ARTSblog

Betsy Theobald Richards

In the arts & social justice world, a plan for expanding impact is more than good business, it’s our roadmap for changing the world.

Infrastructure and funding for arts-for-change projects may be nascent, but as Jeff Chang and Brian Komar remind us in Culture Before Politics, creativity is the “most renewable, sustainable, and boundless of resources” with which we can capture the American imagination and plant seeds of social transformation.

Artists and cultural producers are the stewards of that renewable resource and we need to look out for and nurture their development as we plan for growth and impact.

On one level, growth can imply physical and financial increase for projects over time (bigger! more money!) but many of our leaders find themselves sleeping on couches, wearing multiple hats, under valuing their worth and staying up all night (you know who you are…) and thus, facing burn out while scaling up.

The other side of scaling up means that we can find ourselves prioritizing meetings, chasing operating support, and losing track of the nimbleness and creativity that is needed in the face of an election, a disaster, or an injustice. Read the rest of this entry »

Victoria Ford

My summer internship with Americans for the Arts has regrettably come to an end. If I knew an inch about marriage, I’d say this feels a lot like the ride back from the honeymoon. Which I mention only to suggest how uneasy I feel saying farewell to ten weeks worth of swimming through everything art. With people who love it so tremendously, they fight for it each day.

It’s times like this when every instruction kneaded into my writing toolbox knocks on my door and offers itself to me—mostly to make sure each emotional simile this blog post doesn’t need can be prevented, like overlooked leaks beneath the kitchen sink (they persist, nonetheless).

At any rate, the advice knocking today is this: “Kiss the beginning.” And I think it’s only right to revisit the very first question I posed this summer (presented to you in the title), to see what many experiences I’m able to offer at its side.

As I mull everything over now, though, I’ll present just a couple. These two ideas, I hope, should suffice.

So to begin with a lesson I’ve learned on this journey, which is less about art and more about being human: I am small. This is not a commentary on my physical stature, but more on my existence and each of our lives. We are unfathomably small.

It’s hard for me to grapple with this truth, because since conception we’ve been taught and treated otherwise. The idea of our singular importance persists by way of talent shows, academic ceremonies, sporting and artistic competitions, promotions, and so on. And it’s not my wish to attack the way our societies reward this measure of our own greatness. If anything, with the Olympics as a perfect example, a single person’s achievements help to heal and unite an entire nation. Read the rest of this entry »

Stephanie Hanson

(Author’s Note: The ArtsFwd team invited me to respond to their NextGen Quick Poll because of my knowledge of the challenges and opportunities facing young leaders today gleaned in my role at Americans for the Arts.)

Pretend you have two job offers in front of you (I know, we’re just pretending here, okay?!)

• Organization A is a respected organization that has been producing high-quality artistic work for the past 50 years. You get the sense that your role in the marketing department will be to continue business as usual to an audience who can afford the organization’s $150 per seat tickets. There is no social media campaign, something that you are very interested in starting. However, it’s unclear whether the organization’s leadership understands social media, or if they think it’s a good use of time or energy.

• Organization B is a start-up organization that is three-years-old. The social impact is clear—Organization B is providing a safe space for children from dual income families to go after work. The children are exposed to art, music, and dance classes at an affordable rate. Your job would be to launch a social media presence, but you’d also be tasked with finding new untapped sources of revenue and creative partnerships to help sustain and grow the important work this organization is doing for the community.

So, which position would you choose? (By the way—we’re also pretending the pay scale, benefits, and title level of both positions is the same, although we know that in reality, this would not be the case).

If you choose Organization B (which we’re defining as the highly-innovative organization), then according to ArtsFwd and EmcArts recent NextGen QuickPoll, you may find yourself feeling 80 percent more likely to want to “move up” in the organization. Granted, this is not a scientific study, nor was it intended to be. Also, I made up those above case organizations. But, the survey and exercise itself brings up some very interesting questions and illuminates some issues in our field that I believe need addressing. Read the rest of this entry »

Carlos Velázquez

In a recent article about Chicago-based artist Eric J. Garcia, whose politically charged work he calls a “weapon to strike at injustice”, he added a caveat for aspiring artists: “Oh-all of this is done on our off-time when we’re not at the day job that pays the bills.”

His words came back to me when reading the prompt to this salon, a quote from Diane Ragsdale on arts sector reform:

“If our goal..is to hold onto our marginalized position and maintain our minuscule reach—rather than…actively addressing the social inequities in our country, and reaching exponentially greater numbers of people—then…I would suggest that it may not merit the vast amounts of time, money, or enthusiasm we would require from talented staffers and artists, governments, foundations, corporations, and private individuals to achieve it.”

I am glad to know that the arts sector is not confining itself to simply holding onto its miniscule reach, and that emerging artists and arts leaders, many working in art and humanities-based nonprofits, are taking the lead.

My position is that they are using the organizational skills, social vocabularies, and leadership experience gained in nonprofit environments well beyond the scope of the workday, to be wielded as “weapons” addressing social inequalities. Read the rest of this entry »

Tara Aesquivel

Sometimes it feels like I lead a double life. Okay, pretty much every day.

Persona A: I’ve been a performing musician for most of my life; I have degrees in music and arts management; I devote what other people call “free time” to EAL/LA and Inner-City Arts, and; most of my social outings at arts events.

Persona B: I grew up in rural Missouri, where my grandpa was a farmer; I’m really concerned about the purity of our food supply; I try to buy clothes only made from natural fibers, and; my full-time job is with the Urban Sustainability program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

Deeply and intuitively, I know these two personas are not dissonant and they must have developed from the same place within me.

I have yet to eloquently describe how and why, but being around sustainability folks has given me some big clues. (Guess what? They’re mostly into the arts, too.)

One of these folks is Jenny Price. Whatever brief glimpse into Jenny’s bio I could share would be an under-representation of her awesomeness, so I’ll encourage you to read some of her work instead. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeanie Duncan

The Challenge: Assessing the Organization’s Relevance

According to the latest statistics maintained by Americans for the Arts, there are about 5,000 local arts agencies in the United States. Many of these agencies take the form of a United Arts Council. And while there are some common structural and operational similarities, I like to say that, “If you’ve seen one United Arts Council, you’ve seen one United Arts Council.” At its best, a United Arts Council is specifically designed to serve its particular regional community through a distinctive and unique blend of programs and services.

The United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro’s (UAC) portfolio of services and programs includes fundraising, grantmaking, marketing, and advocacy. The UAC was established in 1961 by the business community as a united fundraising effort for a core group of arts organizations. For more than 40 years, the UAC has operated an annual campaign (known within the industry as a “United Arts Fund,” or UAF), which at its fundraising peak in 2008 raised $1.62 million. In this regard, Greensboro’s UAC is like most across the country: It’s both a fundraising engine, cultivating and securing contributed revenue largely from the local private sector, and a chief grantmaker to the local arts sector, investing approximately 90 percent of funds granted into a small, defined group of member agencies.  Read the rest of this entry »