Change We Must (As We Lead)

For a very long time the arts field resembled the companion on a road trip who said “I know the way, I’ll drive.” Our systems in the nonprofit part of the sector are set up so that arts organizations lead with authority and with the power to dictate much of what is consumed as art. The quality of these products is extremely important and should continue to be, so we have understandably set up our feedback systems to be responsive to their quality production and presentation. If that’s called being true to one’s creative impulse “while appreciating the financial implications of these choices” then yes, lead. At the same time, how?

At the very least, leading has to do with paying attention, so it would be ridiculous to ignore how radically technology has changed the means of arts production and presentation for everyone, professionals and non-professionals alike. Equally risky would be not noticing how the people inside our organizations don’t resemble the ones outside. In developing and implementing our strategy for arts funding at the Irvine Foundation, we continue to talk a lot about who is engaging in the arts and how (as well as where they engage, not specifically addressed here) and why these criteria inform the kind of leading our field needs.

The fact that everyone has the ability to generate content offers the nonprofits arts a valuable inflection point. The new “leaders” in this two-way landscape will be those who are successful at facilitating creative, immersive, active arts experiences alongside our “traditional” expertise of creating something and presenting it whole and complete for a more observational experience. Besides knowing where to go and doing all the driving excellently, we need to help our fellow travelers learn how to take the wheel and explore new routes. We can be the (also excellent) shepherds and nurturers of creative experiences that lead to more enriched lives and stronger communities. This kind of service to the public means we may need to strengthen muscles we haven’t used in a while, like listening to non-expert opinion and drawing on volunteer resources in new ways.

In order to develop these strengths in our sector, we need to prepare and train professional artists and administrators differently in our colleges and universities. We probably need to rethink how to structure business in our organizations, too, finding a different equilibrium than the one we’re used to. Although we’re set up to produce and present, which we should continue doing, we have to figure out how our work can also be about strengthening the creative capacity of people in the communities we serve. And we must integrate that kind of work in a way that doesn’t frame it as second rate or solely in the service of supporting the old equilibrium, which makes it not about a new equilibrium at all.

This will no doubt mean that we will need to rethink the way we’ve been leading so there’s room left in the new balance we are attempting both for facilitating others’ experiences in the arts, and for our own learning in the process. This should not be about adding another program without shifting another, or about adding it to the overburdened and under-empowered work of interns and junior staff.

In my view, this is really about the evolution of the whole democratic society-based arts nonprofit project: changing our leadership style as a response to sweeping technological and demographic shifts just may be one of the smartest adaptations arts organizations can make.