{"id":3498,"date":"2014-03-12T06:29:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T10:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=3498"},"modified":"2014-03-12T06:29:55","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T10:29:55","slug":"eureka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2014\/03\/eureka\/","title":{"rendered":"Eureka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1842\" alt=\"LightBulb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/LightBulb-e1394129630406.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>In perusing <a href=\"http:\/\/howlround.com\/live-on-howlround-tv-artplace-grantee-summit-on-creative-placemaking\" target=\"_blank\">videos from the ArtPlace Grantee Summit on Creative Placemaking<\/a>, I saw Lyz Crane&#8217;s intro to a session on &#8220;In(tention)s + Out(come)s of Placemaking.&#8221; (Disclosure: Lyz is a friend and occasional co-conspirator on things &#8220;engagementy.&#8221;) I have long opined about the disconnect between the not-for-profit arts establishment and the rest of the 501(c)(3) world. All of a sudden I put together some things I&#8217;ve been saying (separately) but had never before connected. She pointed out that <strong>most of the not-for-profit world exists to<\/strong> address a community problem, or at least to change (read: <strong>improve) an existing condition<\/strong>. On the other hand, <strong>for the most part the arts industry exists to do what <em>it<\/em> wants to do<\/strong>: present\/produce art.<\/p>\n<p><em>There<\/em> is the central disconnect regarding community engagement. <strong>The mission-focus of (much of) the arts world is on itself<\/strong>, what it wants to do. Support for the work depends on external constituencies believing that is important. <strong>With that mindset, there is no way<\/strong> (or, to be more accurate, very little opportunity) <strong>to foster new relationships that extend the reach of the organization.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Community engagement depends upon seeing the creation of positive change as central to the mission and art as the mode and means of accomplishing that end.<\/strong> The details of <em>how<\/em> are complex, but this conceptual basis is fairly simple.<\/p>\n<p>Engage!<\/p>\n<p>Doug<\/p>\n<p>Photo: <a href=\"http:\/\/images.cdn.fotopedia.com\/flickr-4053676608-hd.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Old school light bulb<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fotopedia.com\/users\/joi\" target=\"_blank\">Joi Ito<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i.creativecommons.org\/l\/by\/3.0\/88x31.png\" width=\"37\" height=\"13\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of the not-for-profit world exists to improve communities. Much of the arts industry exists to do what it wants to do\u2013this cannot foster new relationships extending the reach of the organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1842,"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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Eureka-To engage with community, focus on making a difference, not doing what we want: http:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-Uq","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,13,48,22],"class_list":["post-3498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-principles","tag-arts","tag-community-engagement","tag-mission","tag-public-good","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1G6h9-eureka","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/LightBulb-e1394129630406.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3498","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=3498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}