Unless, of course, they muck it up by asking for money.
“Musick has Charms to soothe the savage Breast
― William Congreve, “The Mourning Bride”
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak”
There seems to be some truth to that, and nonprofit arts organizations could prove worth (and increase their charitable value to their communities) by following specific medical advice to soothe savage breasts and more.
There was a report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) last month — yes, Canada still has a public broadcasting service which Canadians are happy to support — concerning the power of the arts literally to heal.
Social prescribing is neither a new nor controversial kind of practice. It describes and defines a system by which non-pharmaceutical activities can solve or mitigate psychological and physical ailments caused by isolation and lack of brain stimulation.
“It’s particularly helpful for people from communities facing health inequities and need support in accessing anything that impacts the social determinants of health — non-medical factors that influence health outcomes — such as loneliness, housing, income or discrimination.”
We wrote about the charitable impact that nonprofit arts organizations have the capacity to deliver in the recent article Loneliness and the Arts: If Bringing People Together is the Cure, What is the Disease?. Across Canada, these issues have been in play for years. In the CBC report, for example, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra has partnered with Médecins francophones du Canada to allow doctors to prescribe the symphony as medicine to “reduce loneliness, improve health outcomes, ease the burden on the healthcare system, and build much-needed trust between doctors and their patients.”
“Physicians will give prescriptions to patients. The patients will call us. We give each patient that calls us two tickets, free of charge. And they can select the concert they want.”
—Mélanie La Couture, CEO of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
It’s important to lean on the doctors and scientists to make the call on the power of music to heal the body. It’s important (and more impressive) to society-at-large when an arts organization chooses to bring people out of their self-imposed isolation chambers and electronic mind-control machines with activities prescribed by those same doctors and scientists.
Your arts organization can do this, too. Actually, it should. Regardless of your financial strengths or weakness (whether you’re swimming in cash or holding a going out of business sale), this is a way to prove to your community that you can help them. To some, it will be a revelation that your company might not be a toxic luxury for the rich, but indispensable to all.
One wonders if there are just too many nonprofit arts organizations that are currently addicted to the idea that ticket sales and earned revenues are the ultimate measure of their success. Too many who care about acclaim and reviews to adopt this kind of program full-time. Too many who scrounge for dollars instead of providing a cure to reduce any stigma that might occur when someone is in need…at no charge at all.
If you’re not one of those self-centered, self-indulgent art-for-art’s-sake companies (that all need to change or die) and you want to do good in your immediate community, why aren’t you actively advocating for groups of folks who have been deemed invisible by the movers and shakers to get free access to your music, your art, your dance, your theater, etc.? If it’s a program that heals, why not seek out the most isolated, the neediest, and the loneliest of your human beings and do everything you can to bring your art to them?
And then show us the outcomes, supported by science, from an external source?
Forget about selling tickets to these folks. Or even worry about funding it through an external grant. Just do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. That’s what nonprofits are supposed to do.
Even if it’s more effective to go where they are instead of forcing them to come to you. Your building isn’t what will cure them, after all. But your art just might.
After all, isn’t it more important to your community that you solve a need instead of figuring out which ticketing scheme and price structure maximizes your revenue?
Aren’t they more important than you?
If your answer is no, please leave the business or simply convert to a for-profit business. As a member of the nonprofit community, you’re hurting everyone else.
You save the art by saving the purpose, not by just continuing to satisfy your own “artistic vision,” which is completely meaningless to your community. Find the connections in the medical community who prescribe wellness with your art and then show us the data and stories of success. Don’t show us what you did without showing us how these people got better. Your community needs you. And it’s the first step toward success as a charitable institution.
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