{"id":868,"date":"2011-12-10T08:45:39","date_gmt":"2011-12-10T13:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=868"},"modified":"2011-12-10T08:45:39","modified_gmt":"2011-12-10T13:45:39","slug":"occupy-lincoln-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/12\/occupy-lincoln-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Occupy Lincoln Center (Thanks, Scott)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Nope, this is not my title. It is blatant theft from Scott Walters’ multi-part blog on the topic. For those of you who have not seen the posts, here are links to the first two: Occupy Lincoln Center-Part I<\/a> and Occupy Lincoln Center-Part II<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The thing about kindred spirits is that even if you don’t agree 100% with everything they say or the way they say it, you are still captivated by the expression and want to share it. That’s the way I feel about Scott and these two posts.<\/p>\n

Scott (and Diane Ragsdale who beat me to a shoutout for Scott in her Jumper post Instead of more data perhaps we should discuss why we keep ignoring the data we have?<\/a>)\u00a0 make the somewhat obvious connection between Occupy Wall Street’s 99%\/1% view of US society and the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy’s study of arts funding, Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The point of both Scott’s posts and Diane’s post is that “Something is not right.” We have an organizational mechanism for arts structures in this country, the 501(c)(3) model, that was intended to institutionalize eleemosynary (I don’t get near enough chance to use that word, it means “charitable”) work. As most of us know, “arts” is not in the tax code’s authorizing language for tax exempt entities. We sneak in under “education.” The facts of the NCRP report along with our anecdotal awareness of the relationship between money and the arts establishment easily raise questions about the whole system.<\/p>\n

But I would be remiss if I failed to point out that there are similar issues, though played out differently, in the 501(c)(3) world beyond the arts. Volunteer Boards of Directors are tasked with making the ultimate decisions in all 501(c)(3)’s. They are supposed to be guardians of the public good in those organizations. Who are those people? The tradition, because of the need for fundraising, is that they are individuals of means, lots of means. And so, in every segment of the Third Sector (third after government and the for-profit arenas), the backgrounds and world views of people with money set the tone. Wealth calls the shots in each sector of our society. This is particularly discomfiting when we realize that it’s true of the sectors (government and not-for-profit) that are supposed to be looking after the public good. For the insomniacs among you, I have expanded on this in an article titled The Social Justice Paradox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t pretend to have a solution. I think pointing things out is going to be my primary role in this category. As I said in an earlier post, Equity<\/a>, I have a concern that before too much longer, the arts establishment could begin suffering noticeable backlash from growing awareness of and anger about income disparity. It’s one of my reasons for pressing so hard to get arts organizations to engage with non-usual suspects in their communities. That is, after all, the point of 501(c)(3) status\u2013serving the public good.<\/p>\n

I am particularly taken with an idea Diane raised in her post. There are a large number of 501(c) categories, all tax exempt entities. What makes 501(c)(3)’s special is the deductibility of contributions and eligibility to receive grants from private foundations. This is “earned” by serving the public good. Diane makes an argument that arts organizations that do not embrace a public service mission could be moved to another 501(c) category, perhaps 501(c)(4) or 501(c)(7) (civic leagues or social\/recreation clubs). Income would be tax exempt but donations would not be tax deductible. Now, no arts organization would voluntarily make such a move, but raising the issue might encourage a public service mindset.<\/p>\n

My hat is off to Scott for his thought and research on this topic. I love his riffs comparing income\/wealth disparity among individuals (a la<\/em> Occupy Wall Street) with that among arts organizations. The sooner the status quo in both categories is widely visible and recognized, the sooner some real change might be possible.<\/p>\n

Engage!<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n

Lincoln Center Photo: \"Share<\/a> Some rights reserved<\/a> by robzand<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nope, this is not my title. It is blatant theft from Scott Walters’ multi-part blog on the topic. For those of you who have not seen the posts, here are links to the first two: Occupy Lincoln Center-Part I and Occupy Lincoln Center-Part II. The thing about kindred spirits is that even if you don’t […]<\/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_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":"","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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-principles","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-e0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868","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=868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}