I had already clicked Save on Build Back Better when I saw the NY Times article about GM's plan to sell only zero-emission cars by 2035. Wow. Just wow! A world leader for decades in the production of vehicles with internal combustion engines has decided its business is personal transportation and is not specifically tied to those engines. This is exactly like the reimagining that libraries have been/are doing transitioning from a self-image of … [Read more...]
Build Back Better
One day –whether it's six months, a year, or two years from now– arts organizations will have emerged from their bunkers to once again make in-person arts experiences indoors. The trauma that we as individuals and as an industry have experienced between last March and then will be the backdrop for whatever that reality looks like. Many are making big picture suggestions: a 21st-Century WPA program, a cabinet-level department devoted to … [Read more...]
Matter
We have been considering the prospects for making the most of our organizations' post-pandemic potential. (Getting the Question(s) Right and Connect.) The thread that binds these posts together is this quote from Getting the Question(s) Right: So our questions should be, first, "What are our communities feeling/ experiencing?" and second, "How can we help them?" Once we have our questions right, we will need to position ourselves to be of … [Read more...]
Connect
The viability of our industry depends upon significantly expanding our base. To do so, we must connect with and come to matter to more and more people. This post is a follow up to an earlier one, Getting the Question(s) Right. It would probably be a good idea to read that if you've not done so. Here is an excerpt from the close of that post: So our questions should be, first, "What are our communities feeling/ experiencing?" and second, … [Read more...]
Getting the Question(s) Right
As a blogger, I think I'm supposed to begin the New Year with reflections and projections. But the traumas of 2020 are still too fresh for me and the way forward, while bringing hope, is far murkier than it has been at the beginning of almost any year of my life. So I won't try to do either. What I will do is suggest that at least one question I've seen raised about the nonprofit arts industry in 2021 is the wrong one. Roughly put, it is "How … [Read more...]
Why Engage?
Guest Post by Penny Brill When we investigate the disconnect between what we are doing with our art and what we might do, we become aware of who has been left out of what we present, preserve and protect, what has been disregarded, who does or does not benefit using our current model, and who has been harmed by our decisions. We have excluded large segments of our communities and have not demonstrated that we value their … [Read more...]
Viability
For years, my work has been built on three simple premises. First, the combination of skyrocketing costs and rapidly withering traditional arts funding represents an unavoidable, near-term, existential crisis for arts organizations. Second, the only path to viability is a dramatic increase of arts organizations' reach–the pool of people who could realistically become arts supporters. Third, the means to that end is the development of trusting, … [Read more...]
Trust
Crazy-making. So much so that, of course, it's hard to concentrate on issues around community engagement. The troubles are simply too numerous, too big. Even so, occasionally something bubbles up that returns me to my CE thinking. One such instance was a New York Times article about masks and vaccines: How to Actually Talk to Anti-Maskers. The initial story was about doctors trying to get Guineans to take the vaccine for Ebola in 2014. There … [Read more...]
Community Engagement Network
Two years ago ArtsEngaged created a mechanism for people interested in community engagement in the arts to learn and share. (Facebook group Become Indispensable.) The intent behind it was (and still is) to be a resource for information and to serve as a support group for anyone involved in (or desiring to be involved in) this work. [See Note below about our first event.] To date, through no one's fault but my own, it has not been particularly … [Read more...]
Closet Cleaning
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 … [Read more...]