world. (This comes from my roles as director of an arts management degree program as well as director of a not-for-profit management degree program.) To some that seems like an odd thing to say. "Aren't the arts a part of the not-for-profit world?" In a technical, legal sense, yes. However, there have, at least until … [Read more...]
Participatory Culture
In Authority-based Culture, I referenced some work by David Dombrosky having to do with the rise of participatory culture. It's probably a good idea to present a little more of his thinking. He cites access to production tools (like earlier advances that brought desktop publishing to homes and small businesses) and expansion of distribution channels (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) as together providing cost-effective means of getting individuals' … [Read more...]
Authority-based Culture
One of the real pleasures of working on the book Building Communities, Not Audiences–that will indeed be complete before too much more time passes–is reading the insights of my contributors. I've recently been working with David Dombrosky, Chief Marketing Officer at InstantEncore.com and former Executive Director at Carnegie Mellon's Center for Arts Management and Technology. His article for the book is about social media, the arts, and community … [Read more...]
Arts 2.0: 40k x $25=$1M
At least twenty years ago I began sharing this formula with students in fundraising classes. (Clearly, we were all math whizzes!) The point was (and is), of course, that a large number of small contributions is just as much $1 million as is a single contribution of that amount. I was concerned way back then about the proliferation of not-for-profit organizations, the skyrocketing costs of labor intensive industries, and the simple math of how … [Read more...]
Arts 2.0: The Power to Give
My neighbor from down I-85 (or I-40/I-77, I get to choose) has made a big splash recently with a great project for bringing the arts industry into the social media/networking age with respect to fundraising. The Arts and Science Council of Charlotte has introduced a new program, Power2Give. In his October 17 post (The Power to Give) on the NEA's blog, Art Works, Scott Provancher, President of the ASC, introduced this new online … [Read more...]
Arts 2.0
As the example du jour in The Eightfold Path, I raised the specter of crowdsourcing as an interesting concept for dedicated engagers (OK, for most of the arts world) to consider. It took a long time for me to get my head around the meaning of Web 2.0, the source of the Arts 2.0 idea. (Of course, Nina Simon got there far earlier, titling her blog Museum 2.0, and Beth Kanter talked about Arts 2.0 "way back" in 2008.) Simply put, while the "old" web … [Read more...]