{"id":5396,"date":"2018-09-26T02:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T06:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=5396"},"modified":"2018-09-12T08:19:34","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T12:19:34","slug":"targets-and-timeframes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2018\/09\/targets-and-timeframes\/","title":{"rendered":"Targets and Timeframes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I have recently found myself concerned with issues related to measuring community engagement, particularly its benefits to arts organizations. (Two-Phase Engagement<\/a>; Reach and Frequency<\/a>) There is a tendency among some to\u00a0know<\/em> that community engagement is a good thing and, therefore, to resist attempts to measure it’s impact. If I’m honest, I may sometimes find myself in that group. There are others who assume that community engagement is at best “nice” and are dismissive of its potential to yield practical benefits for the organization.<\/p>\n

To be sustainable, community engagement must benefit the arts organization in tangible ways. To be supported institutionally, the path to ticket sales<\/strong> (via increased reach), funding<\/strong> (via money from donors, corporations, and foundations who will never support the arts status quo), and public policy<\/strong> (via broad-based public enthusiasm for the impact of the arts on people’s lives) must be articulated and tracked.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A principal difficulty in this is that in order to accomplish these gains we must do work<\/strong> in marketing, funding, and advocacy that we’ve almost never done before<\/strong>. That is, we must lay groundwork among people who are not already pre-disposed to value the arts<\/strong>. (If you believe that a viable future for arts organizations exists without reaching new communities and new funders you may stop reading now.)<\/p>\n

As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, immediate improvements in sales, funding, and public policy are impossible when you are approaching new people who are either apathetic about or hostile to the arts<\/strong>. First, we must build trust and, while doing so, measure indicators of improving relationships\u2013for example, willingness to meet, willingness to introduce others, and (eventually) willingness to work together. Clearly, that is at least a one- or two-year project. Only after the foundation is built can we begin to set goals for the more traditional measures of institutional benefit.<\/p>\n

Don’t have the resources to devote to this? What’s your alternative? Let’s reconvene in forty years and see who is still in business.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Engage!<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0\"Attribution\"<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Some rights reserved<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0kartfamily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/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":"Targets and Timeframes: Understanding the need to set reasonable goals for community engagement.","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}},"categories":[10],"tags":[12,13,45,38,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-5396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-the-practice-of-engagement","7":"tag-arts","8":"tag-community-engagement","9":"tag-fundraising","10":"tag-management","11":"tag-marketing","12":"entry","13":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-1p2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4733,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/11\/who-benefits\/","url_meta":{"origin":5396,"position":0},"title":"Who Benefits?","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"November 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dictionary","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Dictionary.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6612,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2022\/04\/assessing-engagement\/","url_meta":{"origin":5396,"position":1},"title":"Assessing Engagement","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 13, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The time has come to apply greater rigor to evaluating engagement processes, results, and the state of community engagement in the nonprofit arts industry.","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\/2017\/04\/Clipboard.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":5396,"position":2},"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":[]},{"id":1602,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2012\/05\/signs-of-engagement\/","url_meta":{"origin":5396,"position":3},"title":"Signs of Engagement","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"While I'm on a roll with posts dissecting the meaning and nature of engagement (Engagement Is, Audience Development \u201cvs.\u201d Community Engagement, Audience Engagement-Community Engagement), I've got some more issues to raise (or repeat). I have made much of the fact that substantive community engagement (as opposed to audience engagement) is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3958,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2015\/01\/engagement-principles-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5396,"position":4},"title":"Engagement Principles: Current Thoughts","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"January 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Engagement Principles: Humility, respect, reciprocity, mutual benefit, core motivations","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ThinkerWithSunburst","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/ThinkerWithSunburst.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4025,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2015\/03\/yep-we-do-that-sequel-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":5396,"position":5},"title":"Yep, We Do That-Sequel (Part II)","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"March 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Questions for assessing engagement readiness-Part II","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ThumbUp","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ThumbUp-e1396538778275.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396","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=5396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5401,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396\/revisions\/5401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}