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During my one week home in October I had two grant review gigs to complete. One was for the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the other for the Cuyahoga (think Cleveland) Arts Council. My job was to review a bit over 100 grant applications. My role was to represent an “arts and community engagement” point of view.<\/p>\n
It was a learning experience. First, it’s heartening that arts funding agencies are taking the public seriously. In Connecticut, considerable weight was being given to “Community Relevance and Civic Engagement.” In Ohio, 45% of the scoring was in the category of “Public Benefit: \u00a0An organization’s ability to successfully engage its community through its project”<\/p>\n
Second, and the big (though not surprising) takeaway, was how little understanding there is about public benefit and the arts or of substantive community engagement. In general, applications fell into one of four categories:<\/p>\n
There was<\/em> a fifth category: the arts or community organization that understood the issues, had done relationship-building work with “the other side,” and had fashioned a project in which the arts benefited the community in significant ways. This was, unfortunately, fairly rare. Each time I read one of these I bothered my wife with a celebratory phone call to her office. She did still get a lot of work done that week.<\/p>\n To be clear (and fair) I am not saying this to rant about the wretched state of the world. I understand that the arts and the communities in which they exist do not have much history of working together, nor do they have a lot of models or training to follow. And change is<\/em> happening, both on the grant-makers side and on the proposal side. There is just a lot that remains to be done. That’s what I want to support. It’s the purpose of this blog, my book<\/a>, and the work on which I am embarking<\/a>.<\/p>\n Engage!<\/p>\n Doug<\/p>\n Photo: During my one week home in October I had two grant review gigs to complete. One was for the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the other for the Cuyahoga (think Cleveland) Arts Council. My job was to review a bit over 100 grant applications. My role was to represent an “arts and community engagement” point […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,13,35],"class_list":{"0":"post-2117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-principles","7":"tag-arts","8":"tag-community-engagement","9":"tag-grants","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-y9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4499,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/04\/relationships-and-public-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2117,"position":0},"title":"Relationships and Public Policy","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Karen Gahl-Mills This post is part of a series in conjunction with TRG Arts on developing relationships with both new communities and existing stakeholders through artistic programming, marketing and fundraising, community engagement, and public policy. (Cross-post can be found at Analysis from TRG Arts.) I had an interesting conversation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Customer-Client-Collaborator Series"","block_context":{"text":"Customer-Client-Collaborator Series","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/customer-client-collaborator-series\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"GahlMillsHeadshot","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/GahlMillsHeadshot-e1459779165968.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3559,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2014\/05\/plan-b\/","url_meta":{"origin":2117,"position":1},"title":"Plan B","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Plan B-From England, Making arts funding cuts \"politically dangerous or, even better, unthinkable.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/PlanB-e1397574267805.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/PlanB-e1397574267805.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/PlanB-e1397574267805.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5396,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2018\/09\/targets-and-timeframes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2117,"position":2},"title":"Targets and Timeframes","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"To be sustainable, community engagement must benefit the arts organization in tangible ways. To be supported institutionally, the path to ticket sales, funding, and public policy must be articulated and tracked.","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/TargetWithArrows-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":517,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/10\/winds-of-change-hgo\/","url_meta":{"origin":2117,"position":3},"title":"Winds of Change: Houston Grand Opera","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"October 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In the minds of the general public, opera is often seen as the most distant and elitist of the arts. (Opera lovers, don't pile on. I'm simply articulating what is a fairly common \"on the street\" perception.) That is why examples of deep community engagement coming from the opera world\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Examples"","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/WindmillsAtSeaCropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6436,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2021\/09\/terminology\/","url_meta":{"origin":2117,"position":4},"title":"Terminology","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 9, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A critical element in effective community engagement is understanding exactly what it is . . . and what it is not.","rel":"","context":"In "10th Anniversary"","block_context":{"text":"10th Anniversary","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/10th-anniversary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/10.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4945,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/06\/engagement-terminology\/","url_meta":{"origin":2117,"position":5},"title":"Engagement Terminology","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"June 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"We need good definitions to make our work more effective. Here is an updated set from my perspective, for what it's worth.","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Dictionary-300x202.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Attribution\"](\"http:\/\/l.yimg.com\/g\/images\/cc_icon_attribution_small.gif\" "\\"Attribution\\""){kind=icon}
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<\/a> Some rights reserved<\/a> by sonrisa electrica<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"