Info You Can Use: Emergency Planning Tools For The Arts

Two entries today you lucky readers. My list of things to blog on is getting longer than I handle and still have the subjects remain relevant.

Technology in the Arts blog had a very cool tool for the arts featured this week- Arts Ready, an online tool to help arts organizations create a plan for any emergency, including “incapacitation of a key staff member, a financial crisis, and of course a natural disaster.”

The tool helps you create a readiness assessment which generates a to do list of changes to be made and sends you periodic reminders about deadlines or to re-evaluate the plan. It also offers the ability to store critical documents at a cloud computing site in case the physical documents get damaged. They also have a “battle buddy” tool used to develop relationships with area organizations.

“…so that you can build a relationship and eventually become Battle Buddies- pledging to lend a hand if the other needs help. If you do need to declare a crisis, you can choose how much information to share with whom, and you can track your progress towards gathering the needed resources online.”

It would be great if organizations developed partnerships and alliances constructive to their daily operations in the course of seeking allies to assist in the event of an emergency.

There is a cost to the service, but because this sort of thing is only really effective if a lot of organizations are involved, the developer, SouthArts, is seeking support from state arts agencies to help offer discounted memberships.

About Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/)

My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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