Janet Brown

Fundraising in the “In-Between”

Posted by Janet Brown, Mar 12, 2010 3 comments


Janet Brown

I was inspired to connect the dots by John Cloys’ “Big Thing$ Come in Small Packages” and Mark Brewer’s “Finding Passionate Art Investors.” The challenge for the arts community is that we are currently caught in the “in-between.” Most institutions are trapped between the old fundraising techniques that we’ve practiced for the past thirty years and younger givers used to the new technologies of cyberspace.  We are “in-between” the generational gap of traditional donors who want their names on projects and buildings and a younger generation that wants to be totally involved and make community change with cell phones and ipods in hand.

One of our challenges is to position traditional arts institutions not as “entitlements for giving” but as agents for community development, cultural growth and economic expansion. This means a change in operations, marketing and programs. Younger, leaner, and more “hip” organizations may have the upper hand in their appeal to the new generation of givers. Ethnic-centric organizations have the ability to promote cultural diversity and understanding through their art that appeals to a generation that has grown up with a better reality of how our communities have changed.

Then there is the basic understanding of technology and its use in marketing and raising money. Watch Ben Cameron’s talk at the TED Canada event. Ben, director of arts for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, points out the challenges of performing arts organizations in a world where everyone “knows a 14 year old making her third, fourth, or fifth movie” and downloads of music at 99 cents. The ability to be an artist at a professional level of work has never been so accessible. “ProAm,” Ben calls it. Professional amateurs…making art, posting it on utube, taking lessons to be a “dancing with the stars” star, cutting CDs with Garage Band and the list goes on.

My generation sees the “in-between” all too clearly… in-between traditional fundraising and what a million people giving $25 on the web can do (like elect a president.) In-between traditional organizations heavy with facilities, reputation and aging donors and lithe young groups, marketing on social networks and making the connections between arts and community change. Maybe there isn’t anything to be done except to wait for these two worlds to change as one grows slowly older and the other develops sophistication that we can’t even predict today.  It’s unsettling to be in the “in-between” but that’s where we are.

3 responses for Fundraising in the “In-Between”

Comments

March 21, 2010 at 8:39 am

Thanks esp for this line: One of our challenges is to position traditional arts institutions not as “entitlements for giving” but as agents for community development, cultural growth and economic expansion. Just in time idea for upcoming mission revisit/alignment sessions among board and stakeholders for my arts org.

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John Killacky says
March 17, 2010 at 8:55 am

Janet,

Typo girlfriend, Ben Cameron, not Ben Moore.

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March 12, 2010 at 5:32 pm

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This post was mentioned on Twitter by BigREDandShiny: RT @Americans4Arts: Janet Brown, of Grantmakers in the Arts, blogs about the diversity of donors from traditional toyounger and hands-on. http://bit.ly/c3SF2E...

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