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Month: May 2015

Flyover, USA, Broadway Needs You!

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One of the reasons why I like reading Broadway producer Ken Davenport’s blog, The Producer’s Perspective, is that like a lot of non-profit arts managers, (though he isn’t one), he is constantly asking how the experience of attending a Broadway show can be made better.

It may interest you to learn that this examination extends to the national tours of  Broadway shows. Back in March, he took a look at a study the Broadway League did on the demographics of people who attend Broadway touring performances.

It may come as no surprise that audiences for the tours are older, whiter and trend more slightly more female than audiences on Broadway. Among his insights that caught my eye were the following:

 

    • In the 2013-2014 season, Broadway shows touring across North America drew 13.8 million attendances.  (NOTE FROM KEN:  Broadway saw only 12.21 million attendees.  The Road Audience is 13% larger than the Broadway Audience.  Now do you see how important The Road is?)

[…]

    • The most commonly cited sources for show selection (other than being part of the subscription) were: the music, personal recommendation, Tony Awards and articles written about the show.  (NOTE FROM KEN:  This is all the same as in NYC, with a little less dependency on advertising, because shows aren’t in these towns long enough to have big advertising budgets.  Want to be big on The Road?  You better be big in NY first.)
    • The reported influence of Tony Awards in deciding to see a show continued to grow.  Twenty-four percent of respondents said that Tony Awards or nominations were a reason they attended the show, compared in 8% in the 2005-2006 season.

[…]

    • Theatregoers said that the most effective type of advertising was an email from the show or presenter.  (NOTE FROM KEN:  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  Everyone should look to double their email list every year.)

[…]

    • Advance sales to single-ticket buyers have been steadily increasing over the past 10 years.Thirty-eight percent of respondents said that different performance times would encourage more frequent attendance.

He makes many other observations, but these were most interesting to me in terms of providing some insight into how best to promote performances to audiences.

In his commentary on the study’s final finding, he suggests touring productions may be important to the health of shows on Broadway by getting people interested in visiting NYC.

    • Thirty percent of respondents said they made a visit to New York City in the past year.  Of those, 81% attended a Broadway show while in town.  (NOTE FROM KEN:  And this is the stat I was looking for.  81%.  That’s huge.  Like 3.35 million huge.)

For me, the last stat is what says it all.  See a lot of people think Broadway begets The Road.  But I think we should focus on the reverse.  See, it’s much easier for a person in Dallas to see a show in Dallas, rather than NYC, right?  So perhaps Broadway would benefit from encouraging Dallas citizens to see shows in Dallas first, before trying to sell them Broadway.  Get them to buy into what’s close to them, what’s easy for them, and they’ll work their way up to Broadway.

In a different post last week, Davenport noted the importance of touring to Broadway productions. The economics of touring is different from mounting a production on Broadway. While no one knows if a Broadway show will recoup its investment, a tour nearly always does. However, you have to have invested in the Broadway production to have the opportunity to invest in the tour.

Davenport questions why people loudly announce when a Broadway show recoups, but never announce when a tour does. He suggests the following reasons:

Is it because National Tours have an unbelievably high recoupment rate?… So since it’s more of a “given,” do we just not think it’s special enough to put out there?

Or are we afraid of putting it out there for the public for fear of getting the attention of unions and vendors who want a bigger piece? (If so, I think we have plenty of losses on Broadway to point to that balance the equation.)

Or are we afraid of putting it out there because the Presenters of the tours might be losing money, while the tours themselves are making money?

That final point resonates a bit with me. Due to the economics of our region and a mission to make attendance affordable, we lose much more on a sold out Broadway show than we do on a chamber music concert with 1/3 of the seats filled.

Setting that aside, it is very interesting to learn just how important venues in the fly over country between the coasts are to the continued economic well-being of productions in NYC.  As it is, looking at the cast bios for these shows, they are certainly dependent on artists migrating from those parts of the country to NYC in order to mount the Broadway productions and tours.

Checking You Out Is Just Too Overwhelming

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Earlier this month, Seth Godin made a post about discovery fatigue that makes me think that recommendations from trusted sources are going to play an ever larger role in getting people to initiate some sort of relationship with an arts organization.

Advertising, social media posts and other marketing efforts will still play a large role in informing and maintaining awareness in those who are already interested, but reading Godin’s post makes me think the initial impetus to investigate is likely to come from a trusted source.

Godin gives examples of how when new technologies first emerged, people consumed broadly, reveling in the chance to discover something new. But as time progressed, everyone felt overwhelmed by the number of opportunities afforded them and essentially retrenched and began focusing only on what they felt was manageable.

We come up with all sorts of excuses about our fatigue, most of them have to do with the fact that there’s nothing good on, nothing new happening, or we’re just too busy. I don’t think those hold water…

I think there are actually three reasons:

First, once you’re busy with what you’ve got, it diminishes the desire to get more.

Second, discovery is exhausting. Putting on a new pair of glasses, seeing the world or hearing the world or understanding the world in a new way is a lot more work than merely cruising through a typical day.

And third, infinity is daunting. A birdwatcher might be inspired to keep seeking out new birds, because she knows she’s almost got them all. But the infinity of choice that the connection economy brings with it is enough to push some people to artificially limit all that input.

In that context, I am appreciative to all those who continue to read and subscribe to this blog every week.

We have all probably heard the complaint that “there is nothing to do in this town,” and naturally thought of all our own events first and then enumerated all the other events including charity races, pancake breakfasts, antique car shows and farmers markets going on in the same weekend.

It may not be that there is nothing going on, just that there is nothing going on in the areas people have chosen to focus on. They may not be eager to look elsewhere out of fear of missing out on something that does pop up at the last minute, but it also may be a reluctance to add another area of interest to what is perceived to be too many interests.

Whatever the next big tech thing is will join crowded Netflix queues, Kindle reading lists, social media interests, family, friends and pets. If an ad or event listing manages to squeeze itself in there and pique the interest of someone who is unfamiliar with you, they may not be motivated to explore further in the absence of a recommendation of some sort.

Even then, only if it sounds like something they would enjoy enough to crowd their life up a little more. I often read comments from people visiting the U.S. from other countries that we speak in such hyperbole using terms like “awesome, fantastic, the best, amazing.” I wonder if we are essentially forced to use this level of enthusiasm as a default because anything less wouldn’t convince someone to invest their attention in something.

Are Program Bios Adding Value To The Experience?

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Earlier this week Samantha Teter had a piece on ArtsHacker about writing bios. She does a good job pointing out many important elements that should be part of a bio (including proofreading) and that one should use a different bio for different purposes.

However, recently I have been wondering if bios in a performance playbill are really effective anymore. Performers have been using the same basic format with the same basic content for decades now, but as we all know, audiences have changed during that time.

So among my questions are: Do audiences read bios any more? Is the content relevant to them? Has anyone thought to ask?

What are the purposes of bios? Do they serve the artists by providing recognition to individuals? Do they serve to strengthen a relationship with the audience? Are they effective at doing either?

Over the last decade I have often read suggestions regarding press releases and marketing content for the arts. One of the things most often criticized is the inclusion of long listings of accolades that the public has no way to judge the relevance of.

People know what the Tony Awards are, but nearly anything else is a mystery. While foreign sounding names like the Zhege Dongxi Prize and studying with Pierre Lapin at Le Jardin de M.A. Gregoire sound somewhat impressive, no one who is not an insider has any idea if this is a mark of excellence or something someone made up.

There is also the distinct possibility that even regular audience members may lack the connection to the arts field that past audiences did and do not recognize the prestige of names like Jacob’s Pillow, Tanglewood, and Stratford Festival.

If one actor lists a dozen shows they were in and another just lists a short handful, is the former more experienced than the latter? It could easily be the case that the former is just starting out and listing everything they have been in since high school and the latter is so experienced, it isn’t worth listing more than the last couple shows.

Does it help the audience feel more engaged in the event to know that the performer lives with their husband, kids and two dogs, Misty and Pepper?

I am not suggesting that bios be scrapped so that the organization can save on printing bills and relegate performers to a simple listing. Yes, I know some unions require the inclusion of bios.

Nor am I saying that all bios are useless. I spent part of today reading bios of the speakers slated for the Americans for the Arts conference in Chicago.

I am just asking, outside of tradition, do we know why we still do this? If we do, then could we do it better?

If we want audiences to be excited by our organizations and what we do, would it be better to have a big color picture in the program of the artists conducting a workshop or in rehearsals, instead of pages of text?

Perhaps QR codes with the names of the individual artists could be placed around the margins of the image so that people could scan them and learn much more than 50 words about the artist by visiting their social media page packed with images and videos.

If the purpose of listing bios is to provide artists with recognition that they wouldn’t otherwise receive and it has to be done in the traditional format, then are there any changes of content people might suggest?

Think about it this way. Everybody gets their name in the credits at the end of a movie, but even if people stay and try to pay attention to the list, it is nearly impossible to pick individual names out even if there is someone you are looking for.  Someone working on the movie probably has a better chance of being recognized as people scroll down on the IMDB listing than they will in the movie theater.

Teaser trailers at the end of Marvel movies keep people in the theater, but they probably don’t help improve an artist’s exposure and recognition.  By making  considered changes to program books, arts organizations might actually have the ability to raise the profile of artists, if only by a smidgen and provide a more meaningful experience for audiences.

I am just not quite sure what those changes might be. Something to consider, though.

It’s Just Something I Was Trying

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A few weeks ago I posted about an orchestra in Bremen, Germany which is based out of an elementary school. The situation has been something both the students and musicians have found to be constructive and enjoyable. In addition, the partnership has helped improve the reputation of that part of town.

In reaction to this story, there were a few “we should do that here” type of comments made in a handful of places. Recently, I was pleased to learn that a somewhat similar program exists in Cleveland where some music students of the Cleveland Institute of Music live in a retirement home.

The arrangement was born out of a lack of housing at the Cleveland Institute but has grown into a more formalized program. Students from the institute perform for, and occasionally with, residents of the retirement home. The students take their meals and interact with the other residents. On the whole, the arrangement seems to have had a positive and somewhat therapeutic impact on the lives of the regular residents.

So this is great! Music students will gain a better understanding of potential audiences!

At least that was my initial reactions until I recognized, as we often joke/bemoan, residents of a retirement community are the main demographic attending symphony halls and chamber concerts.

While these students may potentially develop insights and skills for better interacting with potential audiences, the truth is arts students live, work and play with those on the lower end of the coveted “young people” age range in university dorms and apartment complexes for years at a time and don’t necessarily develop these skills.

To a greater or lesser extent, we all live among members of our target demographics, but it doesn’t guarantee we will learn to relate with these groups and talk about our work in a way that interests and engages them.

Perhaps part of what is required is to take a page from Bremen and Cleveland and just go out and practice in plain sight.

I say practice because a performance in the park, flash mob in a train station or shopping center can have enough formality associated with it to prevent people from approaching you lest they disturb you. While being a familiar figure frequently visible in the park or other common area, pausing and restarting your practicing, can incite some curiosity and conversation.

The years one is in school probably provide the best opportunities an artist has to understand how to present themselves and interact with their peers.

Operating within the context of an educational environment may give both the performer and the observer the most permission they will ever have to ask stupid questions and give awkward answers. In other words, both get to learn to talk about the arts.

There is a lot of conversation about the need to teach arts students to be entrepreneurs, but I am thinking an important part of that might be requiring students to spend X amount of time each month practicing their discipline outside of rehearsal studios and practice rooms in places like dorm quads, university center lounges, sidewalks, green spaces etc.

During this time, they should be departing from discipline and orthodoxy of the classroom to play along with music on a boombox, create an impromptu soundtrack for actors performing a scene, paint/sketch an interpretation of the music/dance/acting piece being performed.

You know, essentially embodying the cliched movie plot of the kid who has the skills to be great, but wastes their talent rebelling and involving themselves in some expression of pop culture.

Except this time, it is instructor approved effort in experimentation, collaboration and conversation.

After a few minutes of playing with an idea, they can turn to any spectators and ask “what do you think?”

That can be the start of a conversation that can gradually contribute to the development of both performer and spectator. If the spectator says, “I don’t know,” and the performers says “I don’t know either, it was just something I was trying,” that is perfectly fine because it gives everyone involved permission to be imperfect in execution and understanding.

If spectators jump in to participate in some way, that is great because it provides the basis of a conversation between people who have a connection to the performance/interaction.

There is always the possibility that a spectator will launch into a scathing critique in an attempt to humiliate the students practicing. That is something else all artists need to learn to deal with.

Chances are, the face to face encounter won’t be as harsh as a criticism on social media. Though instructors need to recognize the potential for their students to be recorded and belittled on social media.

Really, unless they are trying something extremely ambitious, kids wiping out on their skateboards or while attempting a parkour move are much more interesting fodder for a video of Epic Fails.

Even if no great, incisive conversations ever develop from an arts student’s efforts, just the fact that it made seeing an artist perform/create as normal as seeing a skateboarder can have a long term positive effect.

There may even be a greater impact if it is a high school/college age peer performing/creating masterfully. After all, a teenage skateboarder is a lot cooler and impressive than a 45 year old skateboarder (Tony Hawk notwithstanding.)

Investing In Social Outcomes

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Non-Profit Law blogger Gene Tagaki had a post on LinkedIn a couple weeks ago about Social Impact Bonds. These bonds are a fairly new approach to funding non-profit activities. While I think they could be a viable tool for funding the arts, I had some reservations about them as well.

The biggest difference between a social impact bond and the current practice of government entities providing grants to solve the same problem is that a private investor is involved in the process.

Here’s how that might work using social impact bonds:

  1. A government agency identifies a social problem and commits to making a payment, but only if the targeted social outcome goal is met.
  2. An investor interested in addressing the social problem makes an investment which will may result in repayment with an additional return on its investment, but only if the social outcome goal is met.
  3. A nonprofit organization is paid by the investor, delivers services to achieve the social outcome goal, and provides a report back to the other parties.

Typically, an intermediary develops the SIB, raises capital from the investor(s), selects the nonprofit service provider(s), and selects an independent assessor that will determine if the social outcome goal is met.

Among the benefits to this approach that Takagi lists are:

  • Government payments only for agreed upon social outcome results, generally shifting government funding from short-term relief to longer-term impact.
  • Greater development and use of metrics for impact assessment, which may contribute to a favorable change in the way government funding works in its selection of service providers, models of service, and evaluation criteria and protocols.
  • Investors screen nonprofit service providers for those most likely to deliver the targeted social outcome result.

The shift toward long term impact rather than short term goals would definitely be a boon for most arts organizations. But the potential for service providers to be chosen on the basis of independent analysis using different criteria can be very appealing.

Arts organizations which are well positioned in communities investors wish to impact and who specialize in providing the services desired have the potential for receiving all the funding they need to do the job rather than funding in proportion to their budget. If organizations are chosen based on effectiveness rather than prestige, smaller arts organizations may be more likely to benefit as well.

The potential downside of this approach is that because it is an investment, the desire for a return may dictate many elements of the program.

  • Diversion of more cost-efficient direct government and philanthropic funding of sure-bet programs to address social problems…
  • Investors may dictate strategies of service provision to maximize their opportunity for a high economic return on their investment instead of a high social return.
  • Funding will be restricted and likely prevent nonprofits from using such funds to build the necessary infrastructure to support new or expanded programs to achieve the social outcome result.
  • Funding for innovative and long-term strategies may be stifled by investors willing to fund only the strategies with the most proven track records of success and/or easily measured, short-term returns.

Even if your organization doesn’t participate in a Social Impact Bond program, I foresee some potential repercussions in government granting and funding taking their cues from investors. If a government entity sees that companies are investing in certain programs, they may either view it as a type of imprimatur of those programs without doing any research or developing any criteria of their own. Or the government entity may wish to curry favor or stimulate greater investment in the community by supporting investor agendas with grants and favorable rules.

Part of the process to be qualified to invest in a Broadway show is that your personal wealth be such that you can afford to lose money. That is essentially what Takagi suggests in the analysis at the end of his piece. Only true social investors who are prepared to lose money or only gain a small rate of return in order to effect a social good should be allowed to participate in the Social Impact Bond program.

I bring up the Broadway investment scheme because the same potential for damaging investor influence exists there but the agreements have been structured so that it is clear the majority of investors don’t have any say in the way the show is executed. A basic framework exists that could be applied to Social Impact Bond funding.

Doing It Alone: Reader Participation Edition

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Okay dear readers, I need your help.

Buoyed by the amount of traffic and social media sharing on my “Talking to Strangers” post back in February and encouraged by the recent research finding that people underestimate how much they will enjoy doing things alone, I plan to work over the summer to develop a program to encourage single attendees .

If you recall from my Talking To Strangers post, I, (and I assume a bunch of the rest of you), was inspired by an effort in Brazil which reserved seats on buses for strangers who were interested in meeting new people. To facilitate the process, they had Post-It notes with suggested topics of conversation for participants to use.

Given that an NEA study said a significant impediment to event attendance respondents identified was the lack of someone to go with, I suggested a program similar to the one in Brazil might be helpful for arts organizations.

I had talked to my staff a couple months ago to get them brain storming, but I thought I would enlist readers’ to provide input as well. I figure this can be helpful to everyone, after all.

So here are some questions to consider:

-What are the guidelines for participation?

If you are setting aside special seats for the program, obviously people can’t buy two at once unless they are interested in sitting in two separate locations.

-How best to promote the program to explain it clearly without sounding condescending?

You don’t want to imply people are losers and have no friends–unless you can do it in such an amusing manner it endears people to your organization.

-What are good general conversation topics to use?

Obviously, each event lends itself to specific questions, but what consistent elements might you direct people to discuss?

Not just plot and composition of a piece, but for example, physical features of the theater you might want to draw attention to. For this program, it may be better to get people speculating about how the fresco on the ceiling was painted than to tell them outright.

-What is a good way to mount the questions on the back of seats?

This is a bit of a puzzler at the moment. It has to be durable enough that it doesn’t fall off as people brush going to and from their seats. It has to be removable since you may change the seats for the program from event to event or rent the facility to groups that don’t have a talk to strangers program.

But it can’t have metal hooks that will gouge into the back of the person sitting in the seat it is attached to. Magnets might work, but not everyone has seats with metal backs.

-What are logical extension to this program?

While I saw this as a way to remove a psychological barrier from a single ticket buyer who might otherwise decide to stay way, single subscribers may want to be paired with other single subscribers. You might hold an after performance events to help people solidify their new friendship. People who already attend frequently and with friends may want access to the conversation starter questions to join in the fun with their group.

All this would be great because it provides an opportunity to engage people in other ways.

What Else?

There are other factors to consider, but I throw these out to start people thinking.

Dear Arts: It’s Not Your Challenge Alone

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Last week Createquity published an analysis looking at why people in lower socioeconomic status (SES) don’t attend arts events. Their research challenges the common assumption that price, lack of time and geographic proximity are the main factors in the decision not to attend, at least among this demographic.

Unfortunately, the real impediment might be deeply instilled cultural behaviors that present a problem in areas beyond the arts.

The piece, Why Don’t They Come? is thought provoking and occasionally surprising. It has started a good deal of conversation both on the Createquity site, and also on economist Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution blog where it dominates the discussion on a post of assorted links.

I say that instilled cultural behavior is an potentially an impediment because overcoming it will take more than programming changes, lower prices/free events and taking events to different neighborhoods.

Createquity’s questioning of the argument that arts are elitist is somewhat depressing as it points out the lack of low SES involvement in even low cost and solitary pursuits.

Data from the survey shows that fewer low-income individuals attend pop and rock concerts than their wealthier counterparts, and significantly fewer of them attend visual arts festivals and craft fairs. In fact, people with lower incomes and less education are less likely to read books, go to the movies, take an arts class, play a musical instrument, sing, dance socially, take or edit photographs, paint, make scrapbooks, engage in creative writing, or make crafts.

Granted, if an effort to change programming, address costs and increase geographic access is made over a long period of time, attitudes may change in the direction arts organizations hope. Even if those measures aren’t effective in influencing low-SES people, the barriers they respond to may be decisive for people in other socioeconomic strata and therefore important for arts organizations to continue to address.

But when it comes to people in low SES, this relationship/outlook is not unique to the arts. Two days after “Why Don’t They Come?” was published, the New York Times had a story about low SES people and food that had many elements in common with the Createquity piece.

The Times story talked about efforts to bring grocery stores to “food deserts,” places where residents didn’t have easy access to high quality food and produce. The idea was that if people didn’t have to walk miles or ride the bus for hours to get to a grocery store, they would make better choices about what they ate. However, it didn’t work out that way. People continued to buy what they were in the habit of eating. (my emphasis)

It turned out that food preferences dominated. When the researchers looked at shoppers with lower levels of income and education living in richer neighborhoods with more accessible healthy food, their shopping mimicked that of low-income, less educated people in poorer neighborhoods. (And the reverse was true, too: Richer, more educated shoppers in poor neighborhoods looked more like rich shoppers in rich neighborhoods.)

“When we put supermarkets in poor neighborhoods, people are buying the same food,” said Barry Popkin, a professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, who participated in an Institute of Medicine review of food desert research in 2009. “They just get it cheaper.”

[…]

It’s possible that poverty itself explains a lot of the shopping variation. In general, fresher, healthier food is more expensive to buy than less healthy processed food. It also takes more time and resources to cook, and keeps for fewer days.

If people can’t afford healthier foods, then it would be reasonable to think that just giving them a better store wouldn’t solve their problems. But Ms. Handbury’s paper found that the education of the shoppers was much more predictive than their incomes. Poorer families bought less healthy food than richer ones. But a bigger gap was found between families with and without a college education. Those results, Ms. Handbury said, suggest that improving people’s diets will require both making food accessible and affordable and also changing people’s perceptions and habits about diet and health.

Like the NYT story, Createquity also mentioned that education level is generally a predictor of participation in an arts event. Though the folks at Createquity state that income is also a predictor of arts attendance, they later note that cost is not terribly significant in keeping low-SES people away.

Roughly speaking, this simulates what would happen if every exhibit and performance in existence could be attended for free. The result? Only 7% of the chasm in attendance rates between rich and poor, and between college-educated and not, would be bridged.

Though by now we know that “if you build it/perform it, they will come” is an unwise approach, even removing other barriers in addition to convenience and proximity isn’t enough:

Indeed, according to our model, even if all barriers to participation were removed for low-SES populations and every person who wanted to attend an exhibit or performance in the past year were able to do so, it would still not close even half of the gap in attendance rates.

The authors of “Why Won’t They Come?” acknowledge no one knows why low-SES people make the decisions they do. Among the reasons they suggest are that it could be the group appreciates TV more, it may be a matter of learned behavior, a belief that they are not the type of person who likes the arts or that the general perception that arts are too expensive keeps them from seeking low cost and free opportunities.

The lemonade out of lemons takeaway from this is that it isn’t a problem unique to the arts. Look back at the sentence I bolded earlier- accessibility, affordability, change perceptions – all sentiments familiar in discussions about the arts.

Anyone working on helping low-SES people make better decisions about their lives is a potential ally and partner. (Though the adjuration against defining what is good for people found in Createquity’s post after the art gallery picture is well taken.) A social service organization can help an arts organization gain more direct access to the demographic and an arts organization can help the social service partner structure their training in an engaging manner. Often people in the arts feel like they are going it alone and face challenges no other sector faces, but that is not necessarily so.

Info You Can Use: It Is Possible To Be Too Thankful To Volunteers

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As your performance season ends, like me you may be looking to thank all the volunteers whose hard work made your projects possible over the past year. You might feel a little guilty about all the effort they put forth on your behalf and want to spend a little more money than you planned in showing your appreciation.

However, according to a post by the For Purpose Law Group, there is such a thing as being too appreciative and you can create more problems for your volunteers than you intended.

For example, technically giving a volunteer a $25 gift card is taxable and you as the organization are supposed to withhold taxes.

Stipends or cash gifts of any amount (even allowable “nominal” stipends to bona fide volunteers) are generally taxable income. The volunteer recipient must report the amounts on his or her tax return and pay applicable taxes AND the organization must withhold taxes and make FICA payments – just as it does for employees.

Yeah, I did not know that either.

The other wrinkle is if you pay volunteer a stipend. A volunteer can’t be paid a stipend in return for their services, but you can use it to help offset expenses they might incur. This is something community theater groups often do with their cast and crew. Even in this case, there are some strict guidelines which apply.

Pay particular attention to the last paragraph.

“Although a volunteer can receive no compensation, a volunteer can be paid expenses, reasonable benefits or a nominal fee (or any combination) to perform … services.”

“…(A) fee is not nominal if it is a substitute for compensation or tied to productivity.” And “… determining whether the expenses, benefits or fees would preclude an individual from qualifying as a volunteer under the FLSA requires examining the total amount of payments in the context of the economic realities of a particular situation.”

The agency “presumes that fees paid to volunteers are nominal as long as the fee does not exceed twenty percent of what an employer would otherwise pay to hire a full-time employee for the same services.”

But – and this is a big “but” – if the “volunteer” receives anything of value exceeding $500 a year, that person must be treated as paid staff or as an independent contractor and relinquishes important liability protection under the federal Volunteer Protection Act (as well as becoming potentially liable, in the case of independent contractor classification, for a whole slew of self-employment taxes).

I point out that last paragraph because it is easy to hit that $500 threshold. Paying someone $100 for six weeks of rehearsal and a performance as gesture of acknowledgment and to help defray gas doesn’t come close to really paying them what they are worth. But it is so very easy for a really dedicated person to hit $500 over the course of a year. (And remember, there is supposed to be a reporting of income and withholding on each of those $100 payments.)

It appears that the prohibition against tying the stipend to productivity means you can’t provide a larger stipend to crew heads than to the crew or give everyone who did 250 volunteer hours a $25 gift certificate and everyone who did fewer hours a $15 gift certificate.

“A test to help evaluate whether a payment to a volunteer is a compensation substitute is “whether the amount of the fee varies as the particular individual spends more or less time engaged in the volunteer activities.”

In their suggestions at the end of the post, authors May Harris and Linda Rosenthal, say the best solution may be a bouquet of flowers rather than a gift card. I think other modest gestures like appreciation meals probably qualify as well, assuming you aren’t serving caviar.

Earning The Right To Sell

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We often hear that our social media posts shouldn’t be heavy on self promotion, but rather seek to engage people with information that might be useful or interesting to them. But I think it is hard to conceptualize what that really looks like. What should you be offering? What is a good ratio?

Since every business is different, it is impossible to provide a solid answer. What type of informational posts you make should be a reflection of your organizational personality. The ratio of information to self-promotion that people will tolerate is also characteristic to each organization.

However, in a video posted on Entrepreneur, Guy Kawasaki provides 4 rules about the content of your posts.

“good stuff” comes in four forms:

Information. What happened?
Analysis. What does it mean?
Assistance. How can I do that?
Entertainment. Posts that amuse and surprise.

The video has examples, but you can probably think of dozens more from recognizing award nominations to sharing how-to tips for art projects.

What was most interesting was his philosophy about self-promotional posts. He used the example of NPR which provides news, information, analysis and entertainment for about 49-50 weeks out of the year and then does fund drives for the other 2-3 weeks out of the year.

By providing content people find valuable for most of the year, in Kawasaki’s estimation, NPR earns the right to sell itself for two or three weeks out of the year.

Now, the one flaw I see in his logic is that NPR’s core product and mission 50 weeks out of the year is news and information. Every so often they ask you to pay for it. Following these guidelines, a museum would be providing news and information which is off-mission, in addition to their own core product. This practice can obscure the museum’s identity a little whereas NPR’s is always on display every moment and only gets slightly diminished during fund drives.

But the general idea that you have to earn the right to ask for money is sound. The earned right to ask extends beyond just offering diverse content on social media. The transaction of time and money happens in a small moment, but the right to ask for that exchange is earned across every other moment through customer service, the delivery of a quality product, the social enjoyment and dozens of other factors, including social media and other online content.

Arts and Survival

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This article on CNN about the role music is playing in the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal caught my eye. There were similar stories and videos after the 2010 Haitian earthquake of people creating a bond of community through singing and music.

The singing isn’t getting anyone fed, clothed or sheltered, neglecting the very bottom tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of need. But it does help with the next step up by providing a sense of love and belonging.

Though no one wants to see disasters like this happen, the fact that people’s basic instinct is to turn to music and dance to create community illustrates that the arts are not a frivolous luxury. They are an essential part of our identity.

Being able to participate with a group provides you membership in a culture. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be your birth culture. Insisting people speak English and be able to sing the “Star Spangled Banner” using the correct signifiers may seem overbearingly chauvinistic, but it also identifies what songs provide you entree to a community.

The other thing it illustrates is that not only does everyone have the ability to participate and practice an artistic discipline, it is important that they be able to do so. To a degree it is a basic survival tool mentally, spiritually and perhaps even physically if the sense of community it generates gains you food and shelter.

In a less dire circumstance, we had Garrison Keillor do his solo show about a month ago. He had the audience singing at the beginning and end of his performance. While I have read some criticism of his singing voice, it was sufficient to get everyone started. As the show was drawing to an end, I wondered if someone would be able to do the same thing in 20-30 years. With the ability to choose between disparate channels of information, there may be fewer common cultural touchstones in the next few decades.

Potentially it may be good for international relations if people thousands of miles apart can find 10 points of common ground. It may be less beneficial to local relations if neighbors can only find 10 points of common ground.

How Long Before Elementary Schools Need To Turn A Profit?

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Non-Profit Quarterly recently posted a story by Beth Gazley examining how private donations are increasingly being used to subsidize public services as government funding is cut.

One finding arts organizations should perhaps be sensitive to relates to school funding. According to the article, support of schools often exacerbates existing inequities in school funding where wealthier areas tend to provide more private funding to schools that are well supported by public funding.

My own research, with my colleague Ashlyn Aiko Nelson, suggests that DonorsChoose.org is something of an anomaly. Most of the philanthropy directed at public schools is local, meaning that wealthy school districts enjoy a philanthropic advantage and few people are paying attention to fairness and balance. And, indeed, we found clear evidence that across the nation private philanthropy for public schools exacerbates rather than eliminates budgetary inequities across school districts. Specifically, although most school funding still comes from taxpayers, we found that wealthy school districts are able to provide more dollars per pupil overall through this philanthropic “bonus.”8 Simply put, DonorsChoose.org’s successful efforts at raising $80 million in 2014 do not come close to balancing the inequitable impact of the other $880 million raised in 2010 by local PTOs, school foundations, and booster clubs.

Arts organizations are already well aware that arts entities serving wealthier communities tend to receive larger donations than those serving poorer communities. If they are really dedicated to bringing the arts to under served schools, they may have to make an effort to reach further beyond their immediate geographic vicinity.

Speaking from experience, I can attest that this can be difficult because schools that perform poorly are often under more pressure than normal to focus on testing and worry about anything that might distract from that goal.

I could find some pleasure in schools outsourcing arts education to non-profits, but unfortunately that doesn’t generally happen.

The other issue is the question about whether arts organizations are giving a community what they need or what the arts organization thinks they need.

Questions about whether you may be exhibiting this bias plagues every introspective arts organization. This can especially be the case when an organization serving a wealthy clientele reaches out to a far less affluent demographic.

An observation made in the NPQ article that “the narrow focus on school fundraising saps community energy and possibly distracts parents from other forms of political engagement—such as advocating for more public spending overall on public schools in order to end the reliance on fundraising altogether,” resonated with me.

First, because arts organizations have long faced the challenge of shrinking public funding and it is disturbing to me that a core public service like education may end up similarly regarded as something that a private community support should be responsible for.

Second, because that can result in an increasingly insular view by individuals about how education should be funded, shifting it from being beneficial to the commons to have an educated population to being a benefit only to those who can afford it. You can’t entirely blame people if, after putting a lot of effort into raising money for their own school to close a funding gap, they feel that other PTOs ought to do the same for their schools.

People often say arts organizations need to be self supporting and only present shows that can make the profit. I fear that the same sentiments may end up being applied to education.

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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