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...]
Relationships Checkup
Some time ago, while discussing relationship maintenance, a student of mine shared with her training group a practice she employed to keep community relationships current. (One of the big pitfalls in engagement is losing track of relationships after an event is over.) I commented on what a great idea it was and made a note to visit it further here on the blog and in my own thinking. . . . I promptly forgot about it. Fortunately, the note … [Read more...]
Trees, Arts, and Communities
In January Joe Patti (Butts in Seats) wrote an exceptionally valuable post (Trees Come with Unexpected Baggage). It was about a nonprofit organization in Detroit planting trees in neighborhoods. It turns out that, for a wide variety of reasons, many people did not want the trees. For many of us, a free tree sounds like an unequivocally good thing. Why would anyone not want one? It turns out that there are a number of reasons. But a common … [Read more...]
Wristband
https://youtu.be/9lJHVpH5v8Q Today we use a song by Paul Simon as our text. If you don't know "Wristband" go ahead and watch/listen. We'll wait for you to come back. (If you want, skip ahead to 18 seconds in.) But pay particular attention to the "message" verse about 2/3 of the way through. The riots started slowly with the homeless and the lowly Then they spread into the heartland towns that never get a wristband Kids that can't afford the … [Read more...]
Lots of Coffee
Recently, in a conversation about beginning relationships with new communities, one of our new ArtsEngaged trainers, Anne Cushing-Reid, commented that, especially where there is negative history to be overcome, "There's a lot of coffee in our future." I flashed back to the thousands of cups of coffee I've consumed in the process of getting to know people. "Coffee" is, of course, a place holder for whatever means of social interaction is employed … [Read more...]
Engagement as Pure Research
Community engagement sometimes begins as an attempt to accomplish a specific task–mount a festival, put on what is considered to be a performance relevant to community interests (note the construction of that phrase!), or, ahem, satisfy the requirements of a grant. By now, readers of Engaging Matters understand that any attempt to employ community engagement to achieve an organizationally-envisioned end result is, as I have heard described, bass … [Read more...]
Two-Phase Engagement
Community engagement practitioners are frequently asked to justify their work using traditional arts marketing/development metrics: ticket sales and donations. Don't get ahead of me. This is not a touchy-feely objection to practical outcomes. Ticket sales and donations as well as grants from "unusual suspects" and friendlier public policy for the arts are all results of effective community engagement . . . eventually. However, when anyone in any … [Read more...]