My son is an IT consultant and over the years we have often discovered commonalities between our work. He was the one who first put me on to the concept of UX Design (UX = User Experience). The fact that we kept finding themes relevant to both our professions used to surprise me. Now I realize that he works with professionals in a complicated specialty who have to work with/communicate with end users who have no understanding of the vocabulary or … [Read more...]
Doin’ It: Vocabulary
In my last post, Doin' It, I introduced the idea of participatory experiences as being a potentially critical element in the work of arts organizations. After almost two generations of declining emphasis on the arts in public schools we face communities largely made up of people who have little or no experience participating in the arts. Where once large percentages of students sang, played in band, acted on stage, painted and made murals, … [Read more...]
Who Benefits?
Definitions are important to me. That's probably a reflection of my former life as an academic. (Or, I suppose, it could be why I was an academic.) They've also become critical to my work as an advocate for community engagement. I have presented numerous attempts at defining things like audience development, audience engagement, community engagement, and arts-based community development for the purpose of clarifying each and, more importantly, … [Read more...]
ABCD and Community Engagement
For those who have been fostering connections between art and communities for years, the term Arts-Based Community Development is well known and, while not a perfect expression of the work, one that is immediately recognizable and understood in the field. It is a work for which I have nothing but admiration, regardless of what it's called. I'm a firm supporter of it. I would even go so far as to say that the work that arts organizations produce … [Read more...]
Engagement Is a Means, Not an End
So much interesting stuff has been written recently about engagement and related topics, I barely know where to begin. The Irvine Foundation has published a series of mini-essays responding to questions about engagement. [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3] Diane Ragsdale posted an extended response to Irvine's question "Is there an issue in the arts field that is more urgent than engagement?" And Doug McLennan presented the results of an ArtsJournal survey … [Read more...]
Definitions, Again
Last November Matt Lehrman, author of Audience Wanted, ran a series of posts attempting to address the meaning of “audience engagement.” The need to do so will probably never end as we have so many different uses for those words and so many different factors to consider when we do so. Nevertheless, definitions are one of my abiding passions. I confess to great sympathy with everyone struggling with definitions. In the four plus years I have been … [Read more...]
Transformative Engagement
In Artcentric Engagement I discussed a kind of engagement in which an arts organization is attempting to bring people to it. As I said there, nothing is wrong with that; it's simply not the goal toward which I and many others in the arts who are deeply committed to community engagement are working. Upon a very little reflection, it becomes clear that the engagement about which I write and speak is intended to change the organization or at least … [Read more...]
Marketing and Development Terminology
This is part of a series of blog posts in conjunction with TRG Arts on the interrelationships among marketing, development, fundraising, and community engagement. (Cross-post can be found at Analysis from TRG Arts.) The point of the series is that they are all rooted in relationship building and maintenance. Today we’re talking about definitions. Oh great! But if all of these things are related, we’ve got to be able to understand how they are … [Read more...]
Best Practices
There is a concept that has become extremely popular in management circles over the last decade or so: best practices. By that people mean the set of structures or programs that are most effective in achieving a particular desired end. Generally, these will be approaches that have resulted in success in numerous different situations in a number of different places. It is a popular concept because it prevents people from having to "reinvent the … [Read more...]
Public Charity
Wonkiness Alert This post is only (or mostly) for those interested in nonprofit minutiae. There are two basic types of 501(c)(3) organizations: public charities and private foundations. Private foundations are limited in the deductions available to contributors, are subject to excise taxes, and have a different and more complicated Form 990 (990PF) to fill out. (In addition, they are required to distribute a minimum percentage of their assets … [Read more...]