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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Donors With Baggage

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There was a short piece on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website about fund raising (subscription required). What caught my eye was some of the insights it provided about how people money and the act of donating it. The story cites Laura Fredricks, a former fundraiser for Pace University and Temple University, who addressed attendees at Fund Raising Day in New York 2008 last week.

Much of what I read and heard at conferences about fund raising primarily deals with strategies for developing a relationship with a donor and convincing them to support your organization. In some respects, much of the advice has been similar to what is given in regard to dating. Some of the advice is a little aggressive and cutthroat and some advocates a more practical and sensitive approach. (Of course, there is also the “be content being single” camp but that philosophy doesn’t quite work in fundraising.)

In any case the advice generally focuses on a somewhat formulaic planned approach. Just as dating tips rarely acknowledge that other people have the baggage of past dating experiences which will impact the relationship you are trying to cultivate, I rarely hear/read a similar acknowledgment in connection with fund aising.

One of the anecdotes mentioned in the story was about a wealthy developer who never gave more than $1,000 at a time to Temple. When Fredricks asked why, she discovered that even though he could afford to give more, he harbored fears about running out of money that went back to his childhood.

She recognizes that the people who ask for money like presidents and trustees also have varying degrees of comfort with the subject. “They should be treated the same way donors are—as individuals with different emotions about money—and given simple requests, she said. Instead of giving a reticent board member a list of prospective donors, Fredricks suggested starting out with the names and biographical information of two current donors and then asking the trustee to call them to say thank you.”

Back when I was fresh out of grad school I remember having a conversation with someone about fund raising. I don’t quite remember who it was but the comment was made that you couldn’t ask someone to make a large contribution of money until you had made a large contribution yourself. The idea was that if you had done so you could empathize with what motivated someone to donate that much to something they believed in and could also understand how making such a donation impacted their standard of living.

At the time a $50 would have had dire consequences on my standard of living so I really wasn’t ready to do serious fund raising at that point in my career. Some of the other advice given at the Fund raising Day in New York meeting actually revolved around this idea. One person suggested requesting large donors make the ask for similarly large gifts.

One last tip that caught my eye which might be rather difficult for some arts organizations to embrace given perennially precarious financial straits. “Don’t show your desperation, no matter how far you are from hitting your goal. You’re not raising money to keep your organization from going out of business.” Yeah, right! That little bit of advice came from Michael Margitich, senior deputy director for external affairs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The approach he said he used while at Columbia University was “he was raising additional funds to ‘maintain our level of excellence.'”

The Planes Are Alive With The Sound of Music!

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I don’t want my blog to get into a running travelogue about my trip to China so this will probably be the last entry where that subject is the main focus. I just wanted to comment on what is usually the most onerous part of my travels but turned out to be rather delightful this time around–air travel. I have to say that Japan Airlines has ruined me for all U.S. domestic flights. The food, service and entertainment even in economy class was great. I am not going to wax philosophical wondering why U.S. carriers can’t replicate it. I will just assume they have costs that Japan Airlines doesn’t and leave it at that.

The thing I will pose the “why don’t we have that” question about is the entertainment. I watched a great Kabuki piece while on the plane, the Noda version of Togitatsu no Utare performed in 2005. I had no idea kabuki could be that funny and irreverent. I was getting some glances from my neighbors because I was laughing so loudly. There was a lot of self-referential stuff, what looked to be the kabuki version of the West Side Story opening number and a Rube Goldberg contraption. To be sure, according to this article, kabuki may not have been quite so funny until recently. (Though it also sounds like it originally might have been.)

Purists probably considered the show I saw to be a dumbing down of the art form. Maybe it is. But it was a fun introduction to kabuki for an international visitor like myself who is only generally familiar with the art form. This type of pride in a national art form is what I wish there was more of on airplanes. Some might argue that given Hollywood is the center of the film world, all the films shown are, in fact, a statement of national pride.

As an arts person I am not, of course, going to be satisfied with that line of reasoning. While I am not the biggest fan of musicals, they would probably end up being the most natural choice in terms of how accessible they would be to domestic and international audiences. Given all the performers and writers contracts that have/are entering negotiation, it would be the perfect time to broach the subject of renumeration for the airborne broadcasts. If a rule bound, insular art form like Kabuki can begin to exhibit sweeping changes in their performance style, arranging to have Spring Awakening shown on a plane should be easy in comparison.

Heck, given that most people in the United States haven’t been to the theatre it would be as much an entrée to the form for the domestic audience as the Kabuki was to me as a visitor to Japan.

Chinese Philanthropy

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While I was in China, there were a lot of appeals for donations to the Sichaun earthquake relief effort on television. This came in the form of ads and what appeared to be telethon type programs. What I found interesting was that philanthropy on this scale seems to be a new thing for China. There was a program on CCTV International that was discussing this new development. While they do have video of the program on their website, I can’t get it to run so I will have to depend on the notes I jotted on the hotel stationary. I apologize for not having more details. I just happened upon the program while waiting to go to dinner so there was a period where I was casting about for a pen and pad.

The participants in the discussion mentioned that people were learning about how to give due to the earthquake. An American working for a foundation in Beijing mentioned the benefits of philanthropy. One example he gave was developing solidarity and morale within a company when employees at overseas branches donate to help their counterparts in China and vice versa.

What I found most interesting was the concept of recognition for donations. There seemed to be an unmentioned back story behind the host’s question regarding public recognition. I almost wondered if there were a lot of people expecting public recognition for their largesse and it might be sapping energy from the relief effort. The American foundation person pointed out that yes, while there were public monuments to large donors in the United States, there was a strong tradition of anonymous donation as well.

The discussion also touched on the idea that recipients of donations should be held highly accountable for the way they administered the money they received. And as in the U.S., donors should investigate these organizations and decide if the charities are using the donations in an effective manner.

There was also mention of whether China should institute an inheritance tax to provide an incentive for the growing affluent class to donate.

None of these concepts are new for the U.S. It was rather interesting to watch people begin to think about what it means to be charitable outside one’s local situation for the first time. I will be interested to see what develops. Despite all the input they can garner from the biggest and best charities and foundations in the world, I am sure the Chinese will create their own method of philanthropy, partially of necessity and partially based on their cultural values.

Back From China

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Well, I am back from China. It was my first trip to the country and I had a great time. The experience also gave me a lot to think about. There is one topic I will probably cover tomorrow if I can find where in my bags I secreted my notes. While my entry today won’t directly deal with arts management, it does cover some of the larger societal concerns arts managers face like traffic, public transportation, communal gatherings, cultural values and energy conservation/green buildings. Based on my experiences, I feel safe in claiming there will be a much greater cultural interchange between the United States and China in the near future so there might be something to learn or at least cautionary tales for those who tread the streets of the cities.

A few notes for those going to Beijing for the Olympics. There seems to be a dichotomy between traffic laws and enforcement. There are signs everywhere warning drivers about driving while drunk, on cell phones or while overly tired. However, I didn’t see a lot of police cars patrolling. (Shanghai seemed to have a stronger police presence.) All over China a honked horn signals to the pedestrian means either get out of the way or stop and I will drive around you. The greatest sin basically seems to be hitting someone. Otherwise, all bets are off. Our bus made left turns across oncoming traffic and from the right lane and we mysteriously never got hit.

The most exhilarating/nerve racking time was on a freeway in Beijing when the bus driver started up the exit ramp, then veered left off it, then decided he was right to begin with and started backing up to the ramp again. What was most amazing was that after the first 4-5 cars behind us honked and went around us, everyone else behind us moved to the left lane long before they reached us and allowed us to back up to the ramp again.

In a number of the cities we visited there was a lot of poor living conditions with dingy housing cramped together. The parks in these cities were absolutely gorgeous though. There were large spaces with a lot of gathering areas, ponds, fountains, amphitheaters with hills and structures to climb. I am guessing the local governments realized the importance of community gathering places and invested a lot of resources in them. The parks were packed even at 6-6:30 am on weekday mornings. I wondered if the parks will be abandoned as televisions and computers become more prevalent or at least how many generations it would be before the people stopped valuing communal relationships.

Television was interesting to watch in China. There was only one English language station carried at any of the hotels at which we stayed. However, given that the state owns the cable system, it was always channel 9 no matter where we were. There was more pro-US programming than I expected including U.S. Air Marshal which seemed to have a heavy Eastern European cast and crew, and movies about the Flying Tigers. For the first 4-5 days of my trip there seemed to always be a dramatization about Mao’s rise to power.

There was also always either a Chinese opera or classical music concert on one or two stations. I can’t say if people were watching the show but the government seems to be strongly promoting these art forms. I even caught what looked to be the Chinese Opera version of American Idol with young girls competing.

Unfortunately, Chinese television seems to be quickly inheriting some of the United States’ less desirable programming like ads for breast enhancements and bra inserts. There also seemed to be a lot of snake oil being sold. From what a could tell from one series of graphics, there is a pill that will (no joking) fix your ovaries, dissolve fat and give you energy. Where American television ads make claims about the inclusion of Chinese herbs, the Chinese ads show official looking documents with the United States of America emblazoned across the top and the American flag waving in the background.

There were some areas we drove through where the town was drying their wheat on the road. A tractor dropped huge piles of wheat on the street and people manually separated the wheat from the chaff. Our bus drove around and sometimes through these piles which went on for miles upon miles and were spread out on to side streets and roofs. The people seemed happy and healthy enough at their work. I just wondered how they resolved their lives against the images of breast enhancement surgery. These dynamics are complicated enough in the U.S. When you start talking about the haves and have nots in a Communist country which is embracing some capitalist practices, I can only begin to imagine what all the implications might be.

A couple last reflections on my visit. We often hear how China is going to become a more voracious consumer of energy. From what I observed and discussed with others in my tour, China appears to be taking steps to minimize their impact. We would go into shops whose lights would be out until we walked in. In hotels, you have to put your room key card in a wall slot to get the lights to work. We only got one card even though there were two of us in the room. When we left with the card, the lights and A/C went off.

There are a lot of new roads but few cars at all traveling the freeways. (Don’t quite know why.) There is a system of diesel rationing in effect. The miles of new highways and roads are lined 5-10 rows wide with newly planted trees for thousands of miles. (All of which is desperately needed in the heavily deforested country.) While the housing is dull and blocky in a lot of places, the newer street lamps are quite whimsical. In Xingtai, the lamps looked like gracefully curved flowers with butterfly shaped solar panels.

On the whole, my impression of China is that the idea of conservation and safety is a somewhat new for them. It seems like haven’t quite developed a holistic approach yet. In some areas they have progressed past the United States and are hyper aware of safety concerns. In other areas it doesn’t seem like anyone mentioned the concept at all.

One of my favorite experiences was meeting the Chinese people. There were places we traveled where Caucasian faces were obvious rare to unknown. For some reason though a lot of people (happily mostly young females) wanted to have their picture taken with me. There were three of us out of 10-15 men who people frequently asked to have their picture taken with. (Or they thrust their kids into my lap or beside me.) It didn’t matter if I was alone or in a group. I am hardly the best looking guy in the group so I don’t quite know why. My best guess is that I closely represent Budai, the Laughing Buddah (except I have more hair and kept my shirt closed) so people felt I was good luck.

One theory, given most of us didn’t understand Mandarian, is that I may have agreed to marry some of them and they were taking my photo home to mom and dad. *Gulp*