• Home
  • About
    • Engaging Matters
    • Doug Borwick
    • Backstory-Ground Rules
    • Contact
  • Resources
    • Building Communities, Not Audiences
    • Engage Now! A Guide to Making the Arts Indispensable
  • EM’s List
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Engaging Matters

Doug Borwick on vibrant arts and communities

You are here: Home / Archives for future

What Comes Next? IV

May 20, 2020 by Doug Borwick

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

May 18, 2020 by Doug Borwick

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

May 13, 2020 by Doug Borwick

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?

May 6, 2020 by Doug Borwick

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...]

Gaia, Healthcare, and the Arts

May 1, 2019 by Doug Borwick

The arts will always exist. Wherever there are human beings the arts will be there. It is far less clear that today’s arts organizations will survive through the next several generations.(You know you are old when you begin to use self-quotes as epigrams.) This post responds to three things I've read recently that have me stewing (again) about the future of big- (and medium-) box nonprofit arts organizations, the ones that bear the DNA of the … [Read more...]

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 …]

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 690 other subscribers

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...]

Books

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) […]

Share this:

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Archives

Recent Comments

  • David Pankratz on Reimagine Yourself: “Hi Doug, Appreciated the library and automotive analogies. Here’s another from the world of public transportation. There’s an ongoing debate…” Feb 17, 11:22
  • Jerry Yoshitomi on Build Back Better: “Doug: Thank you again for this. Again, right on the mark. I’ve heard that rebuilding a house that has been…” Feb 4, 17:10
  • Alan Harrison on Build Back Better: “Excellent. If, in a year, the nation sees the arts as an elitist escape for the privileged – as they…” Feb 3, 03:01
  • Alan Harrison on Matter: “Brilliant once again. I think the issue of inward-facing acclaim (instead of outward-facing impact) being so prevalent among dying arts…” Jan 27, 07:17
  • 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

Tags

and artcentricity artists arts Asia Pacific board of directors box office business model change community engagement creativity dance definitions diversity equity examples excellence funding fundraising future governance grants implementation inclusion instrumental international Intrinsic mainstreaming management marketing mission museums music participation partnership placemaking programming public good public policy relationships research Robert E. Gard Foundation structure terminology theatre
Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.