| The Future of Diversity and Equity in Museums | 42576 | GP0|#a2eb43fb-abab-4f1c-ae41-72fd1022ddb0;L0|#0a2eb43fb-abab-4f1c-ae41-72fd1022ddb0|The Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>What does a commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion look like for a fine arts museum, a children’s museum or a historical society? What about zoos and aquariums? <br></p><p>The American Alliance of Museums, which provides resources and guidance for each of these types of organizations and more, is now embedding DEAI as an integral part of museum excellence. Its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/arts/design/american-alliance-of-museums-diversity-equity-inclusion.html" target="_blank">new initiative</a> will update its accreditation and the standards it sets for professional practices for member organizations.</p><p>In addition to DEAI, AAM’s Core Standards for Museums include guidelines on risk management, financial stability, public trust, collections stewardship, and planning. This is the first time in 20 years that the organization has updated its standards. Once finalized, the new standards will become required of the 1,096 accredited member museums and considered professional practice for the remaining 35,000 individual members. The multi-year process will be led by an advisory committee of six to eight people from the industry through conversations with professionals from across the field, including those often underrepresented in the establishment of museum standards, such as emerging museum professionals, Chief Diversity Officers, and museum professionals of color. </p><p>We spoke to <a href="https://www.aam-us.org/programs/about-aam/our-staff/" target="_blank">Laura Lott</a>, CEO and President of AAM, to discuss the state of DEAI work at museums, the impetus for this initiative, and what they anticipate the implementation process will look like. </p><p><strong>Wallace Foundation: What prompted the organization’s decision to start this initiative and the process of updating AAM’s standards to reflect diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns?</strong> </p><p>Laura Lott: This really started back in 2016 when diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in all aspects of museum structure and programming was prioritized in our strategic plan as one of three focus areas for AAM. That came out of dozens of conversations with thousands of museum directors and professionals across the sector who told us that DEAI was a top concern for them, along with financial sustainability and how they were positioned in communities related to the education system. </p><p>One of the first things that we did was develop a DEAI working group made up of people who had been doing DEAI work in the field, some for decades. Generally, the consensus was that they hadn't seen as much change as they'd hoped. And so the working group was charged with asking the question: Why? </p><p>That group issued <a href="https://www.aam-us.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AAM-DEAI-Working-Group-Full-Report-2018.pdf" target="_blank">a report</a> in 2018, which identified and examined five ways that DEAI work hadn't stuck or made as much change in museums as hoped. One of those five insights was the value of systemic change. Oftentimes we found that DEAI initiatives were focused externally; they were about the audience that the museum was reaching or the programming it was doing, but not necessarily the systemic change to its culture, processes, systems, budgets, and values—everything that would really be needed. </p><p>Within that same timeframe, someone said to me, “We really should only be talking about excellence in museums,” rather than topics like DEAI. It was an <em>Aha! </em>moment: we need to make sure that people understand DEAI <em>is </em>museum excellence. Excellence is the term that we use for the whole continuum from when a museum first joins the professional alliance to becoming accredited, and DEAI needed to be part of that system in order to make the sustained change that our field needs and our communities deserve.</p><p><strong>WF: When you look at museums across the country, what are some of the more specific issues that you have been seeing regarding DEAI?</strong></p><p>LL: There are three big things: One is the history and culture of museums, which from the founding of the concept of a museum, has been colonialist and racist. That means it's pretty hard to change because it's at the core of how museums were founded, what they were originally meant to do, and who founded them, too. It's a problematic history.</p><p>The second is resource limitations in the museum field. We know lots of arts and cultural organizations—and nonprofits overall—are always struggling to find new dollars to do new work. DEAI takes resources and a sustained investment of time and money for the expertise that's needed and oftentimes not within a museum already, such as training for existing boards and staffs.</p><p>The third is just the nature of DEAI work. Unlike mounting an exhibit, where there's a very defined beginning, middle, and end, DEAI work is never ending. It's people and culture work, so it's a different way that we have to learn to work. Each person and organization has to do that work—there's no shortcut. </p><p><strong>WF: That said, can you share any examples of strong and effective DEAI initiatives that you've started to see as well? </strong></p><p>LL: First and foremost, some of the most impactful work that results in actual change isn't the big, grand initiatives or something that's announced, launched, done, and celebrated. I think the most impactful work is the thoughtful, steady—sometimes incremental or too slow, it seems, for all of our patience levels—changes happening in museums. </p><p>For example, we've seen in the last year or two a significant increase in the number of Chief Diversity Officer or DEAI leadership positions in museums, which is a huge dedication of resources by museums to find the expertise and have that as a core part of their leadership teams. The Phillips Collection, here in Washington D.C., was one of the first to create a Chief Diversity Officer position, get it endowed so that it doesn't go away, and work with the person in that position—Makeba Clay, at the time—to really make these kinds of changes throughout the institution and to look at how they partnered in a bigger way with the D.C. community, not just a portion of the D.C. community.</p><p>Additionally, the Burke Museum in Seattle is a leader in being in community with their Native populations. When you walk into that museum, there is a <a href="https://www.burkemuseum.org/news/acknowledging-land-building-deeper-relationships" target="_blank">statement right on the wall</a>—that I'm certain was a years-long process and a difficult thing to do—addressing their history and culpability in collecting from and not including the voices of the Native folks that they were interpreting or talking about. They now have a committee as part of their governance structure that is comprised of Native people and it’s part and parcel of how they make decisions now. That's another example of years-long structural change that really has impacted the way that the museum works and collects.</p><p><strong>WF: Can you talk about what the process of updating the standards will look like? </strong></p><p>LL: It's a consensus-building process that started with the “Excellence in DEAI” task force, part of our “Facing Change” initiative, that issued a <a href="https://www.aam-us.org/2022/08/02/excellence-in-deai-report/" target="_blank">report</a> a couple of months ago. That task force was charged with examining what excellence in DEAI looks like and the indicators of a museum really progressing through a DEAI journey. I'm so grateful to that committee, which began their work in 2019, so it was not a short or easy process, especially during pandemic times, to define specific core concepts and key indicators that can be built into the new standards and the application of the standards. </p><p>After the new year, we'll appoint a steering committee of Chief Diversity Officers, museum leaders, and AAM volunteer leadership. I expect some of the biggest changes to be not necessarily in the language of the standards, though there will be some, but in how they're applied and evaluated by the accreditation commission and peer reviewers. It's a little bit behind the scenes, but it will change a lot about what we actually ask museums to tell us in their self-studies—what the peer reviewers look for, and what they observe when they're doing their visits. Our goal is to nurture excellence, so part of our job is providing the case studies, resources, and training on how to actually implement the standards. </p><p><strong>WF: With your member organizations spanning different sizes, areas of focus, and audience bases, how do you account for the variety of programs and approaches museums might take in this work?</strong> </p><p>LL: It's definitely not one size fits all—certainly not with DEAI—but it isn't really with anything that's in the standards. It's such a broad field, and it's why the standards, if you look at them now, are a little vague. They have to be adaptable to zoos, children's museums, big institutions, and very old institutions, as well as ones that are brand new. That's why a lot of the changes that I feel will be most important through this process will be in how the standards are applied and how they're evaluated because we can't expect to see the same thing and call it progress or excellence in each institution's case. </p><p>For example, one of the core concepts is about DEAI demanding an ongoing commitment of resources, and one of the indicators of this commitment is that an organization has allocated a budget for the work. Then the question becomes how much is enough? And that's obviously going to be a very different answer depending on the type of institution and where it is. It probably won't be in the standards that museums need to dedicate a certain percent of their budget, but in the self-study, how we frame this indicator and how it's evaluated by the peer reviewers and the accreditation commission will be where that definition comes in. It's never easy for our field, but that's where this idea of even having core concepts and key indicators helps us get more precise about what we’re looking for.</p><p><strong>WF: Finally, what impact do you hope the new standards will have? </strong></p><p>LL: Even just declaring that we're doing this work is a step so that DEAI is understood as part of professional practice for all museums. It's just like collection stewardship and interpretation, which are also practices that are constantly being refined and improved. It's not like we handle collections care now in the same way that we did a hundred years ago—there's new technology, tactics, and learnings. DEAI is very similar in that way, but it needs to be understood as part of best practice, taught as best practice in museum studies programs, and implemented by museums as core functions of the institution and embedded throughout them.</p><p><em>The American Alliance of Museums is a partner with The Wallace Foundation.</em></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2023-02-14T05:00:00Z | Your source for research and ideas to expand high quality learning and enrichment opportunities. Supporting: School Leadership, After School, Summer and Extended Learning Time, Arts Education and Building Audiences for the Arts. | | 2/14/2023 3:14:52 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / The Future of Diversity and Equity in Museums For the first time in 20 years, the American Alliance of Museums is updating | 1119 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| How Can Music Organizations Be More Inclusive? | 42455 | GP0|#a2eb43fb-abab-4f1c-ae41-72fd1022ddb0;L0|#0a2eb43fb-abab-4f1c-ae41-72fd1022ddb0|The Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>In a <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/a-place-to-be-heard-a-space-to-feel-held-black-perspectives.aspx">recent study </a>exploring 50 Black Americans’ perceptions of the arts, some participants at the beginning of their interview shared that they did not consider themselves creative. But as their conversation with the researchers continued, the participants discovered the many ways that creativity and art exist within their lives.<br></p><p>“That’s kind of the beauty of using different types of methods. With the quantitative research, you are able to look at the frequency of different experiences or different types of things people are thinking,” said Melody Buyukozer Dawkins, one of the researchers who authored the study. “But with qualitative research you’re able to bring out those stories and you can have that kind of one-to-one interaction with people.”</p><p>Buyukozer Dawkins was speaking on an episode of “CMA Talks,” a podcast hosted by Nichole L. Knight at Chamber Music America. </p><p>In the conversation, Buyukozer Dawkins highlights several insights that came out of the project’s free-flowing interviews with people whose perspectives have often been underrepresented in research and the arts. She also tackles how arts organizations might develop stronger relationships with their Black constituents and the importance of helping to lift up voices that have been historically sidelined. </p><p>Listen to the full episode on
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cma-talks-season-3-episode-2-close-listening/id1373815844?i=1000570620285" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a> and read CMA’s article, “<a href="https://www.chambermusicamerica.org/close-listening" target="_blank">Close Listening</a>,” about the report from the spring issue of
<em>Chamber Music America</em> Magazine. You can find the report
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/a-place-to-be-heard-a-space-to-feel-held-black-perspectives.aspx">
<em>A Place to Be Heard, A Space to Feel Held: Perspectives on Creativity, Trustworthiness, Welcome, and Well-Being</em></a> on Wallace’s website. </p><p><em>Top photo by Deb Fong</em><br><br></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2022-08-18T04:00:00Z | Popular podcast for chamber musicians explores equity, access and research in the arts | | 10/7/2022 2:24:25 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Can Music Organizations Be More Inclusive Popular podcast for chamber musicians explores equity, access and research in | 1536 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| How Can Arts and Culture Organizations Be More Welcoming? | 42453 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>What kinds of arts experiences foster feelings of connection and well-being? A new report reveals some insights from Black and African American participants, a viewpoint historically sidelined from research and planning efforts in the arts. In-depth interviews with 50 Black and African American participants revealed common threads that demonstrate the importance of four key practices for arts and culture organizations in creating a positive environment: celebrating personal and community creativity, supporting self-care, working to be more trustworthy and creating a sense of welcome and belonging.<br></p><p>The qualitative study,
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/a-place-to-be-heard-a-space-to-feel-held-black-perspectives.aspx?utm_source=The+Wallace+Foundation&utm_campaign=bfe7509f3a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_01_07_04_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_59ab24ca7b-bfe7509f3a-211159397&_ga=2.77163926.2027710580.1650894280-1368872614.1650558612">
<em>A Place to Be Heard, A Space to Feel Held: Black Perspectives on Creativity, Trustworthiness, Welcome and Well Being</em></a>, was funded in part by Wallace, with research conducted in 2021. The project is part of a pandemic-era, equity-focused research collaboration with Slover Linett, LaPlaca Cohen and Yancey Consulting called
<a href="https://culturetrack.com/research/transformation/" target="_blank">
<em>Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation: A Special Edition of Culture Track</em></a>. The initial survey research found that people
<a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/what-we-need-from-arts-and-culture-right-now.aspx?_ga=2.77163926.2027710580.1650894280-1368872614.1650558612">crave more racial inclusion and connection</a> from the arts, and a follow-up survey determined that
<a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/as-the-pandemic-shifts-so-does-peoples-thinking-about-arts-and-culture.aspx?_ga=2.77163926.2027710580.1650894280-1368872614.1650558612">people’s attitudes were shifting</a> throughout the pandemic, with the desire for arts organizations to be more community-oriented only growing stronger. The new report homes in on perspectives from Black and African American participants, exploring how organizations can better support Black communities, work to earn their trust and make them feel welcome. </p><p>To examine some of the report’s key takeaways, the Wallace blog connected with the team from Slover Linett who co-authored the study (along with Ciara C. Knight): researcher Melody Buyukozer Dawkins, research coordinator Camila Guerrero and vice president and director of research Tanya Treptow. </p><p>
</p><strong style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;"><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-can-arts-and-culture-organizations-be-more-welcoming/Melody_Buyukozer_Dawkins_Slover_Linett_Audience_Research.jpg" alt="Melody_Buyukozer_Dawkins_Slover_Linett_Audience_Research.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:160px;height:200px;" /><span></span></strong><div><strong>Wallace Foundation: How did the four themes of creativity, self-care, trustworthiness, and welcome and belonging come into focus during the interviews?</strong></div><div><strong><br></strong></div><div><strong></strong><strong>Melody Buyukozer Dawkins:</strong> Our initial focus on the main themes of creativity, trustworthiness and welcome and belonging came from the first wave of quantitative findings from the
<a href="https://sloverlinett.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Centering-the-Picture-full-report-CCTC-Wave-1-findings.pdf" target="_blank">
<em>Culture + Community: The Role of Race and Ethnicity in cultural engagement in the U.S.</em></a> report. Those findings provided guidance at several levels:</div><p></p><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">The findings indicated that Black and African American respondents were less likely to participate in the range of cultural activities included in the survey, even though those that did participate did so at the same frequency as the other racial and ethnic groups. One discussion our team had was whether the list of activities that we included in the survey was comprehensive enough to cover all potential activities Black respondents participated in. To this end, we took an open-ended approach in our interviews and asked participants about the general creative activities they partake in to expand this list.</div><p></p><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Over three quarters of Black and African American respondents desired change in arts and culture organizations and it was particularly important for them to engage with diverse voices and faces, more than any other racial and ethnic groups. About one third also wanted to see friendly approaches to diverse people. To examine in our interviews what dynamics come into play in these processes, we explored welcome and belonging.</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Black and African American respondents were also more likely than other groups to want to stay informed with trustworthy sources of information, so building on this finding we aimed to explore the factors that affect the trustworthiness of any organization or person.</div><p>We initially didn’t seek to examine self-care within our interviews but as we spoke to people, this theme emerged organically, especially as people talked about how they have been living through the pandemic era. </p><p>
<strong>WF: Against the backdrop of the larger
<em>Culture + Community</em> study, why was it important to conduct this qualitative study to gain the perspective of Black and African American participants regarding community and culture organizations? What are the benefits and tradeoffs or pitfalls of conducting research that delves deeper into understanding the experience of a particular group? </strong></p><p>
<strong>MBD:</strong> This is a question we heard often throughout both the research and dissemination process. One way we found very helpful to answer this question is to take a system-level approach and ask ourselves why the question of the importance of Black perspectives really exists in the first place. What structures and conditions that historically excluded Black people make this kind of research necessary? And why do we try to assess what there is to gain (or to lose) from this kind of research, rather than focus on how research can shift our paradigms and help us transform? With our research, we intentionally tried to stay away from the impulse to justify, but instead to amplify and celebrate Black voices, stories and wisdom, authentically and unapologetically.   </p><p>
<strong>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-can-arts-and-culture-organizations-be-more-welcoming/Tanya_Treptow_Slover_Linett_Audience_Research.jpg" alt="Tanya_Treptow_Slover_Linett_Audience_Research.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:175px;height:219px;" />Tanya Treptow:</strong> And we felt like a qualitative study could be an important complement to—and a check on—the quantitative components of the
<em>Culture + Community</em> work. In qualitative research, we’re inherently not looking to generalize research findings, but instead to hear people deeply as holistic individuals and to understand the emotional undertones of people’s values, philosophies and actions. In this case, we were able to explore how culture and community experiences and organizations naturally fit into people’s broader lives. </p><p>
<strong>WF: What most surprised or had an impact on you</strong><strong> while working on this study? </strong></p><p>
<strong>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-can-arts-and-culture-organizations-be-more-welcoming/Camila_Guerrero_Slover_Linett_Audience_Research.jpg" alt="Camila_Guerrero_Slover_Linett_Audience_Research.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:179px;height:224px;" />Camila Guerrero</strong>: These were the first qualitative interviews I’d been a part of at Slover Linett and the loose structure of the interview, paired with people’s openness, seemed to create a space for vulnerability. The extent of how vulnerable people were willing to be, to talk about certain experiences they’d gone through was unexpected, because we were strangers and they didn’t owe us their unfiltered emotions, thoughts or experiences. The space we created in these interviews was safe not just for the participants, but also for us, the researchers. The interviews almost felt like a conversation I’d have with a friend even though they were for the purposes of this study. They all started off with “how are you feeling?” and despite our guiding question we still went in whatever direction felt most natural and comfortable. Each conversation brought something personal and eye-opening about the individual. One of many of those moments that still stands out to me is when one participant shared a beautiful moment of connection she had with her late mother through nature. I felt myself tearing up as she described her experience, and although perhaps at first glance it may have seemed unrelated to the themes we focused on in this study, it all circles back somehow. That very personal moment she gave us the privilege of exploring was what ultimately led to her love for photography, just one of the many ways she engaged with art. </p><p>
<strong>TT:</strong> I definitely agree with Camila. I’ve been referring back to our conversations in professional contexts and in my personal life to a much greater degree than in other studies I’ve been a part of. I think it’s because of the open-ended framing of our conversations, where people could share what was most meaningful to themselves. In a lot of social research in the arts and culture realm, research is constrained to a somewhat narrower frame, such as attendance or participation at specific kinds of institutions.  In this case, we didn’t constrain our conversations, yet as in Camila’s example, people naturally still shared stories about the arts and culture in their lives. </p><p>
<strong>WF: Where do you think there are more opportunities for this kind of research and what would be a future priority from your perspective?</strong></p><p>
<strong>MBD:</strong> Shifting paradigms and building community. Thanks to the deep insights of our participants, we were able to examine the distinctions between trust and trustworthiness, and between welcome and belonging; explore the role of creativity and self-care in individual and community well-being; and question what “relevance” really means in the context of cultural experiences. One of the exciting outcomes of our study was that for each of our four thematic areas—creativity, self-care, trustworthiness and welcome—there were revelations that led to potential paradigm-shifting approaches to commonly used terms and concepts when equity and inclusion are talked about. So, one potential future priority for me is to rethink how we approach these concepts and how we ask questions in the first place. </p><p>
<strong>CG:</strong> This study felt more like it was about amplifying voices and perspectives than about serving institutions and organizations. I hope it encourages others to move more in this direction, to be participant-centered. Although much of the focus of this study was to support institutions through our findings, throughout the process we found ourselves thinking about the interview participants as not just the main focus, but the main
<em>audience</em> for our report. During our debriefs as a team it came up time and time again, that we wanted this to be something all the participants could read through and understand, because their insights were what even allowed us to get to this point. This participant-centered approach is something I hope to see more of in studies because without participants we have no research, no findings, no ability to take action.</p><p>
<strong>WF: What implications does this study have for the arts and culture sector more broadly?</strong></p><p>
<strong>MBD:</strong> When we started this process, we were thinking about the audiences for this report. As we went through our conversations and started to identify themes, it became very apparent that the findings and insights went beyond the audiences (cultural practitioners and funders) we initially thought about. So, we shifted our focus to the “culture and community” sector, very broadly defined to include not only cultural sector practitioners and funders but also organizations, activists, policy makers and anybody who connects personally with or connects others around culture and community. Excitingly, we have already started hearing reverberations of our findings for people across a wide variety of fields like higher education, creative placemaking, civic engagement and sociological research on places and participation—many of the areas that have been working to incorporate the arts in comprehensive community development. I think one of the next steps is to capitalize on these reverberations and build community around how these learnings can translate into meaningful change, action and also more questions and research. </p><p>
<strong>TT: </strong>I think there also needs to be a continued reckoning in the arts and culture field in accepting, celebrating and ultimately financially supporting arts and culture organizations and initiatives that support deep extrinsic goals, such as individual and community wellness (getting beyond art for art’s sake). Arts organizations that promote these goals explicitly are sometimes given less prestige than those focused on the quality of their collections alone. And that runs contrary to what we heard from the people we spoke to in this study in how they valued arts, culture and creativity in their lives. </p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-can-arts-and-culture-organizations-be-more-welcoming/Final_updated_qual_report_diagram_V2_2_A_Place_to_Be_Heard.jpg" alt="Final_updated_qual_report_diagram_V2_2_A_Place_to_Be_Heard.jpg" style="margin:5px;" />
<br>
<br>
</p><p>We didn’t frame conversations around self-care or wellness, but these topics emerged anyways in very central ways. And I think this intersects with how the field should value and support BIPOC-led and BIPOC-centered organizations, which may be more likely to take an ‘arts and…’ approach. We do already see encouraging shifts in the sector, such as with John Falk’s 2021 publication,
<a href="https://www.instituteforlearninginnovation.org/the-value-of-museums-enhancing-societal-well-being/" target="_blank">
<em>The Value of Museums: Enhancing Societal Well-Being</em></a>, but there is so much more to do. I’d love to see continued centering of individual and community-level wellness at conferences, in the framing of funding opportunities and within individual organizational practice. </p><p>
<em>The included chart is excerpted from the study, </em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/a-place-to-be-heard-a-space-to-feel-held-black-perspectives.aspx?utm_source=The+Wallace+Foundation&utm_campaign=bfe7509f3a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_01_07_04_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_59ab24ca7b-bfe7509f3a-211159397">
<em>A Place to Be Heard, A Space to Feel Held: Black Perspectives on Creativity, Trustworthiness, Welcome and Well Being</em></a>.</p><br><br><br><br><br> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2022-05-03T04:00:00Z | Authors of new report break down what they learned about arts participation from in-depth interviews with 50 Black Americans | | 5/3/2022 4:13:35 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Can Arts and Culture Organizations Be More Welcoming Authors of new report break down what they learned about arts | 2416 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| As the Pandemic Shifts So Does People’s Thinking About Arts and Culture | 23688 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>More than half of Americans say that arts and culture organizations are important to them, according to a new study. The results are part of an ongoing research effort by the companies LaPlaca Cohen and Slover Linett Audience Research, called <em>Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation</em>. </p><p>This <a href="https://culturetrack.com/research/transformation/" target="_blank">second wave of research</a> is based on surveys conducted in May 2021. Along with its companion report, <a href="https://sloverlinett.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Rethinking-Relevance-Rebuilding-Engagement-CCTT-Wave-2-Survey-Full-Report.pdf" target="_blank"><em>Rethinking relevance, rebuilding engagement</em></a>, the survey finds that most Americans believe that arts organizations can play a critical role in helping their communities during this time of continuing change and crises. In fact, a majority of respondents said they wanted arts and culture organizations to actively address social justice issues in their community.  </p><p><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/as-the-pandemic-shifts-so-does-people’s-thinking-about-arts-and-culture/blog-JenBenoitBryan-cropped.jpg" alt="blog-JenBenoitBryan-cropped.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:195px;height:226px;" />To help break down some of these findings and their implications, we spoke via email with Jen Benoit-Bryan, Vice President and Co-Director of Research at Slover Linett. You can also see information on the earlier Culture Track work and study <a href="https://culturetrack.com/research/covidstudy/" target="_blank">here</a>. </p><p><strong>Wallace Foundation: What does this study tell us about how Americans might be thinking about the value of the arts? Compared to other research, is there anything new or perhaps surprising about what this survey found? </strong></p><p>Jen Benoit-Bryan: Going into the second wave of this study in early 2021, we anticipated that the personal salience of arts and culture organizations might have declined as people generally hadn’t been as involved in-person with these organizations, and many were grappling with illness and uncertainty in their lives. Instead, we saw a substantial increase in the proportion of Americans who viewed arts and culture organizations as important to them in May 2021 at 56 percent compared with 37 percent who said they were important when reflecting back to before the pandemic. </p><p>We’re not aware of any other national studies that have tracked the importance of the arts across the pandemic, but a study of residents in Washington state found similar patterns. <a href="https://www.artsfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ArtsFund_COVID_Cultural_Impact_Study-Spreads.pdf" target="_blank">ArtsFund’</a>s omnibus panel of WA residents conducted in Fall 2021 found that about a third of residents value cultural programming more now than prior to the pandemic, while 55 percent value it about the same and just 14 percent value it less than they did before the pandemic.</p><p><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/as-the-pandemic-shifts-so-does-people’s-thinking-about-arts-and-culture/chart-culture-rising-sentiment-arts-culture-community-p22.jpg" alt="chart-culture-rising-sentiment-arts-culture-community-p22.jpg" style="margin:5px;width:774px;height:436px;" /><br>This can be seen as a point of pride for the sector and as a statistic to cite in advocacy efforts. Of course, the increase could be due to Americans focusing more on their immediate needs during those early months of the pandemic, when the Wave 1 responses were gathered, and now having more room to explore other aspects of life, including culture and the arts. </p><p><strong>WF: While the responses indicate that a majority of Americans want arts and culture organizations to actively address social issues, they place different priorities on specific issues (e.g., racial justice 42 percent, wealth inequality 31 percent and climate justice 31 percent). How should organizations apply these complicated findings in their own contexts? </strong></p><p>JBB: While racial justice was the most-often selected issue that Americans want to see these organizations address, no single issue was selected by a majority of the respondents. That suggests that addressing multiple issues may be important to meeting the needs of many communities. There are some interesting patterns around which issues matter most to whom—for example, racial justice was a priority issue for a majority of Asians/Pacific Islanders and Black/African Americans (65 percent and 59 percent, respectively) and climate change was more likely to be a priority issue among Americans in coastal regions. We recommend that organizations think about what communities they hope to serve in the future (whether defined by geography, race and ethnicity or age, etc.), and then determine which issues to address. </p><p><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/as-the-pandemic-shifts-so-does-people’s-thinking-about-arts-and-culture/chart-culture-community-changes-wish-to-see-p29.jpg" alt="chart-culture-community-changes-wish-to-see-p29.jpg" style="margin:5px;width:774px;height:436px;" /><br><br></p><p>Then there’s the question of what it means for an arts or culture organization to “address” those kinds of issues. We didn’t investigate that in the survey, but there are many examples around the field, and they span the spectrum of internal, programmatic and external or community action. For example, addressing climate change could take place internally (e.g. a recycling program, rainwater reuse, a LEED-certified building expansion, etc.); in programming (a theater production or sound art exhibition on the topic) and/or externally (a partnership with local nonprofit focused on installing solar arrays in new housing developments). </p><p><strong>WF: When considering these findings, it’s important to remember that Americans are not a monolith, as you note throughout the report. Did you find any differences in responses when sorting the population by characteristics other than race, such as geography, income or education level?</strong></p><p>JBB: Absolutely. We focused primarily on the lens of race and ethnicity in this report because we believe that amplifying BIPOC voices is critical to a more inclusive and representative cultural sector, and there are consistent and sizeable differences by race and ethnicity for most of our questions. But at various points in the report, we also highlight geographic, income, disability status and age differences in the responses. A deeper dive into the co-variation of some of these demographics with race and ethnicity would be a fascinating follow-up analysis. That could be particularly valuable for questions where we see clear differences by demographics, such as addressing social issues, perceptions of systemic racism and desires for change in the sector.</p><p>Because this data offers such a wealth of information—more than we can explore even in this rather lengthy new report—we’re making the data sets for both survey waves freely available to researchers and academics for additional analysis. </p><p><strong>WF: The situation in the country changed while the data for the report were being collected and synthesized, from vaccines and new COVID-19 variants to political races across the country focusing on policing, public safety, race and education, and, more recently, escalating global conflict. How should readers of the report account for shifts like this when thinking about the survey data?</strong></p><p>JBB: This is the perpetual problem of doing real, policy-level research as the world continues to change so fast. In a political poll, where the statistical weighting is simple and the analysis is just crosstabs, results can be provided quickly. In deep-dive studies like this, where the weighting to combine the data sources into one national picture took weeks, and the exploratory analysis took months, we knew we’d still be making meaning from responses collected at a fixed time in the past. That’s why we focused many of the survey questions on broad themes that we expect to change slowly—things that aren’t really COVID-dependent, like the role of arts and culture in society, the kinds of change people hope to see across the sector and the value people receive through different kinds of engagement. In contrast, projects like <a href="https://www.audienceoutlookmonitor.com/" target="_blank">WolfBrown’s Audience Outlook Monitor</a> fill the important role of providing more rapid, repeating assessments of more highly variable questions, like how audiences feel about going out again and what will make them feel safe attending in person. </p><p>As with all data, I’d recommend reading our Culture + Community/Culture Track findings with an eye to both your local context and how the world as a whole has been changing since the Wave 2 data collection in May 2021. </p><p><em>This is part one of a two-part blog series focused on recent reports published by Slover Linett as part of </em><a href="https://culturetrack.com/research/transformation/" target="_blank">Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation: A Special Edition of Culture Track</a><em>. The second part, to be published in the coming weeks, will focus on </em><a href="/knowledge-center/pages/a-place-to-be-heard-a-space-to-feel-held-black-perspectives.aspx?_ga=2.210986325.1369777494.1647372834-1352763000.1643649010">A Place to Be Heard; A Space to Feel Held</a><em>, a qualitative study of the perspectives of Black Americans on creativity, trustworthiness, welcome, and well-being. </em><strong> </strong></p><p><em>For more information on this report, or to request the complete data sets for both survey waves, email </em><a href="mailto:CCTT@sloverlinett.com"><em>CCTT@sloverlinett.com</em></a></p><p><em>The included charts are excerpted from the </em><a href="https://s28475.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CCTT-Key-Findings-from-Wave-2.pdf" target="_blank">Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation: A Special Edition of Culture Track</a> <em>report.</em></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2022-03-17T04:00:00Z | New research reveals Americans' evolving relationships with arts and culture and the changes they wish to see from the sector | | 3/17/2022 6:05:59 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / As the Pandemic Shifts So Does People’s Thinking About Arts and Culture More than half of Americans say that arts and | 1936 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| What Can We Learn from High-Performing Arts Organizations of Color? | 42598 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>For a few weeks in the Twin Cities last fall, the St. Paul-based Theatre Mu presented an interactive exhibit highlighting the work of Asian artists and performers. While audiences could view the exhibit online, it was created so that they could also walk through display stalls, with social distancing, at the Jungle Theatre. In an innovative twist, people could also view portions of the exhibit from the theatre’s street-facing windows. </p><p>The collaboration between the two theaters, according to Anh-Thu Pham, Theatre Mu’s managing director, allowed the company to keep many of its set designers, captioners, builders and others on the payroll during the pandemic, while offering some respite to a community in lockdown. </p><p>“We were founded with a dual purpose, as a community organization as well as a theatre, and those two threads are woven so deeply into our DNA,” Pham said in a recent panel discussion. “They are part and parcel of everything we do.” </p><p>Those threads, it turns out, are not exclusive to the make-up of Theatre Mu. According to a recent report, many organizations that have grown out of and serve the needs of BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) have managed to build and sustain a loyal base while audiences at more classical, or Eurocentric, organizations have generally been in  decline for decades. Zannie Voss, director of SMU DataArts and co-author of a recently published report, <a href="/knowledge-center/Documents/The-Alchemy-of-High-Performing-Arts-Organizations-Part-2.pdf"><em>The Alchemy of High-Performing Arts Organizations, Part II: A Spotlight on Organizations of Color</em></a>, said that it is in fact their origins in serving communities long ignored by the mainstream that can provide BIPOC organizations with a tangible degree of audience and community loyalty. </p><p>Yet Voss also emphasized that, despite those enviable strengths, BIPOC organizations have rarely been rewarded by funders that have for years sought to encourage precisely the qualities these organizations exhibit—serving diverse audiences, employing many artists of color and a diverse staff, creating more inclusive organizations and reaching into underrepresented and economically disadvantaged communities. “These local organizations are often in competition with the white organizations for funding and they usually lose out to them,” Voss says. “Organizations that are rooted in communities of color receive far less support, recognition and attention both from funders and from society at large.”</p><p>Voss presented these and other key findings from the new report, which is based on the experiences of 21 high-performing BIPOC organizations, with a median budget of $1.4 million (Theatre Mu was one of the organizations). The interviews were conducted in August and September of 2020 and included representatives from dance, music, theater, multidisciplinary performing arts and community-based arts organizations. An earlier report from SMU DataArt’s research, <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/the-alchemy-of-high-performing-arts-organizations.aspx"><em>The Alchemy of High-Performing Arts Organizations</em></a><em>,</em> focused on the successful practices of a wider range of organizations. </p><p>Voss and Pham were joined in the panel discussion by representatives from two of the other high-performing organizations in the BIPOC report: Juan Díes, the co-founder and executive director of Sones de Mexico Ensemble, a folk music group based in Chicago, and Blake-Anthony Johnson, the chief executive officer of the Chicago Sinfonietta. The conversation was <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/reimagining-the-future-of-the-arts-a-webinar-series-from-the-wallace-foundation-session-5.aspx">the fifth in Wallace’s “Reimagining the Future of the Arts” series</a>, which provides a forum to explore pressing questions in the field. </p><p>In addition to addressing the question of BIPOC organizations’ community orientation, the panelists discussed the quick improvisation and innovation that helped them navigate the pandemic, particularly the full-on embracing of digital content. They relied on the skills they’d honed working for years with tight budgets while retaining a focus on the communities they serve, and they expressed a vital need for increased funding to expand what organizations can accomplish.  </p><p><strong>Survival on a shoestring</strong><strong> </strong><br>
Díes of Sones de Mexico told the panel that while his group’s performances have always attracted a broad audience, unbound by geography or culture, audiences have grown even larger with digital performances during the pandemic. But because he is the sole staff member, Díes said, “capacity is a big issue.” He runs the company’s website and educational programs and also arranges new music performances.</p><p>Although Díes is used to wearing all of these administrative hats, he said he has received no additional funding to do so and sometimes finds it a challenge. </p><p>Pham added that Theater Mu shifted to producing digital performances just days after the shutdown. Since then the company has produced more than 40 events, but she said it could not keep up at that pace. “We needed to take a breath,” she said. </p><p>Chicago Sinfonietta, too, has succeeded in extending its reach internationally, finding new audiences for virtual performances in more than 40 countries and enrolling interns digitally from Lebanon and Dubai, according to Johnson. But, he said, the strains on the organization are a constant concern. This has led the Sinfonietta to drop some priorities, while remaining true to the its mission of training BIPOC musicians and organizational leaders to increase the diversity of orchestras. </p><p>He compared the exercise of contending with these limits to juggling balls, some made of glass and some of plastic. Because glass balls would shatter if you let them fall, you keep them up in the air, while you can drop the plastic balls since they will bounce and can be picked up at a later date. “You can do everything, but not all at once,” he said. “You determine what is fundamental and what can wait. You look at what are essentials and what can go for now.” </p><p>All of the panelists stressed how challenging it has been to squeeze more from their organizations, which are already stretched thin, and urged funding organizations themselves to pivot towards supporting increased organizational capacity rather than just performances and programs, the traditional focus. “The top challenge we heard in this research was organizational capacity,” said Voss. “It’s a serious issue that brings concerns of staff burnout, low compensation levels, recruitment and retention issues that can inhibit the organizations’ ability to capitalize on the short-term successes and get to a sense of balance.”</p><p>She added, “Exclusion from equitable access to capital means many organizations of color that want to grow are denied agency.”<br>
</p><p><strong>Toward equity in arts funding</strong><br>
According to <a href="http://notjustmoney.us/docs/NotJustMoney_Full_Report_July2017.pdf">an article</a> Voss cites in the BIPOC study: “People of color represent 37 percent of the population, but just 4 percent of all foundation arts funding is allocated to groups whose primary mission is to serve communities of color. It is estimated that approximately one in two Americans is low-income or living in poverty but less than 3 percent of arts foundation funding is directed to cultural groups whose primary purpose is to serve these communities.”</p><p>Voss said the inequities in funding for BIPOC arts organizations were particularly unfortunate because these organizations have succeeded in achieving some of the critical goals various funders have supported in recent years. For instance, many white organizations have struggled to fulfill goals such as increasing diversity in the art they produce and their audience base, while widening access to underserved communities.</p><p>“I heard repeatedly how profoundly relevant these organizations are and that brings me back to how they were founded in the first place,” Voss said. “Usually, there had been no opportunities for artists of color in these communities and these organizations provide that programming. They filled a void, and that sets up a particularly dynamic relationship between the organization and the community. They are funded not just by a few people with deep pockets as much as the whole community having a sense of ownership.”</p><p>Johnson said he has learned that when seeking funding, he must devote a great deal of time to educating funders about how the Sinfonietta trains artists of color, helping them launch careers in music, and helps develop administrative leaders of color, as well as how their support of BIPOC organizations can help organizations achieve such important goals. A key, he said, is making funders aware of the strength of the Chicago Sinfonietta in bringing greater diversity and inclusivity to the orchestral world. “It’s a matter of educating people,” he said. “It’s letting them know that there are options for supporting orchestras, people like us. So it’s a matter of access to those funding organizations and then having the time to do that educating.” <br>
</p><p><strong>Building increased capacity</strong><br>
One of the consistent challenges, Johnson said, is making the case for funds to expand staff and organizational capacity, not just programs. “Yes, a few funders have been mindful of that need, but it’s such a rare thing,” he said. After giving it some additional thought, he said there had been but a single instance when his organization was offered such funding. </p><p>“These are communities that do not have a lot of high net worth individuals,” Voss said. “They don’t have wealth to pay high ticket prices, rising ticket prices, and they cannot provide high levels of funding. But in the more Eurocentric, white organizations, individual contributions are plentiful and fund growth.”</p><p>She added, “These organizations are in a vicious cycle: we’ll give you less money because you’re smaller but without that money they can’t grow bigger. This is affecting underrepresented communities.”</p><p>Díes agreed, recommending that funders consider providing more multiyear grants to build stability into organizations and offer greater opportunities for them to achieve long-term expansion. He also suggested that the requirements built into some grants that recipients attend financial management courses be dropped. “There’s distrust built in there, like we don’t know how to manage money,” he said, insisting that that was incorrect after 23 years of experience, in his case. “The foundations should trust us.” </p><p>Pham noted a particular problem: While many funding organizations are willing to support youth education programs, they have been reluctant to fund programs for adults. These sorts of adult-education programs can be especially helpful in training BIPOC artists who are eager to develop careers as actors or stage designers. “That’s a disparity that I run into,” she said.</p><p>Voss said the funding challenges are serious but she was still optimistic about the path forward, especially as lockdowns lift, arts venues reopen and arts organizations are able to build on the lessons they have learned from going digital during the pandemic.</p><p>“There has been a lapse in how the model is supposed to work,” Voss said. “But the field at large has so much to learn from the strong BIPOC organization leaders. What we don’t want to see any more is one kind of organization pitted against another.”<br></p><p><em>Top photo: Sones de Mexico Ensemble by Henry Fajardo</em><br></p> | James Sterngold | 112 | | 2021-06-02T04:00:00Z | As the arts sector looks toward re-opening, a new report offers lessons from successful organizations run by and serving BIPOC communities | | 6/2/2021 6:07:16 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / What Can We Learn from High-Performing Arts Organizations of Color As the arts sector looks toward re-opening, a new report | 2545 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| How Can Arts Organizations Better Serve the Communities They Work In? | 42454 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live performances last spring, Anna Glass, executive director of the Dance Theater of Harlem (DTH), said the company was thrown off balance but still needed to respond to its changed circumstances. So, despite having little technical knowledge, equipment or experience with virtual presentations, staffers quickly started to prepare and post online digital dance performances. Improvised though it was, this attempt to reach people produced an unexpected result: the discovery of a previously unknown global audience, stretching from California to the Bahamas and Brazil.<br></p><p>“What we were most shocked by was to see how beloved this institution is worldwide. That was a surprise because DTH has been through a lot of turmoil,” Glass said, referring to a period from 2004 to 2012 when financial difficulties shuttered the venerable dance company. “But we were surprised to find that having been out of sight for a while did not mean we were out of mind. There was a hunger to see what we are and what we do.”</p><p>Glass said the experience of creating those digital performances has now inspired a stronger desire to find and engage with audiences and to strengthen relationships within and outside of the company. “We had success,” she said of the quick pivot and changed operations during the pandemic. “Not from a financial standpoint, but in giving us a new platform to tell our stories. That lesson has been worth its weight in gold.”</p><p>Dance Theater of Harlem’s experience is not an anomaly. Many arts and cultural organizations over the past year have experimented with new ways to engage their audiences and, frankly, survive.<br></p><p>Under the stresses of the pandemic, economic insecurity and a national reckoning with racial justice, audiences, too, have been seeking out ways (especially in online offerings) to find community through the arts. This desire for connection was borne out in a broad survey conducted last year during the early months of the pandemic and described in a report, <a href="https://sloverlinett.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Centering-the-Picture-full-report-CCTC-Wave-1-findings.pdf"><em>Centering the Picture: The role of race & ethnicity in cultural engagement in the U.S.</em></a><em>,</em> by Slover Linett Audience Research and LaPlaca Cohen, an arts marketing company. The researchers surveyed 124,000 people from different racial and ethnic groups from April 29 to May 19, 2020, to find out how they interacted with arts and culture organizations and what changes they might like to see. The responses generally struck three overriding themes:<br></p><ol><li>Organizations could become more community- and people-centered; </li><li>They could offer more casual and enjoyable experiences; and </li><li>They could provide more engaging and relevant content that is reflective of the communities they serve. </li></ol><p>Further, BIPOC (or Black, indigenous and people of color) respondents were even more likely than white respondents to express an interest in changes in the arts and cultural organizations they frequented, reflecting trends that had already been under way in many communities. </p><p><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/How-Can-Arts-Organizations-Better-Serve-the-Communities-They-Work-In/desire-for-change-in-cultural-sector.jpg" alt="desire-for-change-in-cultural-sector.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /><br><strong><br>At the Nexus of Art and Community</strong><br></p><p>These themes and the survey itself provided an anchor for the <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/reimagining-the-future-of-the-arts-a-webinar-series-from-the-wallace-foundation-session-4.aspx">fourth edition of Wallace’s Arts Conversation Series</a>, which began with the question: How can organizations respond to what their communities need most, especially in light of the continuing pandemic? Glass was one of the panelists. </p><p>Nancy Yao Massbach, president of the Museum of Chinese in America, in New York City, and also one of the panelists, said the theme of being community centered resonated with her organization as well, adding that the museum staff felt a keen need to remain connected with a community suffering under the lockdown. “It’s not just a desire for changes to make the museum more accessible,” she said. “It is an urgency.”   </p><p>Noting  that the museum’s online offerings on the Chinese community’s experience in the United States and artifacts relating these Chinese-American stories, all free, had experienced a 10- to 20-fold increase in viewers since the pandemic, Massbach said she and others at the museum did not want this new engagement to be temporary but to continue once venues reopened. Massbach’s words were echoed by Glass and Josephine Ramirez, executive vice president of The Music Center in Los Angeles, the third panelist. All suggested that their organizations had successfully pivoted from survival mode toward a rebirth of sorts, devising creative ways to connect with their audiences—and with their peers. </p><p>Ramirez said that The Music Center’s efforts to find innovative ways to offer virtual performances, such as turning traditional live summer dance events into online dance-teaching sessions, gave the organization a way to provide useful content to audiences while keeping the dancers employed, an important institutional objective. It has also led to a greater degree of internal communication and collaboration among staff members at The Music Center, which houses four resident companies and produces a variety of performances and educational experiences. In a follow-up conversation, Ramirez said it was essential for staff members to become “unstuck” and break free of their tried and true ways of preparing performances to better respond to, engage with and build audiences during the shutdown. This often involved tweaking some job responsibilities. </p><p>“Everyone had to learn something new and different,” she said. “Under those circumstances, we had to communicate more than ever with staff, to make explicit all the things they needed to do that before were always implicit. We’d never had to do that before. Now we had to communicate more and better on what was expected and new methods. Old expectations were exploded. We had to help people get comfortable with constant change and that meant a lot more and better communication.”</p><p>Massbach said that the Museum of Chinese in America had benefited too from new levels of staff inclusiveness and brainstorming, which has produced innovations such as using the museum’s street-facing windows for exhibits, something not done previously. The organization has also revamped its website to more effectively promote the museum’s recent initiatives, including its response to anti-Asian attacks, the launch of a series how to be an ally and presentations on unsung aspects of the Chinese diaspora in the United States. </p><p><strong>It Takes a Village</strong></p><p>Another key to building audiences and strengthening arts organizations overall has been to seek out greater collaboration within the arts and cultural sector. That has included ideas such as sharing useful information and replacing competition for grant dollars with cooperation, i.e., having nonprofits, particularly those operating within the same racial or cultural communities, jointly apply for—and then share—funding.   </p><p>To accomplish that, Massbach suggested that funders consider providing grants to what she called a BIPOC “fund of funds,” adapted from a model used in the financial sector—creating an umbrella organization that could collect grants and funds and then allocate the money more equitably among multiple organizations in a particular community. </p><p>“If you have, hypothetically, a thousand small cultural organizations applying for money, and foundations are trying to discern between a thousand, it’s really, really hard,” she said. She went on to elaborate during the panel discussion that if a group of organizations could create that “fund of funds,” or “foundation of foundations,” to guide money toward many different organizations, the money could be distributed more equitably and sustainably. “I don’t want to be the ‘check the box’ Chinese-American organization that gets the funding when other people don’t because it was easier for people to do that work,” she said. </p><p>In another example of field collaboration, Glass said that she has benefited from a spontaneously created forum for New York-based arts and cultural organizations to meet, share ideas and collaborate on advocacy. Launched in March 2020, the virtual meetings were dubbed Culture@3 for their start time. “For the first few meetings we talked about things like how to get hand sanitizer,” Glass said. “Then we started discussing whatever problems came up, things like insurance problems and city funding. It turned into a place of advocacy and support, sharing information. For this field to survive we need to keep these lines of communication open.” </p><p>Lucy Sexton, the executive director of New Yorkers for Culture & Arts, an advocacy group, and one of three people who help run Culture@3, said the effort was having a big impact on the hundreds of organizations that have become regular participants. While meetings were initially held seven days a week, given the enormous need early in the shutdown, they are now on a four-day-a-week schedule. In addition to running the general meetings, the organizers have spun off working groups on such topics as fundraising and human resources. Recently, Sexton said, the group brought in an expert to explain changes in the tax rules for unemployment benefits, and one of their working groups raised $150,000 to provide emergency grants, as much as $500, to artists in need. </p><p>“This has helped us build stronger advocacy for the cultural field,” Sexton said. “We never talked like this before. There was no collaboration, no communication like this.” </p><p>Glass added that her hope was that this collaboration might prevent the sort of panic she recalls experiencing when the shutdown first hit. The sense of helplessness and being caught completely off guard without a viable game plan is something she says she wants to avoid in the future.</p><p>“That’s what’s making me look hard at our business model,” Glass said. “I don’t want us to hit the next catastrophe, and there will be a next one at some point, and I’m curled up in a ball unprepared. Before that catastrophe we need to create a system for when the Bat-Signal goes up, everyone knows what their role is and how to respond.”</p><p>Ramirez agreed and said that, while arts organizations always need to remain focused on financial sustainability, one of the lessons of the pandemic is that opportunities to bring in larger, more diverse audiences should be pursued even if there is no immediate financial return. “For us, it’s about expanding our family, for people to understand who we are and to experience our work,” she said. “It’s really about the expansion of our family more than anything else.” </p><br> | James Sterngold | 112 | | 2021-04-27T04:00:00Z | Pandemic sheds light on what audiences, particularly those in BIPOC communities, want from arts and cultural organizations—and how organizations are responding | | 4/27/2021 4:25:56 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Can Arts Organizations Better Serve the Communities They Work In Pandemic sheds light on what audiences, particularly | 1315 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Reframing “Success” and “Failure” in The Arts | 42532 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>Pondering how nonprofit arts organizations can survive the pandemic lockdowns, Elizabeth Merritt, vice president for strategic foresight at the American Alliance of Museums and founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums, turns to evolutionary biology for a model. </p><p>Organisms, she says, have developed two basic survival strategies depending on their environment. </p><p>Those that are known as K-selection live in generally stable environments, which reward steadiness, sturdy structures, slow change and long-range planning. Then there are R-selection organisms, which live in rapidly changing, volatile, hostile environments, that require a skill set centered on nimbleness, risk-taking and an ability to pivot quickly. The simple truth, Merritt says, is that arts organizations have generally moved from the K environment to an R environment due to the pandemic, and most are having to master unfamiliar, flexible strategies to survive in this new Darwinian period. </p><p>“In recent years, arts nonprofits have been pressed to be more like businesses: plan, focus on audiences, earn revenues, measure performance results,” says Merritt. “The irony is that just as that was taking hold, particularly in museums, the whole environment changes. It’s more volatile.”</p><h2 class="wf-Element-H2">Why Scenario Planning? Why Now? </h2><p>Merritt was one of the panelists in the third conversation of Wallace’s series, <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/reimagining-the-future-of-the-arts-a-webinar-series-from-the-wallace-foundation.aspx">“Reimaging the Future of the Arts.”</a> This installment, moderated by Marc Scorca, CEO and president of OPERA America, focused on <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/reimagining-the-future-of-the-arts-a-webinar-series-from-the-wallace-foundation-session-3.aspx">how arts organizations can adapt to uncertainty</a> by utilizing a planning model to develop a range of scenarios on what the future might hold and then preparing multiple strategies to thrive, no matter the environment. Employing a “scenario planning” process is one way of minimizing any surprises or paralysis in the face of unexpected circumstances while ensuring that institutions are creative and flexible enough to try new approaches. </p><p>In kicking off the panel discussion, Daniel Payne, managing principal at AEA Consulting, which provides strategy and planning for creative organizations, introduced a scenario planning <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/navigating-uncertain-times-a-scenario-planning-toolkit-for-arts-culture-sector.aspx">toolkit</a> that the organization had recently created. </p><p>While scenario planning, a strategy borrowed from corporate management, can sound liberating, Payne sounded a warning, echoed by other panelists: A scenario planning exercise can create tensions in arts organizations because some parts of arts organizations may be more comfortable experimenting than others. In practice, he said, there can be a disconnect between the artistic side of an organization and “the board mindset, which is frequently focused on preservation, conservation and protection.” This may fall in line with a K-selection (stability) versus an R-selection (risk taking) environment, but panelists agreed that in today’s environment it was essential to bridge the divide. </p><p>“By necessity, we’re doing things that are experimental, fleeting, transient, not permanent,” Kristina Newman-Scott, the president of BRIC, an arts and media nonprofit in Brooklyn, says in a conversation after the panel. “But that means failure must be a part of it. You have to do things even when you don’t know what it will look like on the other side. You have to realize that can go against the hierarchy we’ve developed, a hierarchy that relies on the money side, and money reinforces the rigidity. I live in that place, where I consistently bump up against that rigidity.”</p><p>Stephanie Ybarra, the artistic director of Baltimore Center Stage, the state theater of Maryland, which produces both professional productions and educational programs, describes a similar tension. “Our idea now is to look to small experiments, to test them and then, if they’re working, scale them up,” Ybarra said in a conversation. “But a key point is that our measure cannot be ticket sales for Baltimore Center Stage. It’s our position in the community, our support for the community. We have to reframe the ideas of success and failure.”</p><p>Such reframing can often challenge any entrenched mindsets. “One of the biggest barriers to being nimble is the feeling that you have to be perfect,” says Merritt. “Lots of times perfect is the enemy of the good, but you don’t have to be perfect. Give us a break! You also have to realize that, sometimes, the risk of not changing is greater than the risk of changing.” </p><p>Any failure in experimenting, she adds, should be seen not as a dead end but a learning opportunity.</p><h2 class="wf-Element-H2">Community Arts + Education </h2><p>At BRIC, as the pandemic shut down theaters and other live venues, Newman-Scott says they were forced to come up with new ways to fulfill the organization’s mission of providing creative opportunities to their Brooklyn community and keep their staff engaged. So, they reached out to the NYC Department of Education and simply asked how BRIC could be of service.  </p><p>Together, they acknowledged the large digital divide affecting lower income families, providing special challenges for remote learning. They developed a plan for teachers to provide raw video from their online classes and lessons, which BRIC’s experienced media producers would then edit into videos played on BRIC’s cable channels. BRIC has six cable channels that reach 500,000 homes in Brooklyn. Even students without good computers or Wi-Fi usually have access to televisions.</p><p>“We know we can’t solve that digital divide, but we thought, we can help move the needle,” says Newman-Scott. “Once we were doing it, we were like, why weren’t we doing this before?”</p><p>And BRIC has gone a step further. “The teachers told us they wanted to learn how to produce those videos themselves, and we said, ‘We will train you,’” she says.</p><p>BRIC also tried to reshape its artists’ incubator program. Normally they would provide studio space to local artists, which allowed them the time to create new works and test them in front of one another. With the studio closed to face-to-face activities, BRIC tried to put the program online. “But we found that some of this just didn’t translate to a virtual environment,” Newman-Scott says. “By its nature, this art isn’t polished. It’s unfinished, experimental. It’s in process, not complete. So, it’s supposed to be educational about the process, but it doesn’t come across as well in the virtual setting.”</p><p>Lesson learned.</p><p>“This is a model that we can develop and that we can share with others,” she says of their own more experimental process. “It keeps challenging us. It challenges our own assumptions about our values and mission."<br></p><h2 class="wf-Element-H2">A Theatre as Social Hub</h2><p>When the pandemic hit, Ybarra was pleased that the board of the Baltimore Center Stage quickly formed a small group that operated as a brain trust to help the creative staff develop new ideas and to support thoughtful experimentation. One of the early problems they faced was the need to shutter a program that offered matinees for students and the question of what they might do now to reach them.</p><p>The theater had been presenting a one man play, <em>Where We Stand,</em> a Faustian tale in which a man, sickened by years of backbreaking labor, meets a stranger one day on the outskirts of town and is offered a bargain—in exchange for giving the stranger the town’s soul and name, the man would receive health and prosperity. He accepts and then he and the town confront the impact of that choice. The play had just finished a run in New York City and was about to open in Baltimore when the pandemic hit.</p><p>The theater quickly developed a new plan. First, videographers filmed the play to be presented virtually, something that, Ybarra says, they had not done previously. Then they created an educational curriculum for classroom use tied to the Common Core; it was adaptable for 7th to 12th graders, though most viewers were high school students. That was new for Baltimore Center Stage. The investment amounted to just a few thousand dollars and a couple of weeks of work for the staff. </p><p>It proved popular, with about 1,500 students watching online and following the curriculum, with an audience that has now spread far beyond Baltimore, Ybarra says. That has encouraged the theater to build on the success, with board support, to invest more money and build a library of free student-oriented performances, with accompanying study aids. </p><p>“We might monetize it later, but not now,” Ybarra says. “The aim from the start was to learn from the experience.”</p><p>Another experiment involved offering virtual readings of parts of plays—for instance, from <em>The Glass Menagerie</em>—and using them in deeper conversations with an online audience about the crafts of writing, staging and acting. The theater was disappointed that only about 150 people tuned in but is thinking about how it might expand interest and is continuing the series, with a focus on getting “under the hood of a specific aspect of theatermaking,” Ybarra says. </p><p>“This has us thinking about shifting the balance between earned revenue and contributions,” she continues. “Now seems like the time to reposition Baltimore Center Stage as a cultural hub, a civic hub. We want to bring in lots of new stakeholders.”</p><p>Merritt sees continuing this sort of thoughtful experimentation as an aspect of developing strategies for a variety of scenarios. Both the successes and failures should be regarded as positive contributions to the process of adaptation and survival in the more difficult environment. “Being loose and flexible and experimental, it might make audiences happier, and we need to get even better at exploring that,” she says.</p><p>But when the pandemic eventually recedes and theaters reopen to audiences, will organizations simply revert to previous strategies? </p><p>While she can’t speak for others, Ybarra is firm about Baltimore Center Stage: “Absolutely not!” she says. “We’re just not going back.”<br></p> | James Sterngold | 112 | | 2021-02-16T05:00:00Z | What arts groups might learn from imagining many possible futures, experimenting and scaling what works | | 2/23/2021 2:48:41 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Reframing “Success” and “Failure” in The Arts What arts groups might learn from imagining many possible futures | 816 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Resiliency, Innovation, Courage Key Characteristics to Ensure Survival of The Arts | 42539 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>As the new year brings thoughts of recovery for arts practitioners and audiences—remember the joy of live performances?—we can learn a lot from looking at research from the past two decades. Researchers Diane Grams and Betty Farrell, for instance, have for the past 15 years helped demonstrate some of the ways the arts have survived and recovered from multiple crises through the years.</p><p>Grams and Farrell were the lead authors and editors of the book
<a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/entering-cultural-communities/9780813544953">
<em>Entering Cultural Communities: Diversity and Change in the Nonprofit Arts</em></a> (Rutgers University Press 2008), which explored how to build broader participation in the arts—using data captured during the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. Their work took on greater resonance as the 2008 economic crisis bore down and organizations were once again faced with an uncertain future. Today many organizations are expressing similar concerns (see Wallace’s recent
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/reimagining-the-future-of-the-arts-a-webinar-series-from-the-wallace-foundation.aspx">Arts Conversation Series</a> for an example): that the pandemic and all it has wrought have exacerbated already debilitating factors, with declining arts participation high up on that list. </p><p>The Wallace Blog caught up with Grams and Farrell over email to see what insights they might have for organizations facing today’s challenges. You can also download the first chapter of the book free of charge
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/Building-Arts-Participation-Through-Transactions-Relationships-or-Both.aspx">here</a> on our site. <br></p><p>
<strong>Your book frames the concept of building wider, deeper and more diverse arts participation. Why was this important? And how is that relevant to our situation today? </strong> </p><p>
<strong>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Resiliency-Innovation-Courage-Key-Characteristics-Ensure-Survival-The-Arts/Entering-Cultural-Communities-Diversity-Change-Nonprofit-Arts-Chapter-1-a.jpg" alt="Entering-Cultural-Communities-Diversity-Change-Nonprofit-Arts-Chapter-1-a.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:173px;height:261px;" />Grams:</strong> The year 2020 brought what might be viewed as the convergence of all the previous crises that have threatened the very existence of the arts. The current challenges for the cultural sector are still unfolding in the face of shuttered organizations and greatly curtailed arts programs, devastatingly high unemployment rates among artists and cultural staff, competing priorities facing funders, and audiences and participants unsure of when they can safely return to public spaces to engage in creative activities.  </p><p>We see resilience, innovation and courage as three enduring elements that will help ensure the survival and recovery of many cultural organizations. The arts face enormous challenges, but the pandemic has also created new opportunities to engage people where they are now and to reshape cultural participation for a new post-pandemic world.  </p><p>Our research focused on the concept of expanding and diversifying audience participation across a wide range of artistic genres and cultural organizations. We were interested in tracking some profound changes taking place in the cultural sector, as artists, educators, cultural leaders, funders and audiences alike were challenging the cultural status quo. We saw organizational and programmatic changes taking place both inside and outside these organizations. Building relationships and building financial support will remain critically important for cultural organizations in the post-pandemic era. </p><p>
<strong>Among the cultural organizations you studied, what were some strategies they used to cultivate resilience? </strong></p><p>
<strong>Farrell:  </strong>Many started by making internal organizational changes. They broke down the barriers between departments to bring arts education or community outreach programs directly into the institution’s core efforts. They engaged new visitors by making their physical space more welcoming and less intimidating. They created new “point-of-entry” programs, such as a concert that mixed a traditional symphony along with jazz or rock performances. They sought more ethnic and cultural diversity among the staff, volunteers and board members to signal the institution’s recognition of the need for greater representation. They learned to reach out beyond their own walls in new ways, especially forming partnerships with non-cultural organizations in the community. In making these changes, the cultural organization was becoming more institutionally adaptable and ultimately more resilient in the face of continuing change. </p><p>
<strong>What kinds of innovation will arts organizations need to recover and prosper?  </strong></p><p>
<strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Resiliency-Innovation-Courage-Key-Characteristics-Ensure-Survival-The-Arts/Grams-and-Farrell.jpg" alt="Grams-and-Farrell.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;" />Grams: </strong>There are many examples of how organizations innovate with new strategies for engagement. One is in the expanded use of technology as a tool for artistic expression. Organizations will continue to be challenged to develop innovative programs that incorporate their audience’s growing sophistication with technological tools and their desire to be active cultural producers rather than just recipients. </p><p>We saw many innovative programs emerge in the course of our research that were about building community beyond the organization’s walls. For example, the “One City, One Book” program served as both a literacy and community-building effort. Cities, states, schools and universities have used the process of everyone reading the same book as a way to introduce often overlooked work by authors from isolated immigrant groups, or to solve a problem, such as bullying in schools. When the National Endowment for the Arts began “The Big Read” program in 2005, some of our interviewees feared it meant the death of the locally sponsored programs. Now, we see this has not been the case. The NEA has not only expanded funding of these programs but has created an even bigger outlet for some historically overlooked authors and genres. </p><p>And innovation is also evident in transactional activities. Some new approaches to ticketing for exhibitions come to mind. Because of social-distancing limitations on the numbers of patrons that can enter the building, line queues can be tracked with phone text alerts allowing patrons to wander until their time to enter a special exhibition space occurs. Within the exhibition space, visitors could use their own phone and coded podcasts, once considered rogue and unauthorized practices because they sidestepped the paid audio tour. </p><p>
<strong>What are examples from your research of the kind of courage demonstrated by arts leaders that can help an organization change and thrive?  </strong></p><p>
<strong>Farrell: </strong>It takes courage to take on something new, untested or unusual.  It also takes courage to share power. One example of this from our research was the Walker Art Center’s Teen Arts Council program. These young people were given both a substantial budget and a powerful voice in how their funds would be used in the institution’s core exhibitions. During our site visit we observed a museum curator coming to the Teen Arts Council to make a presentation about an upcoming exhibition, asking for their ideas about how they might participate in and contribute financial support to the proposed exhibition. </p><p>
<strong>Grams: </strong>It takes courage to talk about race.  When race intersects with issues of identity, skin color, religion, sexual preference and diversity within or across communities, the conversation can either be explosive or it can be a site of reconciliation. The planning process for “The African Presence in Mexico,” a 2006 exhibition at The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, brought out concerns in both the African American and Latino communities, around the topics of race, racism, and the complexities of multiculturalism. But the museum could ultimately count the success of the exhibition not only in the estimated seventy-two thousand people who attended, but that more than half had been African Americans, many of whom had never before been to this Mexican ethnic museum. </p><p>
<strong>Based on your experience studying arts organizations and audience participation, what advice would you give to arts leaders who are working in the current environment?”</strong></p><p>
<strong>Grams:</strong> The arts have long been forced to prove their value to society, and today is no different.  Our formal classification as “nonessential businesses” strikes a debilitating blow against our most basic understanding of the human need for cultural expression. Moreover, during the pandemic, this designation limited manufacturing of materials and supplies necessary for art making while shuttering businesses and organizations, and leaving thousands of artists and allied workers without a source of income and a limited economic safety net. </p><p>Even as we find ourselves in the midst of this economic and social catastrophe, we are reminded that the arts can be a powerful tool for creating social cohesion and for healing, in addition to being a tool for economic development and revitalization. In short, they are essential. We see this today—from people singing from balconies to creating murals, paintings and posters that honor health care workers and to the popularity of star-studded Zoom performances. Through proactive cultural policy in the near future, can the arts enhance opportunities for cultural participation and play a more central role in addressing social and community recovery, as a tool for bonding and healing our most serious social fractures?</p><p>
<strong>Farrell: </strong> Cultural practitioners know how to be resourceful, nimble and creative in designing projects and programs that engage their audiences in the moment. But they work in an often fragmented and individualistic art world, and much that could be learned and widely shared from these efforts is inevitably lost. When practitioners work with researchers as they did in our study, however, they can design studies alongside their projects to document what works and what doesn’t. They can build longitudinal evidence about the impact of participating in the arts, capturing knowledge and shaping effective arts policy. Forging stronger ties between research and practice with the goal of creating a shared knowledge base is a critically important way to build resilience for the post-pandemic future of the cultural sector.</p><p>
<em>Main image:Installation by Patricia Mendoza for Faith in Women exhibition at Inter-media Arts in Minneapolis, September 29, 2005–January 7, 2006. Photograph by Timothy D. Lace © 2005.</em></p><p>
<em>Photo of Betty Farrell and Diane Grams from their 2008 book launch in Chicago. </em></p>
<p></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2021-02-11T05:00:00Z | Authors of a seminal book on audience participation in the arts help us assess the current landscape | | 2/11/2021 3:13:47 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Resiliency, Innovation, Courage Key Characteristics to Ensure Survival of The Arts Authors of a seminal book on audience | 971 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Looking Toward an Alchemy for Arts Organizations Post-COVID | 42492 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>What is a “universal story”? </p><p>While many leaders of nonprofit arts organizations have, out of necessity, made financial stability a priority during the COVID-19 pandemic, some have been driven to explore even more fundamental questions about the stories they choose to tell in their performances, and how to make sure the stories have meaning to their audiences. The goal, ultimately, is to broaden their audience base as well as strengthen their financial bottom line. </p><p>Michael Bateman, managing director of the A Noise Within theater in Pasadena, California, for instance, says he has focused on connecting with and finding relevance with communities beyond the organization’s more traditional audiences in Los Angeles, which had been predominantly white. The organization began by questioning the so-called classic plays they presented from the Western tradition, which touch on what are intended to be universal human themes—the artists ranging from Shakespeare and Dickens to Moliere. Did these plays really touch and move the kinds of diverse audiences the theater wanted to reach, particularly in communities of color? </p><p>To answer that question, the organization found opportunities to hold discussions with artists of color and asked them to define what a new “universal story” might be. They’d begun this effort before the pandemic, but Bateman says it gained new importance as the organization began to rethink its mission and increase its outreach to new communities as the pandemic and national reckoning with racial justice took hold. </p><p>“We know it’s hard for all to feel welcome here,” Bateman says of the traditional plays and other performances and events at the theater. “We want to tell stories where the audiences see themselves. We want to make people feel more welcome. We’re engaging with other artists in our community. What we’ve done is go back to our community and say, ‘What do you need from us now?’”</p><p>Bateman was one of three panelists in <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/reimagining-the-future-of-the-arts-a-webinar-series-from-the-wallace-foundation-session-2.aspx">the second conversation</a> in Wallace’s <em>Reimagining the Future of the Arts</em> series. The other participants were Zenetta S. Drew, executive director of the Dallas Black Dance Theatre, and Kim Noltemy, president and CEO of the Dallas Symphony Association. Zannie Voss, Ph.D., director of SMU DataArts, one of the country’s leading centers for arts research, moderated the panel. </p><p>Voss is co-author of a recent study for the Wallace Foundation, <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/the-alchemy-of-high-performing-arts-organizations.aspx"><em>The Alchemy of High-Performing Arts Organizations,</em></a> which analyzes the elements that produce financial stability by looking at two groups of high-performing arts organizations, one group that had consistently strong financial track records and a second group that had been in financial distress but recovered. The study summarizes its lengthy analysis this way, “The cornerstones of high performance appear to lie in the alchemy of high standards in the creation of work that is meaningful to the local community.”</p><p>Simply put: high-quality art + community relevance = success. </p><p>In the panel discussion, and in later conversations with the panelists on their efforts to adapt to the current environment, all three emphasized that finding those meaningful community connections was an immediate priority, in the hopes that the results would eventually help them build new business models. Each admitted to a combination of excitement and anxiety.</p><p>Drew of the Dallas Black Dance Theatre describes this as a moment of validation for her organization and the company’s vision. She says it is a time of great challenges but also opportunities that we have waited years to implement. Since 1996, she says, the theater has tried to build a digital audience, previously with little success, due to historical barriers to online expansion. She has leapt at the greater interest in virtual performances now, with theaters closed, both to try and sustain revenue but also to connect with audiences and communities beyond Dallas. </p><p>A starting point, she says, is the role the arts are playing in helping people manage in the pandemic. “As a result of the pandemic, the arts are finding relevancy for our individual and collective work,” Drew says. “Everybody now, novice and professional, has become art makers and are putting things online. Art has been validated in its relevance. Artists are essential workers to our nation’s social, emotional resilience and recovery. It is enriching us. It changes lives. It heals.”</p><p>The theatre has been charging for popular digital events, a model that Drew says she intends to aggressively pursue. She stresses that it’s not just an alternative way to add earned revenue, but a core element in the mission of an arts organization that, she says, has long confronted an array of deep challenges. DBDT has never had the kind of broad and deep donor base that some other arts nonprofits have, making for a precarious and lean structure well before the pandemic. Also, its focus on Black artists and Black audiences has meant the organization encountered resistance from some white members of the community and sponsors, she says. Some had urged the organization in the past to remove the designation as a self-declared “Black” theater from the name, which it has to this day refused, since that is the group’s identity and identifies a core community it serves.</p><p>“I’ve always been working with the pandemic of racism,” Drew says. “That’s been true for us from the beginning. COVID is just another issue on the list of issues we have to deal with, and that’s why we’re ready, we’re resilient, we have ideas. I have the same panorama of problems as everyone else, but we are focusing on the opportunities.”</p><p>Audiences have embraced DBDT’s online events and performances, which are earning revenues and expanding not just in Texas but in surrounding states and even overseas. “I have someone from Australia on every virtual event we do,” she says.</p><p>“I’m trying to lead the industry in thinking outside the box,” Drew says. “We’re not just doing things until we can get people in seats again. We can’t go backwards. We’re building a new paradigm for our existence. This was great news for DBDT.” (To read more about DBDT's digital efforts and vision for the future, read <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/can-pandemic-be-catalyst-for-new-global-arts-ecology.aspx">Drew's recent essay</a> for The Wallace Blog.)<br></p><p>On of Drew’s fans is Kim Noltemy of the Dallas Symphony (the two sit on each other’s boards). She expresses admiration for how successfully the Dallas Black Dance Theatre has utilized virtual performances to earn more revenues and to create a sense of excitement around its events. It is a model, she says, that she is eager to replicate to some degree at the symphony.</p><p>“I think this is going to be a great turning point for the orchestra industry,” she says. “People are becoming accustomed to listening to music online and paying for it. It was such an effort before. People only wanted live music. But we’re changing the paradigm.”</p><p>Offering virtual concerts, about 20 percent of which are free, is a means of developing a more complete digital musical experience. Additionally, they have expanded the symphony’s free outdoor music events, mostly chamber groups, which allow it to reach into new neighborhoods and build relationships with more diverse audiences, particularly in communities of color. In those outdoor events, they have been offering a combination of classical music, pieces such as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, popular contemporary music, such as music by the film composer John Williams, and jazzy ragtime pieces for a brass chamber group. In previous years, she says, the symphony did from 15 to 20 of those events a year. Performances have increased sharply to about 90 since the pandemic hit, and Noltemy expects they will offer 40 more before the year’s end, hoping that some of those audience members will turn into subscribers.</p><p>“This transformation is permanent, no matter what happens with the pandemic,” she says. “Now, our focus is creating high quality content for the online events and getting better at those productions. That takes experience.”</p><p>Additionally, Noltemy says they will be extending the kind of attention that the symphony has traditionally provided to donors, board members and subscribers to a broader array of audience members and prospective audience members. Once the symphony is offering indoor concerts on a regular basis again, this will include invitations to pre-concert discussions of the programs to post-concert parties attended by some orchestra members. For now, there will be more targeted marketing materials and digital outreach. “That has to be a high priority, like in business,” she says. “We need to use those tools much more than we ever have.”</p><p>Such ramped-up communications and personal outreach can help organizations interact more deeply with the diverse communities they seek to engage with. Some are even creating programs designed to prompt discussion and feedback. Bateman at A Noise Within points to new free online programs: “Noise Now,” started last year, and “Fridays@Five,” which began during the shutdown. Both involve a series of discussions with writers, directors and artists of color talking about their backgrounds and what special insights they may bring to their work in the theater, among other things. </p><p>“We have to dig up that part of our cornerstone and rebuild our foundation,” Bateman says, referring to the organization’s mission and its growing knowledge of what kind of stories might be relevant and meaningful to the different communities around Pasadena. In fact, A Noise Within has just written a new strategic plan with a goal of one day creating a new financial model that includes, among other things, more revenue from online plays and events—something that has come directly from these conversation about community and sustainability. </p>
<br> | James Sterngold | 112 | | 2020-12-10T05:00:00Z | Expert panel says high quality art, community connection plus a strong online presence can help fuel future success in the arts | | 12/10/2020 2:00:24 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Looking Toward an Alchemy for Arts Organizations Post-COVID Expert panel says high quality art, community connection plus a | 893 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Can Pandemic Be Catalyst for New Global Arts Ecology? | 23697 | GP0|#8056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be;L0|#08056f3bc-89c1-4297-814a-3e71542163be|Building Audiences for the Arts;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down America’s businesses and arts organizations, the entire nation became an at-home arts industry overnight. Through social media and other online technologies, people of all ages transformed into artists, as the arts, and not sports, offered the means to express their pain, healing and hope. Artists—whether professional or not—became the unofficial essential workers of the pandemic, vital to our nation’s health and recovery, and an overwhelming validation of the importance of the arts. <br></p><p>At the same time, leaders of arts organizations were in a state of complete panic as the cessation of ticket sales, touring fees and other earned revenue intensified an assortment of operating challenges and financial problems. Many groups lacked the resources or familiarity to quickly transition to the virtual realm. But what shocked me most was the resistance of arts leaders to see the situation as an opportunity to explore and develop a new dynamic business model. Instead, there seemed to be consensus that the pandemic was a finite attack that would end with a return to the safety of our previous status quo. </p><p>But even before COVID-19 the system was broken. Audiences and revenue from ticket sales have been steadily declining for the previous three decades. National <a href="https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/US_Patterns_of_Arts_ParticipationRevised.pdf" target="_blank">statistics have tracked this disturbing trend</a> in audience participation, while a recent <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/audience-building-and-financial-health-nonprofit-performing-arts.aspx">review of the literature on audience behavior</a> found little evidence as to why audiences are shrinking or how the field is responding. Additionally, organizations face growing challenges and costs from efforts to reach underserved communities, competition for contributed revenue and pressure to implement Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives. In short, the business practices that worked half a century ago now offer diminishing returns, as arts organizations fail to reach, educate and attract large numbers of new participants. </p><p>Where is the creativity in arts leadership, and who is championing change? Now is the chance to make significant and lasting changes industry wide. For the first time in recent history, all of the arts share a common problem, which presents a transformative opportunity to seek a new business model that can benefit all genres and move the industry into the twenty-first century. </p><p>Over its 44-year history, Dallas Black Dance Theatre has weathered its share of crisesand has come to embrace a crisis management philosophy inspired by Niccolo Machiavelli: “Never waste the opportunities offered by a good crisis.” While COVID-19 caused other arts organizations to freeze, DBDT’s staff, dancers and Board of Directors immediately recognized the unique opportunity to stimulate intentional change. For the company, the pandemic revealed an unlimited continuum of undefined possibilities now and into the future. Its real impact will have far-reaching consequences for the arts; it is essential that we look forward and not backward.</p><p>An early pioneer of the digital age, DBDT began exploring online platforms in 1996. This initiative was made possible by the telecommunications company GTE, which provided a $700,000 grant to DBDT to create distance learning opportunities with seven school districts across America. The dance program entitled, “Choreographing the Future through Arts, Technology, and Education,” emboldened DBDT’s vision to use technology to expand the reach of arts programming. </p><p>With the new millennium and the advent of HD television, DBDT began conversations with Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, to pursue 24-hour arts programming to expand and broaden support for Dallas Black Dance Theatre and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Due to the aftermath of September 11, the idea was not actualized, but the powerful concept had been planted. In this fast-paced and ever-changing digital age, the arts must continuously re-invent, re-envision and innovate to not only stay relevant but merely survive.    </p><p>Let’s take a lesson from football. It was never a widely popular sport until television helped familiarize the nation with the game in the 1960s. One early leader to recognize the potential for brand awareness and expanded marketing was the Dallas Cowboys. In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys adopted the practice of hosting Thanksgiving Day games. With families spending the day at home with limited options on television, they offered a captive audience who gradually learned the game and developed holiday traditions around the annual event. Since then, the Dallas Cowboys have played on Thanksgiving Day every year (except twice), spearheading the brand to national prominence regardless of the game’s final score. </p><p>Today, the sports industry has generated so much interest that there is now a little league football team in every neighborhood. This phenomenon has created a communal mindset that increases the number of people who ultimately attend games in person. It is this same concept that DBDT has been advocating for since that first GTE partnership. We firmly believe that the greater the exposure and education about various art forms and arts organizations, the greater will be the number of people who become interested in engaging in a live arts experience. Just as sports owners are continually having to build more massive stadiums, performing arts centers will need to build larger theaters in the future!</p><p>Yet many arts leaders have been insistent that such a strategy reduces in-person attendance rather than creating demand. Even the most seasoned leaders have approached virtual formats for delivering arts programming with dread. Although there is no data to support this idea, the unchallenged position has been that for the arts to be genuinely appreciated, performances must be experienced live. I agree that live experiences are the epitome of arts engagement but compared to having no experience at all, is virtual programming not an acceptable alternative? Consider how many thousands of people are as excited by the experience of watching a sports game via technology versus sitting in a stadium. For many sports fans, the same barriers prevent in-person participation as they do in the arts—cost, geography and access. </p><p>Once health situations improve and theaters safely reopen to capacity, it is reasonable to believe that dedicated arts lovers and even sporadic attendees will return to in-person engagement and the one-of-a-kind experience that can only be achieved sitting in a crowded theater in front of live artists. But what about the thousands of others who have now been exposed to the arts via technology but cannot transition back to pre-COVID-19 in-person attendance options? Indeed, a Culture Track <a href="https://culturetrack.com/research/reports/" target="_blank">survey conducted in the early months of the pandemic</a> discovered that digital events are attracting more diverse audiences and that many people enjoying arts experiences online had not visited an arts institution in the previous year.   </p><p>Will the future of arts participation remain another form of arts elitism? For those who have no theaters, museums or live cultural access in their cities, schools or community venues or for those who lack the transportation, money and even the attire to feel comfortable in an arts venue—do they no longer deserve some level of continued arts access?  </p><p>To begin to answer these questions, we must acknowledge that two basic historical barriers to the online expansion of the arts have converged at once to create an open door for resolution. First, the contractual constraints, protection of artistic and intellectual property, union contracts and numerous other legal restrictions are being reassessed and new constructs developed as art makers, worldwide travel limitations and arts agency budget cuts have drastically reduced opportunities for in-person creative work globally.  </p><p>Limited access to technology for a large segment of the general public was a second barrier, but the continuation of the pandemic has allowed for the expansion of broadband and accelerated the implementation of technology infrastructure for students learning at home, K-12 schools, universities, community venues and performing arts venues. It has also forced a group of technology-resistant learners of all ages to learn to use online platforms, opening up arts events to new audiences, many of whom will pay to view performances online.   </p><p>Over the summer, Dallas Black Dance Theatre became the first professional dance company nationally and internationally to consistently present paid virtual performances as a new business model after the closing of live performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While others in the dance industry began streaming their content for free to raise donations, DBDT decided immediately that paid virtual performances needed to be part of our new operating model and that this crisis was an opportunity to create a new paradigm shift toward resiliency, expand audiences and generate earned income.</p><p>This new model has resulted in extending the organization’s reach beyond the theater, allowing audiences in areas the company has never traveled to physically to enjoy performances. Once in-theater programming resumes, the company plans to retain a virtual option to continue to expand its audience base, reach new underserved and more diverse communities and to generate an additional earned revenue stream.  </p><p>Dallas Black Dance Theatre envisions and is now developing a full complement of virtual activities. These include conservatory-level dance training at the same professional level as in-studio classes, student matinee/field trips, lecture/demonstrations, in-school dance residency programs, community outreach, and touring programs made available to presenters, as well as a home-school education program for those looking to incorporate dance into their curriculum. For the past three years, DBDT has also been exploring a new streaming platform designed to become a “Netflix for The Arts.” We believe now is the time for the arts to coalesce and move forward to pursue the potential of this concept as an industry.</p><p>The creative industries have always sought to recruit, train and develop the most talented of individuals who can be creative, daring and financially practical, all while delivering out-of-the-box experiences and outcomes. So, should we not expect the same from arts leaders and organizations?</p><p>Pandora’s Box has been opened in 2020 for the arts worldwide. What if, through our collective creative leadership, we could envision the arts ecosystem 20 years from now and say that the COVID-19 pandemic became the catalyst for creating a new, more inclusive, more financially viable, global arts ecology?<br></p><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Can-Pandemic-Be-Catalyst-for-New-Global-Arts-Ecology/Zenetta-Drew-Dallas-Black-Dance-Theater.jpg" alt="Zenetta-Drew-Dallas-Black-Dance-Theater.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;color:#555555;font-size:14px;width:135px;" /><span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;"></span><div><br></div><p><em>Zenetta S. Drew is the executive director of the </em><a href="https://dbdt.com/"><em>Dallas Black Dance Theatre</em></a><em>. The lead photo (above) is by the Dallas Dance Project.</em><br></p> | Zenetta S. Drew | 113 | | 2020-12-07T05:00:00Z | This year forced high-tech solutions to the global arts crisis—and it’s about time, says leader of Dallas Black Dance Theatre | | 12/7/2020 7:17:36 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Can Pandemic Be Catalyst for New Global Arts Ecology This year forced high-tech solutions to the global arts crisis—and | 5596 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |