My post last week (Justice) prompted Jerry Yoshitomi to comment, "It seems that we must ask our Black colleagues to share some benchmarks/metrics that we as a field might strive to meet." So maybe this could be the catalyst to get us past good intentions (the industry equivalent of "thoughts and prayers") to action. Long ago Barry Hessenius charged us to move from thinking of the pursuit of equity as a "issue" to making it an obsession. So, if … [Read more...]
What Comes Next? IV
The post-pandemic world will be different, probably in significant ways. We have no idea what those ways will be. There may not be a political reckoning as the result of any heightened awareness of inequality and injustice that this crisis has highlighted. I don't expect violent social unrest. (See What Comes Next? I, II, and III.) But I am not the only one imagining the possibility of big changes. Michelle Goldberg, a New York Times columnist … [Read more...]
What Comes Next? III
If we as a nation come out of the pandemic with a heightened awareness of and reaction to profound economic inequality and the systemic injustice in which it is rooted, it could be that the arts are in for a difficult time. As I wrote in my last post: In the minds of many, we are closely associated with the economic and social "elite." This may bode ill for our organizations. This association is as old as the U.S. I was first made aware of the … [Read more...]
What Comes Next? II
Throughout its history, one of the safety valves for our nation has been a broadly held belief in the "American Dream"–the idea that anyone can rise from nothing to great success. Let's acknowledge that this has never been actually true. Poverty, discrimination, and a host of other social ills have meant that the actual percentage of people for whom that dream was possible was small. However, belief in it has been pervasive among a large section … [Read more...]
What Comes Next?
We are all (or maybe I should say most of us are) overcome with unanswerable questions. COVID-19 dominates our thinking and has drastically altered our lives. We are faced with impenetrable uncertainty about what comes next . . . and when it will come. This is true for us as individuals. And while it may be difficult to focus too much on the fact, it is also true for our arts organizations. In both cases, whatever the new normal will be will … [Read more...]
Community Citizenship
Do you consider your organization's deepest responsibility to be to art or to people? I don't mean what is your mission. (That's a question for another time.) Rather, in extreme instances, what is most important? If many in your community are hurting is your focus on art? The tendency to focus on art almost exclusively is one reason people outside of the arts view our work as insular, out of touch, and/or irrelevant. In times of crisis, such … [Read more...]
Ask
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Like most people on the planet, I have been consumed with reports on the pandemic threatening us all. I have also been trying to figure out what I can do, both in reducing the spread and in making things better for people. I've had much more success with the former. I've also been watching with great interest the number of arts organizations making content … [Read more...]
Crisis as Opportunity
Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago and former Chief of Staff for the Obama White House, famously said, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste." He went on to explain "And what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Well, the world is facing a crisis the full impact of which is unkownable at this time. What we do know is that things are shutting down, slowing down, contracting in response … [Read more...]
No Mystery!
When dealing with new communities, staff and board members of nonprofit arts organizations are sometimes puzzled when things they thought would work crash and burn. Often, there is really no mystery. We offered free tickets but no one came!We performed at the community center but no one came!We invited people to our offices to discuss how we can work together, but no one came!We sponsored a town hall meeting to present our new ideas but no one … [Read more...]
Why and How
A couple of months ago, a new reader of one of my books got in touch to say “I haven’t finished it yet because I’m constantly having to digest the ‘YES’ and ‘AMEN’ moments I get from each section.” She, like many passionate new readers, went on to ask why they and their colleagues had not heard of the books before. The blame, of course, is on us at ArtsEngaged®. Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States … [Read more...]