{"id":6066,"date":"2020-10-07T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=6066"},"modified":"2020-09-25T13:06:51","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T17:06:51","slug":"viability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2020\/10\/viability\/","title":{"rendered":"Viability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/PalmTreesInWind-500x160.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6069\" width=\"575\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/PalmTreesInWind-500x160.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/PalmTreesInWind-300x96.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/PalmTreesInWind.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">For years, my work has been built on three simple premises. First, the combination of skyrocketing costs and rapidly withering traditional arts funding represents an unavoidable, near-term, existential crisis for arts organizations. Second, the only path to viability is a dramatic increase of arts organizations&#8217; reach\u2013the pool of people who could realistically become arts supporters. Third, the means to that end is the development of trusting, mutually beneficial relationships between arts organizations and many, many new communities. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsengaged.com\">ArtsEngaged<\/a><sup>\u00ae<\/sup> and this blog call that process &#8220;community engagement.&#8221; The work itself has focused on the frustrating but often still necessary effort to convince people of the first two and providing &#8220;how to&#8221; guidance for the third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">[<em>Important note, Captain Obvious: The &#8220;hell-in-a-handbasket&#8221; reality in which we live today represents issues far more important than anything discussed in this blog. Yet the arts and community engagement is my portfolio, so I&#8217;ll soldier on.<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">Unfortunately, the pandemic has made the existential crisis immediate for many arts organizations. Recently, Nonprofit Quarterly published an article, <a href=\"http:\/\/In 2020, Arts Nonprofits Have a Choice: Connect to Community or Go Under\">&#8220;In 2020, Arts Nonprofits Have a Choice: Connect to Community or Go Under<\/a>&#8220;, making the case for our second and third premises. Here are some highlights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>[T]he secret [to viability] is to <strong>create financial stability through offering mission-driven programming that draws in broad swaths of the local community<\/strong>. <\/li><li><strong>The key is &#8220;for organizations to integrate with their local communities <\/strong>in a way that builds loyalty and ensures financial security, <strong>giving organizations the stability they need to change with the times.<\/strong>&#8220;<\/li><li>The Children\u2019s Chorus of Greater Dallas worked with local groups:&nbsp;\u201c{The] partnerships not only created a sense of trust and loyalty between the chorus and the partner organizations, they also exposed new people to the chorus and invited them to take part. This kind of relationship-building is key to audience development\u2014and <strong>making sure that your pool of potential constituents is ever-growing is key to organizational survival<\/strong>.&#8221; <\/li><li>The &#8220;practice of <strong>relationship-building<\/strong>\u2014paired with delivering programming that communities care about and see themselves reflected in\u2014can be a win-win for the organization and its neighbors. Such <strong>efforts don\u2019t just generate revenue, they create long-lasting trust that can turn first-time attendees into stakeholders.<\/strong>&#8221; <\/li><li>&#8220;The hopeful news for these organizations is that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.giarts.org\/racial-equity-arts-funding-statement-purpose\">funders are beginning to appreciate<\/a>&nbsp;this pivot to community-oriented programming and award grants to projects that make connections between organizations and their communities, especially underserved populations. <strong>Arts and culture organizations that can learn to grow their audiences and leverage these connections into long-term financial stability may learn that a successful pivot is often one that turns toward their neighbors<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amen NPQ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Engage!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Doug<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Photo:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/licensebuttons.net\/l\/by\/3.0\/88x31.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">Some rights reserved<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/tomsaint\/\">Rennett Stowe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Nonprofit Quarterly: Arts organizations that can learn to leverage community connections into long-term financial stability may learn that a successful pivot is often one that turns toward their neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6069,"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":"Viability: The key is \"for [arts] organizations to integrate with their local communities . . . [for] the stability they need to change with the times.\" h\/t @TheNonprofitQuarterly\n","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":[12,78,39,80],"class_list":["post-6066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-principles","tag-arts","tag-comm","tag-relationships","tag-viability","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-1zQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/PalmTreesInWind.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6066","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=6066"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6073,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6066\/revisions\/6073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}