Jumper

Diane Ragsdale on what the arts do and why

Tackling an inequitable arts funding system: A response to the report, Not Just Money

Helicon Collaborative, with a grant from the Surdna Foundation, has recently published a second report, Not Just Money, examining where US arts philanthropic dollars go. Some may recall that when the first report was published it set off a small quake across the arts and culture landscape—with many shaking their heads at the inequitable funding picture that emerged in the report and some (like me) finding it curious that this was news to anyone since these inequities are not only longstanding but, to a great extent, by design. (You can read my Jumper post on the 2011 report here.)

Here’s how the most recent report describes the issue, which is worsening:

Just 2 percent of all cultural institutions receive nearly 60 percent of all contributed revenue, up approximately 5 percentage points over a decade.

The 2 percent cohort is made up of 925 cultural groups that have annual budgets of more than $5 million (NCCS). These organizations are symphonies, opera companies, regional theaters, art museums, ballet companies and other large institutions – the majority of which focus primarily on Western European fine arts traditions. While most of these institutions have made sincere efforts to broaden participation in the past decade, their audiences remain predominantly white and upper income (NEA Research Report #57).

If the goal of the first report was not only to raise awareness but also to spur a shift in funding away from large, (historically) white, major metropolitan fine arts organizations to smaller, community-based, or culturally specific, or rural arts organizations … it appears to have failed, thus far. The winners have gotten richer and the losers poorer since the first report; and this is despite considerable attention having been paid the past handful of years to issues of diversity, equality, and inclusion by Grantmakers in the Arts (the national service organization for arts funders) and several individual philanthropies.

Helicon has published three posts on its key findings, which I highly recommend as an introduction to this discussion. The third post is focused on how to move the needle and recommends that private foundations: (1) set explicit goals for change; (2) engage wealthy donors to address equity with their funding; and (3) commit to collaborative actions.

These are great recommendations but I’m going to suggest that it may also be beneficial to focus attention on a few other players on this field if we want to see a more equitable distribution of funding for arts and culture in the US: government agencies (whose funding already tends to be more equitable than that of private foundations in large part because of the obligation to serve the public interest), small family foundations (many of whom do not currently fund the arts), and the winners in this winner-take-all system (the large, historically white, fine arts institutions).

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To the National Endowment for the Arts: Graduate the Largest Institutions Out of Your Portfolio

As many know, the NEA does not have all that much money to distribute once the largest portion of the pie is sent to the states and the remainder is divided across the different programmatic areas. One consequence of this is that very large institutions often get NEA grants that represent a laughable portion of the budget (e.g. an orchestra with a $50 million budget might get a grant of $40,000). When I was a philanthropoid at the Mellon Foundation I would sometimes muse to colleagues:

How would it change the sector if there were a wholesale shift in funding from the largest organizations to the next tier down? What if organizations over a certain size (say $5-$10 million) were simply no longer eligible for certain pots of government money—on the argument that once government funding represents 0.1 percent of your budget (a) you no longer need the “imprimatur” of government to secure other funding; and (b) you can easily replace government funds with dollars from other sources?

In other words, rather than seeing all pots as pots over which all should compete for funding, what if government adjusted its priorities in light of the fact that individual contributions, private foundation support, and corporate support have proven over time to flow toward larger institutions? What if government recognized that–given its capacity to make grants that are more diverse on a number of dimensions–its primary value is to invest primarily in promising small and midsized enterprises, providing them with both an imprimatur and the early capital needed to grow their operations to the point where they might attract other sources of funding?

Having read the most recent Helicon report, I think it’s time to consider something along these lines. As a thought experiment: what if policies were instituted whereby organizations would “graduate” from NEA funding? That is, what if they would become ineligible for NEA funding once, for instance, any of the following conditions applied?

  • Total annual operating budget is greater than e.g. $10 million three years in a row;
  • One or more staff members has an annual salary greater than the president of the United States (~$400,000);
  • The wage ratio between the highest and lowest paid employee exceeds 1:5.
  • More than 50% of its end users (e.g. visitors, audiences, students, or artists) earn more than $50,000 a year (or perhaps more than the median income in the MSA where they are located).

One benefit of this approach is that it would not only begin to redistribute some arts dollars in the system; but it would blunt the tip of the sword of conservatives whose leading arguments for eliminating the NEA are that (a) multimillion dollar arts organizations can easily survive without it; and (b) it is essentially welfare for cultural elitists.

In a sense, the shift I’m proposing would put the federal government in the role of providing much-needed fertilizer to the most promising of the hundreds of Davids in the bottom and middle of the sector hourglass rather than sprinkling the equivalent of magic pixie dust on the handful of Goliaths that tend to dominate the top of the hourglass.

And, as we all know, none of this would preclude larger institutions from receiving other forms of recognition from the NEA (e.g. awards), or from tapping into other public pots (in addition to continuing to be the greatest beneficiaries of the indirect subsidies to the arts). Since driving place-based tourism and anchoring cultural/creative districts are often their highest value to cities-at-large, perhaps larger institutions should be beneficiaries of larger tourism grants, or economic development grants, rather than traditional arts funding?

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To City/State Arts Agencies: Broker Relationships between Family Foundations and Small Arts Orgs

Helicon’s most recent report indicates that while private foundations seem to be acknowledging the importance of diversity, inclusion, and equity they are still defaulting to funding the same (large, white) organizations as always.  How to square these two findings? An all-too-familiar anecdote relayed in a recent brief article in American Theatre magazine covering the Helicon report, points to one possible reason why. AT reports:

The course of true fundraising never did run smooth. Just ask Randy Reyes, artistic director of Mu Performing Arts in St. Paul, Minn. In 2015, Mu applied for an arts access grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to teach audiences about the history of Asian-American theatre. Though Mu’s mission and audience is Asian-American, they didn’t get the grant. “We were disappointed in that,” Reyes admitted.

But one organization that did get an arts access grant was St. Paul’s much bigger Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, which received $86,039 to present Notes From Asia, “a series of performances, films, conversations, and an exhibit that will highlight arts and culture of Eastern Asian communities for East Asian, Asian American, and broader audiences.”

This is, of course, a long lament of smaller, culturally specific organizations who quite often feel either co-opted or eaten alive by larger organizations—who will sometimes lightly affiliate with smaller, community-based or culturally specific organizations in order to get access to diversity funding, or simply emulate the longstanding practices of such organizations in order to snag limited “diversity dollars” available. More dedicated pots of money, or dedicated philanthropies, probably need to be established to pay attention to small and midsized organizations.

As I’ve written about here, more than a decade ago (after changing the tax laws to make it easier and more beneficial for individuals to set up small trusts and foundations), the Australia Arts Council started an arm’s length organization whose role was to broker relationships between small and midsized arts organizations and small private family foundations and trusts. This intermediary met with donors, talked to them about the importance of supporting the arts, and identified organizations that might fit with their values; it mentored arts organizations to help them develop realistic funding strategies and prepare effective proposals; and it made matches between the two.

I have long wondered whether that same model could be transferred and modified at the city or state level in the US. Again, as a thought experiment, could state or city arts agencies make use of a similar, arm’s length lightly staffed brokerage service designed to spur increased arts contributions from small family foundations (many of which do not presently fund the arts)–to SME’s, in particular. At the same time, like the Australia program, could these matchmakers provide mentoring to small organizations to help them prepare more effective proposals?

Attention might be more productively turned to speaking to a new generation of individual family foundations and getting them each to adopt, say, 10-15 small-to-midsized arts enterprises, while we wait for the older institutional philanthropies to catch up with changes in the world; modify their values, aesthetics, boards, presidents, staffs, and systems; and presumably launch new strategies, programs, or organizations, designed to help them reach beyond the 2% to organizations that will necessarily require different metrics, application processes, etc.

However broadminded and whatever their good intentions, it is clearly operationally or philosophically or emotionally difficult for large philanthropies to shift money away from large institutions, particularly when they keep knocking on the door and seeking funding.

Which brings me to my last provocation.

To Large arts organizations: It’s time to recognize your historic privilege and the physics of pie slicing

I’ve observed several times that when discussions in the field turn to expanding resources for under-privileged groups incumbent beneficiaries (and their trade/advocacy organizations) are often quick to say, “Yes, of course, philanthropies and government agencies must fund the smaller organizations. But they shouldn’t do so by taking away funding from the large institutions. That’s not fair.”

One is reminded of the phrase: To the privileged, equity feels like oppression.

Given that new money is not gushing into the NEA’s coffers or the arts budgets of most foundations, it would stand to reason that making more, or larger, grants to arts organizations with budgets less than $5 million will likely require taking some money away from larger organizations—who have many more sources to which they can turn to make up the difference.

It is time for large organizations to exercise some moral imagination: to recognize that they are the take-all winners of an unjust system and that aggressively (and generally successfully) competing for every single $5,000 or $10,000 or $25,000 grant available is greedy behavior that contributes to the starvation of other parts of the arts ecosystem.

Period.

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A report came out 5 years ago intended, I think, to goad or shame arts philanthropies into adopting more progressive funding strategies. It appears most didn’t. San Francisco emerges as the North star in an otherwise bleak report. While it’s troubling that since Helicon’s first report, money has not shifted away from the 925 organizations with budgets greater than $5 million, it’s not surprising. One can imagine various reasons why the needle may not be changing.

It may be because this is a progressive political agenda that Helicon is proposing and some foundations are simply not interested to see their arts funds used to support what appears to be social activism. It may be because these things just take time given the nature of grant cycles and how long it takes to change policies, priorities, and guidelines. It may be because private philanthropies, a lot like individual donors, have a lot of ego in the game and quite often want to fund and be affiliated with arts institutions that they and their peers perceive to be “winners,” or “excellent,” or “prestigious” (qualitative valuations that are deeply tied to the culturally based aesthetic judgments and values of foundation decision makers). It may be because it’s hard to say no to organizations you have been funding for a long time, whose ADs and MDs have become close friends with program staff and board members. Or it may be because large organizations are quite savvy about how to exploit the system to secure funding no matter what the priorities are (yesterday it was innovation, today it’s diversity and inclusivity, tomorrow it will be something else).

Nevertheless, I applaud Helicon Collaborative for keeping the heat on this issue and pressing for discussion and change in the sector. I have no doubt the 2011 report spurred the leadership of Grantmakers in the Arts, much of the race-bias and implicit-bias training programs in the philanthropic community over the past five years, and many new grant initiatives aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Evidently, more is needed.

Perhaps it’s also time for the philanthropies who are presently allocating the majority of their resources to the 2% to more transparently address the questions and concerns raised in Helicon’s report? Perhaps Surdna (the funder of the most recent report) could host a roundtable of private foundation presidents to respond to the report? I, for one, would love to hear whether change is happening (but is just not showing up in the data yet because of the nature of grant cycles), or whether (and, if so, why) this is an area in which they are unlikely to implement changes anytime soon.

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Renegotiating the value of a museum

Over the past couple of weeks quite a few people have weighed in on the Detroit Institute of Art’s successful appeal to three counties in Michigan to pass a “millage” (a property tax) which would provide $23 million per year for the museum (91% of its budget) over ten years, while it raises $400 million for its endowment to replace the tax revenues when they run out. One of the most interesting aspects of this strategy is that the DIA offered free admission to the museum only to people living in the counties that passed the levy (which equates to approximately $20 per year tax on a home with a market value of $200,000 and a taxable value of $100,000) and threatened to shut down galleries and close the museum on weekdays if the levy did not pass. If you have not been following the story, on August 7th the levy was passed in all three counties. Despite my instinct to be cautiously optimistic, I find myself mulling over this case and wondering whether it is the hands-down financial and moral victory that it seems to be on the surface.

For background and more details about the plan read an excellent overview by Judity Dobrzynski and also one by Mark Stryker. Additionally, Lee Rosenbaum (Culturegrrrl) has written a thoughtful post reflecting on the circumstances at the DIA and her perspective that it was (perhaps uniquely) well positioned to pull of such a feat and deserving of the public support. Terry Teachout astutely assessed the keys to DIA’s success, framing them as good lessons for other arts organizations in trouble. Likewise, Benjamin Genocchio examined the financial crises at DIA and LA MOCA to exhume strategies for other art museums on the brink. And one blogger asked (without much elaboration) whether DIA’s rescue can serve as a model for others.

From everything I have read about the executive director of the DIA, Graham W.J. Beal, he appears to be a very smart and capable leader. The word heroic came to mind several times as I was perusing articles about his tenure at the DIA and what he has accomplished. And I am sincerely impressed by the successful passing of the millage—it was a bold solution to a long-term structural deficit, it was executed responsibly and well, and the favorable response from the community (I presume, though I could be wrong) would seem to represent sizeable goodwill towards the institution, respect for its collection and trust in its management, or value for the arts in general.

Having said this, I have some questions:

First, I wonder what the annual net gain of this millage is estimated to be once possible reductions in contibutions, memberships and admissions are considered? I notice that the membership fees (for individuals and families) on the DIA’s Website are pretty steep relative to the $20 per year per household tax assessment: $60 for Senior Citizens; $65 Individual; $80 Companion; and $110 Family Plus. In 2009, DIA had membership revenues of nearly $4 million. Is there a risk that some (many?) of its current members will now feel that they have “already paid” and will not renew their memberships, or that the tax will crowd out future membership growth? Additionally, the DIA shows another $2 million in admission fees on its 990, some percentage of which one estimates could be lost because of the tax. Finally, it’s not unreasonable to think that some donors may now consider the DIA to be safely harbored with its millage and may reduce their contributions or choose to redirect to other organizations that do not have the heft to win such a tax.

Second, I am more familiar with such taxes being passed to support a range of nonprofit institutions, sometimes in the arts or sometimes across sectors. While I understand that a proposed tax to support 17 institutions in Detroit failed some years earlier (some suspect because it was too high), I wonder whether a tax to support a range of institutions in Detroit might have been a smarter and more ethical solution in the long run? For one, I have begun to worry that large investments in large institutions can come at the expense of the health and vitality of (arts) communities as a whole. For another, I am skeptical that many individual organizations could actually pull off this sort of feat. I agree with Lee Rosenbaum that when you read DIA’s history and track record in recent years it seems to be both deserving and well positioned for this reprieve. Could any other arts organization in Detroit successfully undertake anytime soon a similar effort now that DIA has gone this route? Is this a strategy that favors first movers only? Is it really the model that some seem to think it is?

Third, is the DIA setting itself up for an awkward renegotiation of its relationship to its community when the levy ends? Imagine a scenario ten years from now in which DIA has been unable to raise the $400 million in its endowment—a scenario that seems quite possible given the extraordinary ambition of the goal, the poor financial condition of the city, and the tremendous competition for contributions since many public services have been cutback and many nonprofits are struggling to stay afloat. DIA has already said it will not try to get the tax renewed. If it is not as flush as it hopes to be in ten years will it be forced to cut services and institute admission fees again? And will community members that have been going for free be willing to pay?

Fourth, what motivated people to pass the tax? As I understand it, the millage was not expected to be a slam dunk in all three counties. Was it civic pride and sincere appreciation for the institution/art? Competition among the counties? A logical reasoning that $20 per year to gain free admission for one’s entire household to a public museum that normally charges $4-$8 per ticket is a good deal? I wonder whether there is something we can learn from better understanding what motivated people to vote “yes” – and also how those who may have voted “no” are now feeling about the museum? Resentful because they feel that education, pubic safety and health and human services should be prioritized over art (as more than a few comments by readers of the Detroit Free Press seemed to suggest)? Or perhaps more inclined to attend and take advantage of the resource?

Fifth, what are we to make of the tripling of attendance in the week after the millage was passed? Is this a sign that even a $4 to $8 admission fee (the range of prices listed on the DIA Website) is a barrier for many, many people? That people wanted to “get their due”, or perhaps felt a newfound sense of “ownership”? That people wanted to “celebrate” the millage? I wonder if the DIA or anyone else has polled these visitors to try to determine how the millage may already be affecting people’s perceptions of the museum and their relationship to it.

Finally, and perhaps most of all, I am intrigued by DIA’s quid pro quo deal with its community. I wonder whether DIA has set a precedent that may begin to recalibrate the perceived relationship between nonprofit arts organizations and their communities and the expected ROI from future investments in the arts. This seemed to be the argument underpinning the DIA strategy: Those arts institutions that want their communities to step up and support them will need to put more than the importance of art, quality of life, and general econmic impact on the table – the people expect and deserve a tangible private benefit in return for sharing some of their hard-earned wages. And, likewise, communities that do not demonstrate support for the arts can no longer expect to receive the same levels of service or access as those that do.

Was this simply the new deal between the DIA and its community? Or does this represent a new line in the sand … a raising of the bar for all of us in the arts?

I admit to knowing only what I’ve been able to glean from newspaper accounts and blogs. I heartily welcome information and perspectives from others on these issues. in the meantime, I offer congratulations to the DIA and the greater Detroit metropolitan area for the win. It is a vote of confidence in the arts, which has clearly been heartening to many.

PS – Many thanks to all who have continued to post comments on my last three posts. I am heartened by the terrific conversation/debate. I do expect to return to some of these issues in the future.

As nonprofits do we (or should we) put all art in service of instrumental ends?

This past Thursday and Friday I had the honor of attending a convening on global performance, civic imagination, and cultural diplomacy at Georgetown University, hosted by Derek Goldman and Cynthia Schneider. By bringing “leaders in international theater and performance together with foreign policy leaders from academia, think tanks, and government,” the stated hope of the organizers was to bridge the gap between the fields of politics and culture, to the mutual benefit of both. Over the course of the first two days of the convening some questions began to emerge:

  •  When we talk about cultural exchange and cultural diplomacy what, exactly, are we talking about—and are these acts different from simply doing a performance in another place, or for another people, than one’s own?
  • Before, or as, we discuss these issues at the global level might we acknowledge the necessity for this work on the local level and examine the possible connection between the two?
  • Is the impact of this work measurable? Must we be able to measure the impact of this work in order to make the case for its support? Or can we trust that it makes a difference?
  • Is the best work in this area government sanctioned, organized, and subsidized? Or is it best when furthered through the decentralized, grassroots relationships that are formed when one artist or one presenter or one company sets out with the intention to forge individual connections?
  • Are the goals of art and the goals of cultural diplomacy aligned; or in asking the former to serve the latter are we compromising artists and the aims of art?

I left Friday afternoon (a day early, unfortunately) with these questions on my mind. On my way out the door to grab a cab to Union Station I ran into a playwright (now based in the US but originally from outside the US) and we had a quick chat. In the midst of our conversation she commented on the nonprofit system of organizing and funding the arts in the US, making the point that the system is flawed because it puts all art in service of social or educational goals—and in doing so constrains artists and art. Her point was that all work created in a nonprofit structure must serve the instrumental ends of education and be in service of a mission. Her perspective as a playwright, in particular, was that nonprofit theaters create mission statements, and then programmatic strategies to fulfill those mission statements, and that such strategies inevitably filter or limit the types of plays that can or will be selected. The question she seemed to be asking: What happens to the artists whose works falls between the mission cracks, so to speak?

Cynically I thought, “Oh, well in the US, they simply go open their own nonprofit organizations.”

On the three hour train ride to my next stop I found myself thinking about this issue of art in service to instrumental ends, which came up both at the convening on cultural exchange and in the conversation with this playwright. I began to mull on the following:

  • Are the mandates (educational/social) that come with nonprofit status appropriate for artists that simply want to make work without having to put that work in service of an educational or social mission? In other words, for those that bristle at the idea of “instrumental ends” for the arts, is the nonprofit form a legitimate and beneficial form? If not, what would be a better fit? L3C, perhaps, as I’ve written about before?
  • Have some or many of us set up nonprofit institutions because the nonprofit form is a vehicle for accessing capital for money-losing art, rather than a vehicle for society-serving art?
  • Since the nonprofit form is preferred by so many seeking to produce or present artistic experiences is the underlying belief that all art serves society? If not, how would we discern the difference between “art that serves educational and social ends” and art that serves some other ends?
  • How constraining, really, is nonprofit status? That is, do the majority of artistic leaders even think about the works they are producing or presenting as being in service of educational or social goals? Or do they simply program works they like and believe in, regardless of such instrumental ends?
  • If the nonprofit form is not all that constraining then is it all that meaningful?

Returning to the topic of the Georgetown convening – cultural exchange and diplomacy – I have found myself at many of such meetings over the past several years and at each one I have made the following point: Many US artists rely on performances overseas for income. In other words, what is motivating them to perform in Europe or Asia is often the touring fees (i.e., money)—not “cultural exchange” and certainly not “cultural diplomacy.” While I don’t think that cultural exchange and diplomacy need to be government funded or organized to be legitimate I also don’t think that anytime an artist hops on a plane and performs at a festival that this constitutes “exchange” or “diplomacy”. The difference would seem to be one of intention, at the very least.

I think the same is true of nonprofit status. When we were forming our institutions 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago was our intention to serve society through art? Was our intention to educate through art? Or was there at the outset (among some or many of us) simply the practical consideration that calling oneself nonprofit would (a) provide legitimacy and (b) provide a possible business model for sustaining art (maybe worthy, maybe not-so-worthy) that would not make it on box office alone?

We are nonprofit in name, but are we (by-and-large) nonprofit in spirit? Are we nonprofit in purpose? If losing money were the only or even primary criteria for nonprofit status then plenty of commercial films and Broadway musicals could also be nonprofit. If we have been using this form to achieve ends other than the social and educational ends for which it was created, then perhaps it is time that we created a way to exist that has integrity with what we really are, or want to be in the future?

Apologies for the sporadic postings. I have been (and will be until the end of July) on a multi-week research trip. I am trying to post whenever time and Internet access provide.

Image from the Website Whip: http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters4/whip.html

 

Theatre Bay Area’s “Counting New Beans”

Clay Lord and the fine folks at Theatre Bay Area have a new publication out: Counting New Beans: Intrinsic Impact and the Value of Art, which includes interviews with 20 prominent artistic directors and essays by Alan Brown, Rebecca Ratzkin, Arlene Goldbard, Rebecca Novick, and Clayton Lord. It also includes an interview with yours truly.

Here’s an excerpt from my long and winding conversation with Clay Lord. I’ve edited together excerpts (elipses mark missing sections) from two different parts of the interview.

Clay Lord: You’ve written about “creative destruction,” this idea that we either need to take control of our growth and make decisions about what survives, or natural forces will do it for us.  But what is the rubric for understanding where the culling of the herd needs to happen, and who does the culling?  Foundations? Market forces? Attendance figures? What are the evaluative terms? If the art isn’t going to stop, then how do the organizational structures decrease? Who decides?  Who are the arbiters of which organizations are “valuable,” and what are the terms? 

DER: Artists and communities make up a constantly evolving and changing environment. It’s the institutions that are stuck, holding onto beliefs and practices about what is or is not [a] “legitimate” [artistic experience] and denying the changing tastes, habits and demographics of their communities. […] When we say we need to try to find a way to make things “more sustainable,” what are we talking about? Sustaining middle class livings for those salaried professional administrators that have them? Sustaining the capacity for artistic risk-taking? Sustaining broad and deep community engagement with the theatre? The “what” is really important. And if we’re talking about nonprofit, mission-driven organizations, then we need to be able to answer the “what” with regard to the social value we are trying to sustain or create.

We keep saying we want to see the next thing arrive, but at the same time desperately try to preserve what we’ve already created. It’s very difficult to do both; most often, you need to destroy the old in order to allow for the emergence of the new. This is the idea behind “creative destruction.” […]

I think the “impact” question makes the field a little nervous—and so does the supply/demand conversation—because we sense that we’ve arrived at a day of reckoning. The money is tight and the environment is hyper-competitive. The conversation has been controlled for a long time by a small group of people. For years we’ve had a field-wide understanding of who were the field leaders, and there was no displacing them.

To some degree we’ve gamed and worked the system to maximum output of whatever could be derived from it, and now we have come to the end of the line. It’s time to start asking ourselves the disruptive questions. Does it make sense to subsidize large resident theatres and not commercial theatres? Does it make sense to subsidize professional theatres and not amateur theatres performing in churches or high school gymnasiums? Does it make sense to subsidize those that are most able to garner patronage from wealthy, culturally elite audiences? […]

We’re rather protectionist in the U.S. nonprofit arts sector because we know, or at least suspect in our gut, that if we start measuring intrinsic impact—testing our assumptions about the impact of the art we make— we might find out that there is greater intrinsic impact from watching an episode of The Wire than going to any kind of live theatre. Or we may find that small-scale productions in churches or coffee shops are just as impactful (or more so) than large-scale professional productions in traditional theatre spaces. Are we prepared, if we find this sort of evidence, to change the way we behave in light of it? […]

Because right now it appears we have a winner-take-all system in the arts. The few at the top continue to grow while the rest of the sector is forced to divide a shrinking pie among an increasing number of organizations. Assuming we’re not going to have significantly more resources coming into the sector, […] can we allow for a different idea to emerge about which are the most important organizations to fund? Who’s at the top? Who’s at the bottom? Who’s considered leading? These are rankings that were established decades ago and it’s nearly impossible for even an incredibly worthy and high-performing entrant to displace one of the ‘pioneering’ incumbent organizations at the top of the pyramid. […]

We need data that can help us see the field differently. Sure, if you rank theatres by budget, if you rank them by how many thousands of people they perform to in a year, then you will continue to rank them 1, 2, 3, as they are currently ranked. […] We need new ways of ordering the sector, and understanding what contributes to a healthy arts ecosystem. A lot of money has come into the sector, but it hasn’t been distributed very well. The ecology is out of balance. […]

Who gets to decide which theatres stay and which go? Well, we have a decentralized, indirect subsidy system, meaning, in theory, “everybody” could get to decide. But in reality don’t we see that those with money get to decide? And by extension, then, friends of those with money are the winners and everyone else loses. And then some say, “No one should decide; we should let nature take its course.” But what do we mean by “nature?” Do we mean that we should let “the market” decide?

That’s not valid. You can’t, on the one hand, say “We have to subsidize this particular form of art  in order to compensate for market failure,” and then on the other hand say you’re going to let “the market” decide. Many organizations exist today because someone saw them as meriting support 40 or 50 years ago. Why do we resist the idea that some entity or entities should be able to intervene now and discontinue funding for certain organizations (that seem less worthy or relevant now) and encourage or enable funding for others?

The system does not seem to deal with underperforming organizations proficiently or effectively. And if you can’t eliminate underperforming organizations, over time, they compete with other, more worthy organizations for resources. Of course somebody has to decide. A bunch of ‘somebodies’ has to decide. But how do you coordinate that? This is the challenge with our decentralized, indirect subsidy system.

I’m a big believer in Alan Brown’s work, and what you are doing, and I’m hopeful that it can help reframe the conversation about social value and about what it means to be a “leading organization.” Right now, though, what we know is that major foundations provide an imprimatur; they are able to change the perceptions of organizations as they give money and take it away. The press matters. Service organizations matter. And there are others. Any of these can stand on a bully pulpit and say, “Here are the organizations that we perceive to be leaders.” And if it’s a very different list from the list that we’ve had in our minds for a long time, if the names are not simply those that we’ve historically perceived to be leading, it will begin to shift our understanding of what we mean when we say “leading” (i.e., not just oldest and largest). It also provides leverage to the new leaders, increases their ability to fundraise, and changes the way others perceive them. […]

The formation of the nonprofit arts sector was essentially an effort to create exclusive organizations to serve wealthy people – that was the goal. That was the idea at the outset. We have reached a logical result of having created such a system. Arts organizations are sleeping in beds they made. […] And the idea that we need to keep sustaining it—well, I’m not convinced that this particular thing we’ve created, this current model, needs to be sustained. It is proving to be unsustainable perhaps because it caters to a few rather than serving the many. […] Maybe it’s time to blow things up, rather than sustain the status quo.

Counting New Beans is an impressive 464 pages long, including the full final research report, four original essays commissioned for this report, and full transcripts of the interviews with artistic leaders and patrons. It is $24.95, and will only be available here, on the Theatre Bay Area website.

A planned ending for Merce Cunningham Dance Co.

Merce Cunningham

In last week’s post on direct subsidies to artists, I expanded upon a premise from artist/economist Hans Abbing–that direct subsidies to artists may provide incentives to more people to become artists, thereby increasing competition, and making it more difficult for any to make a living–and suggested that the same may be true of arts organizations. I wrote, “We have incentivized the exponential growth of the arts and culture sector in the US and, despite significant resources (government and private) flowing into the sector on an annual basis, we now find that both artists and the large majority of organizations are poor. There’s a lesson there.”

What the lesson may be I’m not entirely sure, but the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about the problem of chronic undercapitalization and its effects on the sector in the context of the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on New Year’s Eve. The planned closure (aka Living Legacy Plan) of this renowned company has been both refreshing and disconcerting to a field that has become accustomed to dance companies struggling to sustain themselves and preserve the legacies of their founders after death. Merce had witnessed the disappointing trajectories of more than a few companies; he understood what could happen to his own company over time if it tried to persevere without the infusion of new works and his presence.

In planning for its closure, Cunningham Dance Foundation raised funds to help support (among other things) a world tour, transitions for members of its company and staff, and filming/digitial recording of Merce and the company in rehearsal and performances. This past year we were badgered with claims that there are too many arts organizations and calls for the sector to ‘make it OK’ for arts organizations to close responsibly and with dignity. The Cunningham Dance Foundation’s decision and successful implementation of that decision could be seen as a model for how to realize a ‘successful’ closure. But the very planning of the closure seemed to be what was most disconcerting for some. Despite the emotional and financial toll they take on artists, administrators, and community members it seems we prefer our endings to be either a long and exhausting battle to the bitter end or a blindside collision we never saw coming.

To plan for them seems to be an acknowledgement that we recognize and accept that it’s the end of an era.

I adore the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. I truly regretted being unable to attend the Park Avenue Armory performances on New Year’s Eve and it makes me genuinely sad that there is no possibility of a performance by the company in my future. I am quite grateful that I lived in NYC at a time when Merce Cunningham was still alive and I saw his company perform many times; I will not soon forget those experiences. But if anything, the closing has made my experiences of him and the company all the more valuable. Of course, the effects of the closure are somewhat mitigated by the existence of an incredible archive (which many organizations do not have, btw, for many reasons). The MCDC archive is also all the more valuable (and may become all the more ‘alive’) now that the company is not performing.

In the end, it seems that Merce Cunningham made a decision that was both principled and pragmatic.

And perhaps that is one of the lessons in our miserably impoverished and wonderfully abundant sector. Perhaps now is the time for both principled action and clear-eyed pragmatism.

Does it seem likely that we can continue to generate interest and support for what we do, how we work, who we are? If not, can we adapt our organizational practices, structures, and purposes to ‘the times’ without crossing a moral line or violating core values (see Phills 2005, pp. 27-28)? If not, is it better to linger on and become a shadow of our former institutions, or is it better to plan for closure, document and celebrate accomplishments, and make room for something new to emerge ahead of us?

It’s a new era.

PS: You can now ‘subscribe’ to Jumper and receive an email alert when a new post has been published. To do so, enter your email address in the form on the right hand side of this page. Thanks for reading!

J. A. Phills, Jr. (2005). Integrating Mission and Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations.

Photo by Floor [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wiki­me­dia Commons

What are the aims of direct subsidies to artists?

Polly Carl has posted a new piece on HowlRound, A Virtual Theater Movement,  in which she remarks on a recent trend in arts philanthropy: increased direct support for artists. This philanthropic trend prompts me to ask, “What are funders hoping to achieve by providing direct subsidies to individual artists?” and to raise the ideas of a colleague from Erasmus, artist/economist Hans Abbing, who wrote a book in 2002 called Why Are Artists Poor? The Exceptional Economy of the Arts, an excellent summary of the chapters therein you can read here.

Abbing crafts a well structured rationale to which I cannot do justice in this post; however, I will mention a few key points. Abbing suggests that the poverty of artists is structural and relates this to a number of factors, including:

  1. The social construction of ‘art’as something holy, a notion which is contradictory to the notion of commerce and monetary exchange. He writes: “Although the arts earn approximately half of their income in the market, the arts can only maintain their sacred status when people associate the arts with the values of the gift sphere rather than the market sphere.”
  2. While artists do care about money, they tend to care more (than other professionals) about rewards such as personal satisfaction, recognition, and status. He says that most artists have been socialized to this preference and that it is ‘hardly a virtue’. As a manifestation of these preferences, he says that (for example) most artists will work their day jobs only long enough to earn sufficient income to go back to creating artistic work.
  3. Given that artists tend to exchange money for rewards such as personal satisfaction, direct subsidies do not lead to higher incomes for artists. Instead, they may simply provide incentives to more people to become artists, thereby increasing competition, and making it more difficult for any to make a living. As Abbing writes, “Subsidization increases the number of poor artists per hundred thousand inhabitants and thus increases poverty.”

So, what is achieved through subsidies to artists? Here are my own reflections:

Direct grants to artists may make it possible for an artist, at a particular point in his or her career, to make (better or more ambitious) work (by removing the necessity to maintain a day job). Funds may be used to help an artist acquire a critical resource or asset that has longer term returns (a marketable artistic output, knowledge and skills, marketing and promotion, staff, representation, a piece of equipment, a studio, a car, etc.). And often direct grants (particularly if competitve or associated with awards) send a signal to other gatekeepers (funders, donors, producers, press, intermediaries, curators, etc.) that a particular artist is worthy of time and support and may result in more resources and attention flowing to that artist. (It may be worth noting, however, that this ‘signaling’ effect can contribute to the ‘winner-take-all’ phenomenon that sometimes exists in the arts and make it even more difficult for new entrants to emerge and find resources.)

However, it seems to me that direct grants to artists are unlikely to (1) solve the longer-term systemic issue (which Polly also points out in her post) that funding to arts organizations in the US seems to increase flows not to artists but rather to buildings and administrations; and (2) (if we agree with Abbing’s point about subsidies providing incentives more more people to become artists) improve the structural poverty of artists.

It seems that these two issues will require a re-thinking of some of the bedrock ideas of the arts and culture sector in the US, among them: (1) to be legitimate you need grants and to get grants you need nonprofit status and administrators; and (2) aesthetic value and market value are at odds. There are others …

And it perhaps goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) subsidies (grants, gifts, or other forms of support) may not only lead to an  increase in the number of people who want to be artists but also the number people who want to form arts organizations. We have incentivized the exponential growth of the arts and culture sector in the US and, despite significant resources (government and private) flowing into the sector on an annual basis, we now find that both artists and the large majority of organizations are poor. There’s a lesson there.

***

Postscript: I want to close by giving a shout out to David Dower, Polly Carl, Vijay Mathew, Jamie Gahlon and everyone working at the New Play Institute. The move from Arena to Emerson strikes me as inspired and I am excited to see what comes of placing the Institute (now The Commons) in an environment suited to both academic study and practice. David’s vision for the Institute came to life through the talent and hard work of a dedicated crew of interns and staffers at Arena. And it is staggering to consider the impact of HowlRound (the brainchild of Polly Carl) in its first year (not even) of existence. Kudos to all and I look forward to seeing what emerges from The Commons.

 

 

The times may be a-changin’ but (no surprise) arts philanthropy ain’t

The Philanthropy News Digest recently sent me a bulletin with the headline, “Arts Funding Does Not Reflect Nation’s Diversity, Report Finds” which linked me to an AP Newsbreak article with the headline “Report finds arts funding serves wealthy audience, is out of touch with diversity”. My initial thought was, “Seriously? We need a report to tell us this?” The report, Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy, was produced by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and written by Holly Sidford.

Here are a couple paragraphs from the executive summary:

Every year, approximately 11 percent of foundation giving – more than $2.3 billion in 2009 – is awarded to nonprofit arts and culture. At present, the vast majority of that funding supports cultural organizations whose work is based in the elite segment of the Western European cultural tradition – commonly called the canon – and whose audiences are predominantly white and upper income. A much smaller percentage of cultural philanthropy supports the arts and traditions of non-European cultures and the  non-elite expressions of all cultures that comprise an increasing part of American society. An even smaller fraction supports arts activity that explicitly challenges social norms and propels movements for greater justice and equality.

This pronounced imbalance restricts the expressive life of millions of people, thus constraining our creativity as a nation. But it is problematic for many other reasons, as well. It is a problem because it means that – in the arts – philanthropy is using its tax-exempt status primarily to benefit wealthier, more privileged institutions and populations. It is a problem because our artistic and cultural landscape includes an increasingly diverse range of practices, many of which are based in the history and experience of lower-income and nonwhite peoples, and philanthropy is not keeping pace with these developments. And it is a problem because art and cultural expression offer essential tools to help us create fairer, more just and more civic-minded communities, and these tools are currently under-funded.

I am as discouraged as anyone by where many (but certainly not all) private foundations and wealthy individual donors give their support, and where they do not. However, my sense has never been that this behavior persists (and has perhaps become more pronounced as the demographics of the country are shifting dramatically) because the heads of foundations or the wealthiest donors in America were lacking a report explaining that too much of their money was going to arts organizations producing Western European ‘high art’ for white, upper middle class audiences.

The book Patrons Despite Themselves told very much the same story back in 1983 in its analysis of the ‘indirect’ system of funding the arts (that is, via the tax system rather than via direct grants from government). Feld, O’Hare, and Schuster concluded (among other things):

On balance, income to the arts is paid for disproportionately by the very wealthy and is enjoyed more by the moderately wealthy and the well educated. The demographic characteristics of the audience – the beneficiaries of the government aid – do not vary much across art forms. While the system tends to be redistributive, it is only so in a limited sense: from the very wealthy to the moderately wealthy.

Three of the recommendations in PDT regarding philanthropic decisionmaking are: (1) “decisions should reflect expertise in the subject”; (2) “public decisions in allocation of government support for the arts should reflect many varied kinds of tastes”; and (3) “arts decisionmaking must be independent of malign influence, that is, influence represented by narrow partisan politics or self-serving interests.”

We can see how much traction the authors had in the arts and culture sector with this message given the ‘elitism redux’ (and with more urgency) message in the new National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy report.

This is why I find it ironic when funders throw their arms up in the air, discouraged by declining attendance at ‘out-of-touch’ symphony orchestras and other fine art forms. It would seem that the growing gap between these organizations and their communities exists in large part because they continued to find support and legitimacy from high profile foundations even as they were raising ticket prices and failing to update their programming and becoming increasingly ‘non-representative’ of their communities over the past 30 years.

Moreover, if we are wondering why this decades-old message just doesn’t seem to ‘stick’ and change behavior, it may be worth taking a moment to recognize the “alliance between class and culture” that emerged with the very development of our nonprofit arts system in the US: “High art” was meant to serve the needs of urban elites and the hierarchical distinction between “high culture” and “popular culture” was meant to distinguish not simply two forms of culture but the types of people that patronized these forms of culture (DiMaggio 1982).

We have (and have had) a cultural divide in the US and the arts continue to contribute to it – not all arts, but certainly a large part of the sector that is often heralded as ‘leading’, ‘excellent’ and ‘world class’. You don’t end up with the large majority of your audience being white and wealthy by accident. Nor do you end up with the large majority of your funding portfolio going to assist those organizations that are primarily serving those white and wealthy people, by accident.

This is by design, folks.

I by no means want to suggest that it is a waste of time to periodically document the fact that private funding for the arts continues to primarily support upper middle class white people. This is, perhaps, a message that needs to be transmitted continually if the situation is to change. And, as the report accurately suggests, this issue is becoming more acute as arts funding fails to keep pace with dramatic socio-economic changes that are occurring.

Indeed. Taking the message one step further, I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that organizations whose value is reliant upon old institutions, old habits, and old social networks (centered around an old concept of ‘the cultural elite’) may very well find themselves on the wrong side of a cultural change in the years to come.

Arts organizations and their funders would seem to have a choice: be part of the change or fight to the death to uphold the dying system that for decades gave their work meaning. Perhaps their own survival (if not an interest in fairer and more civic-minded communities and a sincere desire to upend social norms and support social change) will ultimately prompt some of these institutions to change their behaviors?

 Poster designed by adbusters for #OccupyWallStreet.

 

 

50+ years of backing away from the hazardous ledge of imagination

Last week the NEA announced a round of 34 grants totaling $11.5 million as part of a new program, ArtPlace, which aims to integrate artists and arts groups into local efforts in transportation, housing, community development and job creation as an important tool of economic recovery. ArtPlace is a joint-initiative of the NEA and a consortium of foundations, corporations and federal agencies. Luis A. Ubiñas, president of the Ford Foundation and chairman of the ArtPlace Presidents’ Council, is quoted saying: “The arts are inherently valuable, and they’re also part of what’s going to get us out of this economic problem we’re in.”

I must admit I winced as I read this quote. The nod to the inherent value of the arts seems somewhat insincere nuzzled as closely as it is to the rather bold statement that the arts are going to save us from our economic woes. On a whim, I pulled from the shelf my copy of the W. McNeil (Mac) Lowry edited book, The Performing Arts And American Society. Lowry was the much revered grants officer at the Ford Foundation. As director of the arts and humanities program (starting in 1957) Lowry recommended massive infusions of capital into the cultural sector over a period of approximately twenty years.  On p. 5 he lays out the ten claims, as he calls them, that were being made for the arts in American society in the 1950s: “The arts were said to be:

  1. Important to the image of the American society abroad.
  2. A means of communication and consequently of understanding between this country and others.
  3. An expression of national purpose.
  4. An important influence in the liberal education of the individual.
  5. An important key to an American’s understanding of himself, his times, and his destiny.
  6. A purposeful occupation for youth.
  7. In their institutional form, vital to the social, moral, an educational resources of an American community.
  8. Therefore good for business, especially in the new centers of population.
  9. Components for strengthening moral and spiritual bastions in a people whose national security might be threatened.
  10. An offset to the materialism of a generally affluent society.”

At the end of the list Lowry remarks,

Note that the arguments advanced for the arts in the fifties almost totally accept their role as a means to some other end. It is equally noteworthy that many of the proponents of these claims were busy translating their interest in the arts into buildings, a rash of cultural centers across the country. The so-called ‘cultural explosion’ of the fifties and sixties was in great part promotional.

Indeed, when you think about what was going on in the world in the mid-twentieth century and read this list it’s quite clear that the arts were being promoted as a symbol of freedom and capitalism and democracy.

Later in his book (p. 206) he writes,

At [a] philosophical and moral level, we must deal with what remains of the Puritan dilemma in American history—the ideal versus the useful, the sacral versus the materialistic. Though we are more than three centuries beyond Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, how strongly does this influence persist? Or is it largely our historical consciousness of a stereotype that makes us wonder whether the public accepts artists or their creations only as instruments to educational and social ends? Who needs them?

And (on p. 181) in a section sub-titled The Hazard of Imagination:

The metaphysic of intellectual and moral energy is no simple matter. The human imagination, poetic or scientific, has few limits. It is impossible, and once one might have thought it undesirable, to try to control either. Imagination—lyrical, artistic, or mechanical — is the mortal enemy of habit and routine. Anything  threatening habit or routine, those relatively safe paths by which we endure to survive our hazards of accident or circumstance, causes suspicion and fear in various kinds of degrees. The scientist, since he or she is associated with metrics which impinge upon the necessity of maintaining breath and blood, is always protected and supported more than poets or artists whose imaginativeness, invention, or fantasy are both unmeasured and immediately unmeasurable.

Economic impact arguments may fail to fortify the footing of the arts in society in any meaningful or sustainable way; but by George, they sure do succeed in talking us back from the hazardous ledge of imagination, invention, and fantasy (oh my!).

And thus, over the past 2-3 decades, in the absence of good metrics for assessing the value of our distinctive qualities and in the midst of one economic crisis after another, we have increasingly defaulted to economic impact arguments to make the case for the arts. Even in this so-called ‘creative economy’ it seems it’s not actual artistic invention that is valued; rather, the arts are valued for symbolizing and signaling the trendy variety of ‘creativity’ that is perceived to lead to economic regeneration and that cities, regions, and industry so desperately want to coin.*

Is it worth noting that the inherent value of the arts is no more easily measured in France than in the US?

But, of course, they do have something the US doesn’t have. Among other interpretations, Mr. Lowry’s book (written in 1977) can be read as a plea for the articulation of a cultural policy. Absent a cultural policy (as we remain nearly 35 years later) we are left to induce the purpose or role of the arts in US society from the nature of grants made (or initiatives supported) by the NEA and the public statements issued about them.

PS: Those who have been following this blog since I started it last November will know that I am not a fan of the economic impact defense. (See my first two posts on this blog here, and here for some thoughts on the topic.)

20 Sep 2011 amendment to this post: Carol Coletta has clarified that “ArtPlace is not a program of the NEA”. My sincere apologies for misconstruing it as such.

* For more on this topic see Chris Bilton (2006), Management and Creativity, pp. 158-66.

 

The lesson in my new tree for arts policy makers

About my tree:

Last month my husband and I hired a small family-owned landscaping business to help us renovate the small gardens in the front and back of our house. They planted three new trees, two of which are young (thin) but already quite tall. They planted the trees with support poles on either side to ensure they grow straight (see pic). As I have never had a garden I asked how many weeks the poles would need to stay. The answer: three years.

About the production houses in the Netherlands:

For years the Netherlands has had a unique system of support for promising performance artists and theater makers who have finished their training: dedicated production houses. As I understand it, these houses are often affiliated with larger theaters, drawing on resources they can provide, but are funded by the government and operate independently. They provide multiyear production support for artists after university (e.g. cash resources so artists can invest time in the research and development of their works and pay other artists, tech support, dramaturgy, promotion, etc.). During these post-grad residencies the emphasis is on strengthening the artist’s work.

I was with a gathering of artistic directors and performing arts curators last week at which we met several artists, including two that had come through this system and who spoke of the importance of the production houses in helping them become better artists and develop successful careers. We asked how long the support lasted. Their initial residencies were three years.

About the funding cuts in the Netherlands:

Among the many orchestras, dance companies, and other arts organizations that are going to be defunded in 2013, the Ministry of Culture has determined to shut down all 23 production houses in the Netherlands. This strikes me as a particularly unenlightened decision. For one, these production houses are relatively inexpensive to operate (they are a big bang for a small investment); second, the production houses play a critical role in the arts ecosystem here; third, they seem to help the Netherlands attract and retain truly talented theater/performance artists.

I am unsettled by what appears to be a strategy in the Netherlands of maintaining investments to the most high profile fine arts organizations while leaving many smaller organizations, artist companies, and intermediary organizations to fend for themselves. The rhetoric that is being perpetuated in the case of the production houses is that they will be taken under the wing of bigger institutions or become more entrepreneurial and find other sources of support. Given the short timeframe (the cuts go into effect in 2013) both scenarios seem highly unrealistic.

In any event, it seems that not many in the arts sector are buying the rhetoric. Quite a number of the artistic directors and artists our group met with spoke of planning to leave the Netherlands by 2013. Of course, as someone said to me a few days ago, this could be considered a positive outcome from the standpoint of the government.

Pfffffff. Cue the flashback reel of the US in the 80s and 90s.

The Netherlands is not alone in wanting to encourage private sector support for the arts. But there are smart ways and not-so-smart ways of doing this.

About ArtSupport Australia:

Several years ago now (after changing the tax laws to make it easier and more beneficial for individuals to set up small trusts and foundations), the Australia Arts Council started an arm’s length organization, run by visionary Louise Walsh, whose role is to broker relationships between small and midsized arts organizations and small private family foundations and trusts. ArtSupport Australia (ASA) meets with donors, talks to them about the importance of supporting the arts, and identifies organizations that might fit with their values; it mentors arts organizations to help them develop realistic funding strategies and prepare effective proposals; and it makes matches between the two. It’s a brilliant system and has had tremendous positive impact over the years.

While Kickstarter and other crowdfunding models seem to be working for some types of individual artists and projects and larger institutions have the capacity to buy fundraising expertise and (as a result of being high profile) tend to be attractive major private donors and foundations, a mechanism for connecting smaller family foundations with smaller and midsized arts organizations and ensembles/companies seems like a missing cog in many arts funding systems (including in the US). Even community foundations and donor advised funds aren’t really set up to fulfill this particular role.

When ArtSupport Australia was founded it received three years of support from the government. Even before the end of the initial funding period it was clear that it was working and the government has funded it consistently ever since. There’s an important tangential point here:  a big part of what makes ASA work (which, not unlike the production houses, is a lean organization that provides big bang for the buck) is that the Australia Arts Council is committed to funding it. It would change ASA (and compromise its mission) if it suddenly had to raise all of its operating expenses by skimming off a percentage of every gift or competing against the organizations it exists to support by competing directly for support from private donors.

Over the past year I’ve been asked rather frequently for my thoughts on how to encourage private support for the arts in the Netherlands, in light of the pending cuts. I’ve directed people to an an essay I wrote about some of the issues we face with the US system and I’ve said the same thing to everyone: the ArtSupport Australia model is brilliant and I think it would work very well in the Netherlands. I could easily imagine such a system, for instance, helping to broker relationships between a number of enlightened families, individuals and small firms and the production houses here.

***

As I’ve written before, cutting off the sprinklers to the grass and small shrubs while continuing to water the old, tall trees is not the path to a vibrant arts and culture sector. Too often, arts policy makers develop policies that demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding about such things as: the interdependencies between large organizations and small ones, and the commercial arts sector and the subsidized sector; what makes a city attractive to artists; how good artists become great artists; what motivates donors to give; how difficult it is for some very worthy organizations to be competitive in the funding process; and the time and personal connections that it takes for donors and arts organizations to form relationships that are beneficial and that will be sustained through good economic times and bad ones.

My young tree needs supports if it is going to become a healthy, large tree. Young artists need developmental support if they are going to become great artists. Countries without a culture of asking and giving need a support system if effective long term relationships are going to be built between private donors and the arts sector, particularly if there is a hope that more than just the large, historically leading organizations will be supported by private donors. Policy makers need to be smarter about how the arts ecosystem works so that they know where to provide support structures and for how long.

Australia got it right. I’ll be interested to see what the Netherlands does in the coming months and years.

Which nonprofit arts orgs deserve these pennies?

In response to last week’s post, Leonard Jacobs posted a thoughtful essay at The Clyde Fitch Report in which he made many excellent points–many of them fair criticisms of my post. I cannot adequately address all of Jacobs’ points in this post, but I hope to address a few while expounding upon some of my previous comments.

In my first post, I was endeavoring to both (1) discuss perceptions of the current threats to funding (which Jacobs rightly says are not ‘attacks’ in the sense of the culture wars) and (2) make the assertion that the current case for cutting support for the arts seems to rest on behaviors of organizations that are often held up as leaders but that, to my mind, do not exemplify the highest principles or the best (or even most common) practices of our field. Here’s are some further thoughts, specifically on responses to the proposed cuts:

(1)   I believe the percentage of the population that is actually hostile to the arts (philistines, if you will) is relatively small (at least I hope so; perhaps I am naive on this matter?). Furthermore, because I’m not persuaded that rhetoric will change their minds, I think advocacy efforts are better focused elsewhere. I’m not proposing to do away with advocacy as Jacob’s construed from my previous comments. There’s no danger in continuing to hone and strengthen the case for the merits of the arts. However, as I’ve said before, if the arts actually mattered more, to more people, then perhaps their value would be self evident and advocates wouldn’t need to work so hard to defend funding for them.

(2) Jacobs and others seem to take the view that the threats are largely political and symbolic. I tend to agree. Some that would cut arts funding believe big government is bad and it should be reduced or eliminated across many areas; others that government support and intervention in some areas is justifiable but the ‘arts’ do not merit such subsidies because they largely benefit those that could pay anyway (the very wealthy and the upper middle class). In either case, since ‘the arts’ matter to a small percentage of their constituencies anyway, the recession offers a good opportunity for politicians to put forward cuts to the arts (which, conveniently, most people seem to equate with ‘the fine arts’ and ‘snooty organiations with expensive tickets’).

So what about that new report from the NEA (to be posted on Feb 28th) that Jacobs mentioned, which indicates much higher participation levels than previously reported? Importantly, these expanded participation rates are due to an expanded definition of participation from one limited to ‘attendance’ to one including (as I recall from the Webinar last week) media related participation and amateur/hands-on participation. In other words, it appears that a lot of the ‘participation’ unearthed by this new report may be happening outside of the nonprofit arts ‘establishment’.

(3)  The final point I was endeavoring to make in my last post is that perhaps there would not be a general perception that the arts primarily serve those who could pay for them anyway if the sector itself did not hold up as ‘exemplars’ those organizations that are elitist, exclusive, wealthy, and extravagant.   

I get that many such organizations exhibit qualities that are often associated with ‘leadership’: they are the largest firms; they have been around the longest and have staying power; they have high profiles and clear brands; they often do very high quality work; they are powerful and able to attract talent; they bring prestige to their cities and people often feel civic pride about their presence; and they are highly professionalized and institutionalized operations (no artsy flakiness in these shops). In other words, they exude qualities that one associates with being at the top of the corporate heap.

These may be qualities of leadership by corporate or commercial standards, but are these the right metrics for leadership in a nonprofit context?  Where and how do we account for leadership in the sense of being the best at pursuing and achieving charitable and educational ends?

I observe many organizations that are doing work that lives up to (what I would consider to be)  ‘nonprofit’ ideals. Generally, they seem to be undervalued and underfunded. I am, thus, troubled that a significant portion of the contributed resources going into the nonprofit arts and culture sector is (and has been for years) directed to organizations that seem to want (in principle) to behave like either country clubs or commericial entities.

Which leads to my question: Does it (should it) mean something different to be a ‘leading arts institution’ vs. a ‘leading nonprofit arts institution’? Is it time to question a  hierarchy that puts (in perpetuity), for example, the Lyric Opera of Chicago above Chicago Opera Theater; or Roundabout Theatre Company above the Foundry Theater? As I said last week, perhaps we need to re-think what constitutes leadership in the nonprofit arts sector. If we’re not sure anymore, perhaps it’s time to figure this out.

Switching gears a bit: I understand from Scott Walters’ post on his recent visit to the NEA, that we in blog- and tweet-land have ruffled feathers by daring to question the establishment. I want to express my respect and thanks to Scott for having the courage to speak candidly both at the meeting and in his follow-up post. I’m glad he was in the room. I also LOVE his most recent post on ‘excellence‘.

PS: Thanks for the essay, Mr. Jacobs. I appreciate your consideration of my post and the thoughtful feedback. I may  pick up on the pricing thread next week … Yrs, DER

Image of Please Help Penny Jar by Aron Hsiao, licensed from Shutterstock.com.

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