• 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 public good

Communities Take Care of Things

January 9, 2013 by Doug Borwick

Communities take care of things . . . that matter to them. That sentence, without the ellipses, made it into my notes from some conference in the last year or so. I have no idea what conference. That's one of the big problems with a life lived in conference sessions and without adequate notes. The statement has been staring at me, gnawing at my mind from the series of legal pad pages that serve as home to blog post ideas, for months. … [Read more...]

No Words

December 19, 2012 by Doug Borwick

Like so many others, I have no words to respond to last week's tragedy. Newtown, CT will never be the same. We will never be the same. Having no words, I had intended not to post anything about it. That was until I read yesterday's NY Times Article "Seeking Comfort in Song Amid the Whiz of Bullets" by Sam Dolnick and  Michael Wilson. Here are a few cherry-picked sentences: Mrs. Wexler, who spent 20 years in corporate finance before turning to … [Read more...]

Bright Spots

November 14, 2012 by Doug Borwick

I wish I had written that. That's exactly the way I felt when I finished reading Alexis Frasz' and  Holly Sidford's report for The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation: Bright Spots Leadership in the Pacific Northwest. (Ms. Sidford was also the author the report, Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change for the Committee for Responsive Philanthropy that highlighted the "shocking" news that most arts funding went to wealthy organizations.) But, not … [Read more...]

Public Benefit

November 10, 2012 by Doug Borwick

Public benefit (or one of many closely related concepts) is becoming an increasingly important element in rating grant applications and in assessing the value of arts organizations to their communities. As I discovered in my recent work on a grant review panel for Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, there needs to be much more discussion of and, eventually, agreement about what this means. This is far too big a topic to be addressed in one or even … [Read more...]

Toxic Pond

July 11, 2012 by Doug Borwick

In April, at the Rustbelt to Artistbelt conference in St. Louis, Bill Cleveland and I had a brief chat between sessions. As inevitably happens when we talk, the subject was the relationship between arts organizations and the communities they are designed to serve. I began my rant about the structure of the arts establishment being the successor to the patronage system and Bill reminded me that the "beholden to elite interests" framework (not his … [Read more...]

Valuing Public Good

June 27, 2012 by Doug Borwick

In preparing my last post [Structures and Models in Blogs, Oh My] about the recent discussions of structural and business models for arts organizations, I was gradually overcome with an uncomfortable sensation. The argument that the intrinsic benefits of the arts are undermined by the need to serve the public scares me. When (and how) did furthering the public good  become a bad thing? Before I go any further, let me acknowledge that I'm … [Read more...]

At Last

June 9, 2012 by Doug Borwick

At long last, Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States, is available for purchase. The paperback is available by clicking this link for CreateSpace. (It's also available at Amazon, but my accountant will be happier if you use the CreateSpace link.) The ebook version is available at Kindle. The Nook and iTunes accounts are getting set up and will carry the ebook soon. (Update: iTunes store version should be … [Read more...]

« Previous Page

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 1,552 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 a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Jerry Yoshitomi on Deserving Attention: “Doug: Thank you very much for this. I am assuming that much of the local sports coverage is of high…” Mar 25, 16:28
  • Alan Harrison on Deadly Sin: II: ““Yes, but it’s Shakespeare!” is a phrase I heard for years in defending the production of the poetry from several…” Feb 17, 19:38
  • Doug Borwick on Deadly Sin: I: “Excellent question.” Feb 11, 16:08
  • Jerry Yoshitomi on Deadly Sin: I: “When I first came into the field and I met our leadership, it seemed to me that ‘arrogance’ was a…” Feb 10, 15:36
  • Doug Borwick on Cutting Back: “Thanks for the kind words. Hope you are well.” Oct 2, 06:58

Tags

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

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in