This week marks the tenth anniversary of Engaging Matters. That's hard for me to believe. In that time this blog has had a little over 500 posts, mostly written by yours truly but also spiced up with work from some brilliant guests. When we began there was a frantic (for me) pace of two posts per week. After a few years writing that much "ate my lunch" so I cut back to one per week. Over the last two years the writing has become gradually more . … [Read more...]
Ready . . . or Not
In the Community Engagement Network’s May and June Conversations on Benchmarking Equity (See What Was Said) a good deal of time was spent on the question of when an arts organization is ready to pursue DEI initiatives. The overwhelming opinion was that just because an organization would like to be seen as equitable does not mean it was ready to begin working toward equity. Here are some indicators that an organization is not ready: When an … [Read more...]
Equity and Engagement
As I mentioned in What Was Said, the report on the Community Engagement Network’s May and June Conversations on Benchmarking Equity, participants frequently commented on the relationships between community engagement and work in pursuit of equity. I’ve long held that without a commitment to community engagement an arts organization’s DEI efforts are not likely to succeed (Doomed to Fail). But the Conversations went way beyond that. In particular, … [Read more...]
Music As Care
Music as Care by Sarah Adams Hoover is a book devoted to “arts in health.” The topic is light years from my area of expertise so I was surprised when Sarah asked me to take a look at it. I am extremely glad she did. The book provides an excellent (and fascinating) overview of a rapidly growing field, one that appears to hold much promise for the future of healthcare. But what struck me most was the way it humanizes music; for the arts to be … [Read more...]
What Was Said
In May and June the Community Engagement Network hosted Conversations addressing the topic Benchmarking Equity. While we did not take the advisability of benchmarking as a given (Benchmarking? Maybe Not), the premise of the discussions was that without some form of accountability, statements committing to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion can easily be as toothless as “thoughts and prayers” about gun violence. For those interested, the notes … [Read more...]
Engagement Readiness Quiz
The verdict in the George Floyd murder trial provides your arts organization with an opportunity to take a very simple quiz to determine its readiness for engaging with communities. Here are three questions: Did your organization immediately think "In what ways can we help the people of our community deal with this?" Awareness of community issues is one of the most basic elements of community engagement. (Of course, it's a little difficult … [Read more...]
The Pursuit of Equity
Last week Selena Anguiano (Benchmarking? Maybe Not) cautioned us about attempting to develop benchmarks for progress toward equity. She was responding to the announcement of the Community Engagement Network's next Conversation, Benchmarking Equity. In her post I see her identify two primary problems with benchmarking. First, there is no one size fits all approach that's workable (no two organizations are even remotely alike) and, … [Read more...]
Benchmarking? Maybe Not
Guest Post by Selena Anguiano Selena Anguiano is a member of the Advisory Board of the Community Engagement Network. (Her bio is given below.) She has expressed some concern about CEN's next Conversation, Benchmarking Equity as announced in the last blog post here. Here are her thoughts. Next time we'll try to address the concerns. In trying to achieve equity in nonprofit (arts) organizations, there is a basic question - can one really … [Read more...]
Join the Conversation
Engaging Matters has been "dark" (as they say in the theater) for longer than normal. Some of that is pandemic ennui, some sheer laziness, some a sense that in this tenth year of the blog (more on that later this year) I've said a lot of what I want to say, but most of it is that I've been focused on other things. I continue to train small cohorts in community engagement, I do some "how to" consulting with arts organizations seeking to be more … [Read more...]
Reimagine Yourself
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...]