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Friends Don’t Let Friend’s Orgs Get Clickbaited

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Non-Profit Quarterly had a piece last week about an effort to “help” non-profits that is flawed on so many levels.

An advertising company has created a site, Clickbait For Good which is creating clickbait campaigns for charities, apparently without being asked. Setting aside the fact that clickbait has pretty much peaked and worn out its welcome, the images they are using with their campaigns are pretty inappropriate for the associated charities.

It is unclear if the charities consented to the clickbait headlines being created for them on the Clickbait For Good website. One hopes not.

  • For Love 146 (human trafficking): “She fell for Mr. Perfect. You won’t believe what happened next” (with an accompanying image of a seated young girl in a frilly red dress).
  • For Girls Not Brides (child marriage in places like Bangladesh): “OMG! She is just 16 and she has done things the Kardashians haven’t even thought about” (with an accompanying image of an elite wealthy woman wearing a white dress hiked as high as it will go before being pornographic, exiting the backseat of a luxury car carrying a bag containing her latest expensive purchase).
  • For #Milk4Syria: “The ONE thing you need to know about drinking milk.”
  • For American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: “Exclusive: See what happened only a week after Robin Williams’ suicide.”

I checked the webpage out and indeed the images are as cringe worthy as described-

child bride

Non-Profit Quarterly lays it out pretty clearly why these sort of campaigns do more harm than good when it comes to generating investment and trust.

The problem is that this ill-conceived initiative is likely to aggravate more than inspire. The website should offer charities the option to sign up to decline the offer.

Clickbait is sometimes clever, often misleading, always distracting, and by definition overpromises and under-delivers. Clickbait patronizes the donor and at best trivializes the charity’s mission. Nonprofits seek engagement and relationships, not mere clicks. View “counts” may pay the bills in the marketing world, but tricking people into clicking on charity content kills trust, which is the coin of the realm in the voluntary sector.

[…]

Charities cannot game trust. Lying kills donor retention. The headlines above are morally indefensible. Clickbait is like learning to smile from a manual. Philanthropy is not grown in a petri dish. Charity is the result of honest human interaction and concern. Charity needs to be honored, not disgraced.

There is definitely fun to be had with click-baity ads, especially if you are spoofing the format to get people to attend a fun event. But to draw attention and support to serious crises, if there are appropriate, effective uses of the format, I have to imagine they can be counted on one hand.

There may not be a high likelihood that your arts organization will be targeted by one of these ads and the potential impact may not be as bad as for some of these humanitarian organizations. If these campaigns are indeed being created unsolicited, a neighboring organization might be grateful if you alert them to an ad that casts them in a questionable context.

Telling The Story Of Your Overhead

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Our friends at the Non-Profit Happy Hour Facebook group shared the Furniture Bank’s Charity Overhead Manifesto. In the post, the Furniture Bank talks about how much damage resistance to covering overhead can do to their programs.

We have heard many of these arguments before, but Furniture Bank takes the next necessary step of humanizing and discussing the impact of the work “overhead employees” perform.

The reason this is important is because it takes an abstract concept of overhead and specifically shows how overhead costs are manifested in the organization’s operations. Absent this specificity, it is easy to envision overhead going to senior administrator salaries or unsexy equipment and supplies like filing cabinets and copy paper. While this is inevitably the case to some degree, it isn’t the whole story.

This reminds us how important a compelling story can be. Furniture Bank lists what their overhead helps them accomplish:

  • Maintain, insure and run a fleet of 11 trucks, and a team of movers, picking up furniture from donors and delivering them to clients every day;
  • Employ 25-30 individuals each year who would otherwise face barriers to employment;
  • Pay market rent on a 30,000 Sq Ft client showroom;
  • Sustain an organization with 40 hardworking and big hearted employees who:
    • take orders,
    • track inventory,
    • book client appointments,
    • schedule and complete pickups & deliveries,
    • answer donor inquiries,
    • process donations,
    • ensure we have the right technology to run our operations, and
    • undertake the numerous other tasks that must occur every day to ensure that the community’s unwanted furniture goes directly to a family transitioning out of homelessness or displacement.

That format can be a little boring though. They also participate in the Charity Defense Council’s “I’m Overhead” campaign that has created images with Furniture Bank employees discussing what they do which end with a line about the impact they make, (you can see examples of the full ads on the Furniture Bank site.)

“My name is Miro Janes-Richardson. I make sure families have a place they can finally call home, and I’m overhead.”

My name is Yuri Hernandez. I make sure clients have the dignity of choice and don’t have to sleep on the floor, and I’m overhead.”

Miro is a truck crew leader and Yuri is a client services coordinator.

It may be difficult for arts organizations that don’t have a strong human services aspect to their operations to tell as compelling a story as these, but there are still opportunities to illustrate that staff help the organization be good stewards of donations.

For example:

“Do you recognize this flat? It has been in some of your favorite performances over the last five years including Dangerous Liaisons, Amadeus, A Raisin in the Sun and Christmas Carol. Here at the theater, we are great recyclers, repainting and repairing set piece dozens of times, extending their useful lives for years. This reduces our need to purchase lumber, which is good for the environment. But to make it happen, we need to store flats like this one and be clever about changing its appearance so you don’t recognize it when it appears again.

I am Steve and I work magic to make fake trees look real so that real trees can live, and I am overhead.

That five minutes of typing may not have resulted in the most compelling argument for theater operations, but you get the idea.

It isn’t just enough to tell people that they shouldn’t use overhead ratio as a measure of effectiveness, it is also necessary to communicate specific examples that illustrate that what they may envision the raw numbers represent isn’t necessarily the reality.

I don’t doubt that there will still be people who want 95-100% of their donation to be devoted exclusively to program beneficiaries, but linking overhead activities with impact outcomes can help combat decision making strictly by the numbers.

Arts Center, I Choose You!

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I was walking in to work on Saturday and met a woman who has offices in the arts center who told me that there was a Pokemon in the fountain in front of the building.

Sure enough, as part of the new augmented reality game Pokemon Go, when she pointed her phone at the fountain, the virtual map overlay showed a Pokemon in the fountain. She then lamented that someone else was battling to capture it. I assume it was the kid standing on the sidewalk just south of the fountain.

Then she explained that she and her kids had seen some Pokemon in a tree at the Farmers’ Market that morning, but the virtual critters got away.

As we walked into the arts center, her phone informed her my building was a Pokemon center and she told me if I downloaded the app, I could capture them every morning when I came into work.

I asked her how the building and fountain had been designated as spawning points and she said someone must have come along before her, taken a picture of the building and added it to a list of possible points.

At that point, I realized it could be a great boon for getting younger people in the door if they could get their venues included in the game.

Jason Evangelho at Forbes Magazine had the same idea and suggested businesses use the game to lure in customers. Unfortunately, if you read down to the Update postscript at the end, the game creators are the ones who designated these locations using Google Maps, not the general public.

However, Evangelho figures given the opportunities the game represents, they may come up with a way for different places to get themselves added or offer some sort of premium features for game players.

One of the things he mentions places that already are designated as “Pokestops” can do is buy a lure module that attract Pokemons to the location for 30 minutes. (for 100 Pokecoins currently selling for 99 cents.)

It may be worth checking if your location is already designated as a central location in the game so you can think about how to adapt that into your activities.

It should be noted, you may not have any choice in whether you want to accommodate game players. Some police stations designated as Pokemon centers have had a steady stream of people coming in to capture them. It may be necessary to brief staff very soon on whatever customer service policies and procedures you create in response to these visitors. Especially since there have been an increase in accidents due to people paying even more attention to their phones as they swing them about trying to locate their virtual prey.

On the other side, players have posted on social media about the Pokemon company’s sneaky attempts to get them to go back to church.

The game is getting people to wander around in places they haven’t been before so it may increase foot traffic near your organization even if you aren’t a designated game location. Though in an incident echoing the movie Stand By Me, a girl found a dead body when she jumped a fence to find a Pokemon.

All in all, something to be aware of and keep an eye out for associated opportunities. Once it becomes clearer what sort of promotional opportunities exist, I will probably get a post up on ArtsHacker.

Emotionally Intelligent Interview Questions

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Back in March, Entrepreneur magazine website had an article listing 7 Interview Questions to measure Emotional Intelligence. (I have no idea why it says it was published on July 20, 2016 at the bottom.)

Emotional Intelligence is one of those qualities you would think an arts organization would be seeking in an employee. Perhaps I have been working too long with the relatively regimented government human resource system for too long, but I haven’t really seen questions like most of those the article lists used during an interview process.

The first one about who inspires you is almost a no-brainer for the arts. I would say that is probably the one conversation that would naturally unfold in an interview for an arts job without any planning.

I like the second question – “2. If you were starting a company tomorrow, what would be its top three values?” because it is so revelatory about the type of person an interviewee is.

More importantly, the interviewers should ask the same question of themselves…and then evaluate if those values are being exhibited in the organization they are running.

The third question about how one handles communicating and execution changing priorities and the fourth question about building lasting friendships are important for people who are going to be part of a team. Given that non-profit arts organizations are often faced with changing their priorities due to funding, the answer can be helpful in learning how people handle change.

I feel like the fifth question, “5. What skill or expertise do you feel like you’re still missing?” might show more emotional intelligence on the part of the interviewer if it were revised to ask “what skills do you feel like you are missing that this job/we can help you develop.”

The question they ask is essentially a rewording of the standard, “what are your weaknesses.” I think the tweak I gave it can help both reveal the candidate’s self-knowledge as well as their perception of (and research about) the type of work the organization does and what the position will require of them.

I liked the sixth and seventh question for the useful qualities the article outlined.

[highlight]Are there any interview questions you have used/encountered or can think of that are particularly useful for illuminating the emotional intelligence of a job candidate?[/highlight]

Is It Worth Gambling On A High Stakes Raffle Fundraiser?

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Via the Marginal Revolution blog, I recently read a piece on Priceonomics about how the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts was using a loophole in California state law to “raise $4 million by selling $10 million in raffle tickets.”

Since the authors note that other states have a similar loophole (or lack thereof), I thought this could be something of interest to arts organizations in general. While it can be something to explore, before rushing out to organize one, you should also be aware that there are some elements to their raffle that have raised more than a few eyebrows.

Essentially what they do is sell $150 raffle tickets for the opportunity to win a $5 million Dreamhome or a $4 million payout.

Yerba Buena does not buy a house every year, and it is unlikely that it has ever given away the dream home that it advertises on fliers and billboards. Instead, as SFGate has reported, the organization finds someone who is trying and failing to sell their expensive home. The homeowner signs a contract with Yerba Buena agreeing to potentially sell their house, which would allow the nonprofit to give it to the winner of the contest.

[…]

Since taking the dream house comes with a big tax bill, winners always choose the money. SFGate failed to find any winners who moved into the San Francisco dream homes, and this seems to be the case nationwide. “I believe that with most, if not all, [dream house raffles] around the U.S., the winner takes the cash,” says Brian Yacker, a lawyer who works in nonprofit law. “I don’t recall a winner taking the house.”

A San Francisco Chronicle piece on the raffle notes,

Often owners of these homes connect with the Dream House Raffle because the nonprofit will pay them to take their property off the market as it becomes a marketing tool.

“Usually, the nonprofit is not given the home,” Pender wrote. “It might lease it from the owner with an option to buy if the winner chooses the home. The owner gets paid for keeping the house off the market during the raffle, and even if it doesn’t end in a sale, the home gets plenty of free publicity.”

This actually sounds like a smart approach and win-win all around, especially if you know that people will generally choose the money.

What raises eyebrows is the fine print. You only get the dream house or the $4 million payout if a minimum number of tickets are sold, in this case, 65,000. According to that same San Francisco Chronicle article, the art center won’t reveal if they ever reached that minimum in the seven years they have held the raffle and have deflected inquiries by the Better Business Bureau saying it was proprietary information.

The SF Chronicle notes though that even if only 70% of the 65,000 tickets are sold by June 24, the winner still gets to claim 50% of the profit from ticket sales which would come to $3,412,500, not an insignificant amount. They also peg the chances to win some sort prize at 1 in 30.

In terms of the operational nuts and bolts of these types of raffles, Priceonomics reports that California law requires 90% of the raffle proceeds go to the non-profits’ programming. (Though they say thanks to legal maneuvers, Yerba Buena actually spends 60%-80% of the proceeds on the prizes and cost of running the raffle.) Other states have looser requirements,

In other states, no loophole is required. Tennessee law, for example, only requires that 25% of the raffle proceeds go toward charitable causes; in Minnesota, it’s 40%. Massachusetts law just states that a “reasonable” amount of the proceeds should fund the nonprofit’s work.

Now before you start pondering the potential to use a raffle of this scale to make money, you should note Priceonomics’ comments the perceptual issues involved.

For one, there is the ongoing discussion of overhead costs. If people feel like the money they have donated isn’t going toward programming that benefits a needy organization or people that they serve, it can undermine donor confidence. Priceonomics cites a number of instances where people felt burned upon learning that only a small portion of what they gave actually benefited the group they were being solicited to help.

They list a number of examples where organizations have abused people’s ability to gain tax credit for donating homes and vehicles. The SF Chronicle article cites a few sketchy situations with dream home raffles.

Though Priceonomics does note in Yerba Buena’s case,

Most participants in Yerba Buena’s raffle probably would not be shocked to learn that a good chunk of their $150 raffle ticket goes toward the cost of the $4 million cash prize. And since the cost of raffle tickets is not tax-deductible, taxpayers are not subsidizing these fundraisers.

Actually, one of the criticisms of the billboard and bus advertisements for the dreamhome raffle is the fact it is a fundraiser for the arts center is downplayed.

The other perceptual issue Priceonomics cites in relation to raffles of this scale it can be equated with gambling. While a $150 ticket is not going to be viewed as exploiting low income people the way state lotteries are, if people feel like too little is going toward programs, it may create a negative view of the organization.

“The original reason for the 90-10 raffle rule—and having those raffles just for nonprofits—is because it’s not gambling but a fun way to support nonprofits you want to support,” says Berlin. “Once you move away from most of the money going to charity, it looks more like gambling.”

If you think you might want to do a raffle of this sort, it is worth reading both the Priceonomics and SF Chronicle pieces.

The former does a good job analyzing the logistics of such a raffle and ends stating their general admiration of the arts center for freeing up their time to focus on programming rather than fundraising. The SF Chronicle article takes a more skeptical view of the whole arrangement, questioning and then physically verifying the house even exists. Between the two, you can get a good sense of all the questions you might need to answer if you choose to replicate this sort of raffle.

You Probably Don’t Know Just How Good You Are

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Over the years I have read a lot by Peter Drucker on his ideas about leadership and organizational management. I would probably do well to go back and think on what has said again.

With that in mind, I wanted to draw attention back to an entry I wrote about his short essay, Managing Oneself. If you have to choose between them, read Drucker’s piece.

One of the things he says is that people often don’t really know what their strengths and weaknesses really are. The first step one often needs to take is to discover these things for themselves.

As I wrote in my entry a number of years ago,

“Drucker gives a number of interesting examples of how men like Patton, JFK, Eisenhower and Churchill were hampered by situations which emphasized their weaker areas.”

Many tests, especially those administered in schools, measure our skills according to a very narrowly defined set of standards that may not have any relevance to our post-graduate lives.

Knowing that, it really is often incumbent upon ourselves to discover what we are good at, how and in what situations we work best, what our values are and how we can contribute. Managing Oneself strives to teach you how to do just that.

Why People Leave Jobs, It Isn’t What You May Think

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I am going to be on vacation for the next couple weeks. As is my practice, I will be featuring some of the more interesting/thought providing posts from my archives while I am away.

At the risk of making my employer worry that I am not coming back, I wanted to draw attention to an entry I wrote nearly a decade ago about why people leave their jobs.

In that entry I quoted an article by Matthew Kelly where he noted,

“The #1 reason people leave a job is not because they have a dysfunctional relationship with their manager or because they don’t feel appreciated. They leave because they cannot see the connection between the work they are doing today and the future they imagine for themselves.

When employees believe that what they are doing is helping them to accomplish their personal dreams they can tolerate quite a bit. I am not saying that they should, but they can. Without some understanding of the connection between their daily work and their future, employees will leave for the most trivial reasons”

This sentiment is more commonly acknowledged as motivator now than it was back then. In addition to talking about what motivates people to stay or leave, Kelly also lists the costs of employee turnover which include recruitment, training, lost business and productivity.

Great Expectations For Middle of the Road Food

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It is probably no surprise to learn that food brings communities together. CityLab recently had a piece about a group in Tallahassee, FL that received a grant from the Knight Foundation to support a project called “The Longest Table,” intended to bring 400 strangers from all parts of the city,

“…to use the dinner table as a medium for generating meaningful conversation among people of diverse ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds.”

I was thinking this sounded a lot like a project I wrote about last fall that occurred in Akron, OH that also set up tables down the middle of the road in order to bring 500 people together for a meal and discussion about how a highway that was being closed down might be re-purposed.

It turns out on closer investigation, not only was that also sponsored by the Knight Foundation, there was an earlier iteration of the Tallahassee meal that occurred last October within a week of the one in Akron.

I think this is secretly a plot by the Knight Foundation to identify the best cooks around the country for some nefarious end!

Actually, an element of that was central to the Akron 500 Plates project. (the identifying good cooks part, not nefarious plotting)

The artists and collaborators collected recipes from each of the 22 neighborhoods in the city and printed them on each of the plates so that everyone went home with a recipe from someone in the community. Then they built tables and distributed them to each of the neighborhoods to provide a gathering point at which conversations and community meals could continue.

500 Plates has made the recipes and toolkit for replicating this in the neighborhoods and other cities available on their website.

The participants in both projects talk about how the format lends itself to discussing somewhat sensitive topics because the environment sets people a little more at ease. This type of event may help arts organizations come in contact and start a conversation with the elusive demographic of people we never meet in order to learn what their barriers to involvement are.

Contemplating The Claw Back

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I frequently write about the need to have a donation acceptance policy. In addition to not having the resources to handle non-cash donations, some donations come with conditions that do not correspond well to organizational missions. Recently many donors have required institutions and buildings be renamed as a condition of their giving.

Sometimes there are problematic issues surrounding the way in which donations are handled or evaluated as well as with the people making the donations.

An article on Non-Profit Quarterly today falls into this latter category and should serve as a cautionary tale for non-profits.

Long story short, two company executives made large donations to Oregon State University and University of Oregon. After an investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission characterized their business model as a classic Ponzi scheme.

As a result,

…a receiver has been appointed by the federal court to rescue as much of investors’ funds as possible by closing dozens of Aequitas-created subsidiaries and investment funds. And when that happens, there is every possibility that the court will also try to “claw back” some of those donated dollars.

My first reaction upon reading about the claw back was, “they can do that?” Obviously, given a second to think, if you were one of those bilked investors you would certainly respond, “Hell yeah they can!”

Unfortunately in this case, in order for someone to be made whole, someone else has to lose. NPQ reports that University of Oregon has already spent the money. How things might proceed in trying to recover the funds, I am not sure.

There was also a little lesson in the NPQ article about crisis management communications. Author Ruth McCambridge had a little criticism for an Oregon State spokesperson who was trying to downplay the impact of one of the donor’s involvement on the many advisory committees his largess garnered an appointment to. (my emphasis)

He was on the college’s Entrepreneurial Education Advisory Board, the Austin Entrepreneurship Program Advisory Board, and the “Dean’s Circle of Excellence,” which is made up of large donors.

In short, the relationship is pretty intimate, but OSU spokesman Steve Clark says that is essentially no big loss. “A businessperson or business representative on a board like that is one of many voices,” Clark said. “They don’t actually establish a course, a direction or a philosophy for the college—in this case the College of Business—but they provide advice, guidance and support to the dean. Their involvement, or their lack of involvement in the future, would not affect the direction of the college.”

Way to go on making the surviving donors feel special, Steve.

Now if I am being honest, I probably would have said something even worse. Assuaging the concerns of one group of people without insulting another is a tough line to walk.

And lest you think financial malfeasance like this doesn’t occur often, this is the second time this particular bolt of lightning has struck the University of Oregon. Back in the 1990s they ended up returning $850,000 to the court appointed receiver and removed the name of the donor from their law school.

I have to think these people weren’t only donating to large universities. The only consolation a smaller organization might have is that the amount donated to them may not be worth trying to recover. On the other hand, in aggregate even relatively small donations can add up to a significant amount.

While it is probably close to impossible for most non-profit arts organizations to identify donations that may potentially boomerang, it can be useful to consider how you might respond in that situation. Even the question of the timing and effort you might put into returning or retaining the funds one year after vs 5 years after it has been spent can be important to contemplate.

Stuff To Ponder: Cultivating Creativity For Corporations

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I frequently advocate for arts organizations to find ways to help for-profit companies instill creativity and energy in their employees. Last month, the Partnership Movement of Americans for the Arts posted an essay with some case studies illustrating how this might be accomplished.

The Partnership Movement post talks about the benefits of partnering with arts organizations in the context of employee retention and engagement, providing statistics about how companies with engaged employees tend to have better revenue growth and lower employee turn over.

In general, the case studies provide some conceptual starting points for identifying a need and designing partnership programs to meet them.

The Arts & Science Council of Charlotte, NC created a Cultural Leadership Training (CLT) program to help cultivate new board leaders for the non-profit organizations in the region. At one point in the year long program, they hold a “speed dating” session to match participants with arts organizations seeking new board members.

Over the last 10 years participation in the program has become highly competitive and is a tool that the businesses themselves have used to identify potential leaders.

This self-selection process sometimes helps companies to identify ambitious and talented employees whom they might otherwise have overlooked. “Firms absolutely use CLT to identify potential leadership candidates,” says Mooring. “We had one law firm tell us that they would not have picked a certain employee as leadership material, but they transformed their opinion of that employee’s potential within the firm after watching that person go through our program and serve successfully on an arts board.”

Alternatively, companies can use CLT as a low-risk way to test whether an employee who is already identified as “leadership material” lives up to his or her potential by watching how that person performs during CLT and post-graduation on an arts board.

This case study helped assuage some of my concerns about how receptive employees of a business might be to participating in a hands-on practical arts experience. It sounds good in theory, but how do you put it into practice with people who may not see themselves as artistically inclined?

“The first time we tried asking the CLT participants to participate in art, we were kind of terrified,” she admits. “The people in our classes are bankers and lawyers and accountants. What if we put violins in their hands and they freaked out and just refused to participate?”

In fact, just the opposite happened. It turned out that everybody not only wanted to play music—they wanted to try every instrument!

Not only did the executives enjoy the participatory and creative elements of the CLT program, it turned out that the experiential aspects of the program actually made the education part “stickier” or more memorable.

Of course, one caveat to remember. The CLT participants were all self-selected. Mandatory or highly encouraged employee participation may result in a different experience.

The other case study, COCAbiz, a program created by Center of Creative Arts (COCA) in St. Louis is more along the lines of what I initially envisioned when I started thinking about how arts organizations can help businesses cultivate creative practices and thinking in their employees. COCAbiz works with teaching artists to help them create and deliver programs businesses find effective for their employees.

Depending on its partners’ needs, COCAbiz uses teaching artists from a variety of artistic disciplines including choreography, set design, theater, and poetry. Working with the business facilitators, these teaching artists help business people discover new skills and approaches in areas such as leadership, collaboration, communication, risk-taking, creativity, and presentation skills.

A number of the participants have found these classes invaluable to shifting their mindset and practices to be more constructive.

One part of the workshop consisted of improvisational theater. “These improv exercises helped me realize that to be an effective influencer, you really have to listen to other people and incorporate their ideas,” says Boland….Rather than just pushing my own agenda, I had to figure out what the other person wanted to get out of the skit and incorporate their ideas, too.”

[…]

“Much of my job involves synthesizing observations and then analyzing data to create strategies,” says Wurth. “Experiencing how actors and directors use the See-Think-Wonder method showed me a really powerful way to communicate and offer suggestions in a way that promotes dialogue rather than shutting it down.”

When people from COCAbiz talk about how they developed and delivered this program, collecting feedback and revising comes up frequently as an important part of their process. There was a sense that the business community with which they worked had high level of expectations of the program so they couldn’t leave any part unexamined.

Stuff To Ponder: Who’s Volunteering? Who’s Not Volunteering?

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VolunteerMatch’s Engaging Volunteers blog recently drew attention to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report (BLS) that shows volunteer rates are continuing to drop.

As the post author Tessa Srebro notes, the BLS report gives us a lot of statistics about what demographic groups are more likely to volunteer than others, but-

What don’t we see? We don’t see the why.

There’s an endless supply of reasons that could explain why volunteer rates are falling. Last year, upon seeing the results, VolunteerMatch President Greg Baldwin argued that volunteer rates are falling because we as a nation don’t invest enough resources in the nonprofit sector. Without resources, nonprofits simply don’t have the capacity to effectively engage volunteers.

Someone in the comments of that post argued that the falling rates can be attributed to the fact that more people are overworked with less time on their hands. Others say people are simply lazier than they used to be.

I personally think it could be attributed to a shifting trend away from community involvement, due to the emergence of online communities, young people moving more often, and other factors.

There were a good number of comments to the Engaging Volunteers post and the number continues to grow. A large number of the commenters express frustration with the organizations they approached being un(der)prepared to train or employ them. Another common complaint was that the organizations wanted them to fulfill menial tasks rather than ones that challenged and engaged their interest.

I am not sure what the percentages have been in the past, but in this recent survey by BLS, the percentage of people who started volunteering after they were asked (41.2%) is almost exactly equal the number who were motivated to volunteer on their own (41.6%).

Given that this latter number represents those who are actively volunteering, it is possible that the percentage of people who are self-motivated to seek volunteer experiences is far larger than those who are motivated by the request of others. That 41.6% doesn’t include self-motivated people whose efforts were frustrated and are not volunteering.

As I have mentioned before, effectively utilizing free labor requires a significant investment of money, resources and attention.

There is a lot in the Engaging Volunteer’s post and the BLS report to consider and so much we don’t know about volunteers’ motivations. There seems to be an increasing desire to have a volunteer experiences be meaningful.

Thinking back to the Hewlett Foundation report I wrote on last month that suggested non-profit CEO’s were looking to continue working for a longer period of time with their organizations, albeit in a diminished role, perhaps it is not too far a reach to extrapolate that skilled professionals in general might desire to continue to apply their high level skills in a volunteer role after they enter retirement.

One last thing I wanted to point out for consideration is the breakdown of areas of interest for different demographic groups the BLS report shows. Knowing this might help your organization better design volunteer experiences for people. (Though you don’t want to stereotype.)

For example, while “Collecting, preparing, distributing, or serving food was the activity volunteers performed most often” according to the BLS report,

…main activities differed among men and women. Men who volunteered were most likely to engage in general labor (12.3 percent); coach, referee, or supervise sports teams (9.3 percent); or collect, prepare, distribute, or serve food (9.2 percent). Female volunteers were most likely to collect, prepare, distribute, or serve food (12.9 percent); tutor or teach (10.6 percent); or fundraise (9.9 percent)

There are similar trends based on education level, marital status and whether people have kids.

But, We Will Be Careful #FamousLastWords

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The one activity related to performances that regularly is a source of frustration for my staff is getting certificates of liability insurance from people.

This is one of those requirements common to both contracts for venues one is renting to mount a performance and contracts venues/promoters send artists requesting they provide some sort of performance.

I wrote a piece covering what liability insurance is and how to go about getting it for ArtsHacker.

Since the goal of ArtsHacker posts is to provide a relatively quick reference about topics, I didn’t really get too deeply into WHY the coverage is important.

Just a quick explanation for those who don’t want soak in more of my genius on ArtsHacker. Liability insurance,

“protects you (and the spaces in which you work) against lawsuits from the public resulting from accidents, injuries, insults etc. Note: this insurance does NOT cover you or your employees.”  (Source: National Performance Network)

People generally accept that they have to pay to use a space and equipment just like they have to pay for costumes, set pieces, props, musical equipment, etc., all these things make for a better experience. Insurance just seems like an extra unwarranted expense that doesn’t contribute to the success of the event so they resist the requirement to obtain coverage.

About 15 years ago when I first started managing a performance hall I insisted every renter carry this insurance. The first group this applied to grumbled that they were never required to carry it before, but complied. In one of the performances one of their stage hands wasn’t paying attention and lowered our rear projection screen on a row of strip lights melting a lovely long gash right across the screen.

Since that day, I have blessed my insistence that they carry the insurance because that is what paid to get the screen replaced.  Neither the renter or my department could have afforded it. Since then I have never wavered in my determination to require that every renter carry it. I have shown up before load-ins on weekends when I could be relaxing if it was necessary to play the bad guy and refuse a group entry due to lack of insurance coverage.

Fortunately, I have never run into another situation that required an insurance claim to be filed. But there have been dozens of instances where renters damaged something they elected to replace out of pocket. There have been plenty of close calls as well.

For many of the same reasons, it is becoming an increasingly common practice to require performers one has contracted in for an event to carry the insurance. They are bringing in equipment that you are not familiar with. You don’t know how well-maintained it is. They may insist that no one else touch certain equipment. While that prevents you from being blamed for breaking it, you also don’t get a chance to inspect it closely.

So what happens when a speaker stack they built falls into the audience? What happens if a singer starts swinging the microphone overhead and it flies off the cable and someone gets hit? If a sword slips out of someone’s hand during a combat scene? If the lead singer elbows someone in the face while crowd surfing? If a member of the stage crew anchors a hammock to the mechanism that releases the fire curtain in an emergency and takes a nap? (true story)

Do you as the venue want to be responsible for things you have no direct control over like poor condition of equipment and poor decision making?

Many artists’ require that the venue or promoter reciprocate and carry various types of insurance to protect against these exact same issues on their part.

Large shows usually have the liability insurance set up because they know it is going to be required. Smaller groups may not be as familiar with it and don’t carry it as a practice. There can be a lot of negotiation and conversations between all parties involved in these situations.

Occasionally we may waive the requirement for groups we contract to perform if we don’t think there will be much danger of damage. But if you are going to do that, my advice is to have a complete understanding of what the performers are going to do. Don’t just blithely assume classical musicians aren’t going to do something extreme. I have had people raise the lid and remove the music rack on a grand piano so they could set glasses of water on the strings or strike/pluck them with various objects.  (If God wanted a piano played with a claw hammer, he would have designed it that way.)

 

This Painting Best Viewed From Downward Facing Dog

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With the news that people are increasingly valuing a degree of interactivity in their cultural experiences sitting in the back of my mind, I have been keeping my eyes open for interesting practices.

One thing that recently came to my attention was a program the Spartanburg Art Museum is creating for “art-savvy senior.”

Yeah, everyone is concentrating on attracting younger audiences, but you can’t ignore the fact the Baby Boomer generation is retiring and looking for things to do.

There is much to like about this new Classic Contemporaries program. Perhaps one of the most appealing aspects is that there really isn’t any of the usual cliche terminology in the name that implies it is for senior citizens. This may impede some of their communication efforts, but for those who feel 70 is the new 50, it may resonate more closely with their self image.

The first event connected with the Classic Contemporaries program is the museum’s Cognitive Dissonance show.

“Four main components within the Classic Contemporaries program bring education, socializing, and creative exploration together. Participants will take part in a presentation that gives some historical background to the medium of ceramics, followed by a tour of the current exhibition, Cognitive Dissonance. Lunch is served, and for those feeling encouraged to stretch their creative muscles, there is time to learn about working with ceramics in an informal studio setting.”

Their planned activities include elements things that people value in an arts and cultural experience – expanding knowledge, socialization, opportunity for hands on participation and food.

Poking around the rest of their site, I was interested to see they offered a class in making ceramic sushi serving trays, plates, soy sauce dishes and tea cups culminating in a sushi party at the last class meeting.

Apparently every other Wednesday, they hold yoga classes in their gallery amid the art works. If nothing else, Uttanasana pose will give participants a new perspective on the works around them.

I am sure there are a lot of arts organizations out there offering a lot of fun and interesting activities that I haven’t heard of. My guess is that many readers haven’t heard of them either so please feel free to share some ideas and examples.

No, Everyone Is NOT Giving It Up For Free Stuff

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Last Wednesday I made a post about non-profit arts organizations deserving to expect a little more of their customer relationship management (CRM) software. I briefly referenced the fact that collecting a lot of data on people could potentially become creepy and intrusive.

This drew the attention of Drew McManus who expounded upon the idea in a post of his own, saying:

I can’t remember the last time ethics were part of a discussion about CRM capabilities but it is never a bad idea to ask “just because we can use technology to do a thing, does it mean we should?” Consequently, it’s good to see these questions work their way into larger discussions about features and functionality.

This idea dovetailed well with a recent study that suggested marketers are misrepresenting the American’s public willingness to trade privacy for discounts.

“..a majority of Americans are resigned to giving up their data—and that is why many appear to be engaging in tradeoffs…Rather than feeling able to make choices, Americans believe it is futile to manage what companies can learn about them. Our study reveals that more than half do not want to lose control over their information but also believe this loss of control has already happened.

By misrepresenting the American people and championing the tradeoff argument, marketers give policymakers false justifications for allowing the collection and use of all kinds of consumer data often in ways that the public find objectionable.

Among their findings are that:

• 91% disagree (77% of them strongly) that “If companies give me a discount, it is a fair exchange for them to collect information about me without my knowing.”

• 71% disagree (53% of them strongly) that “It’s fair for an online or physical store to monitor what I’m doing online when I’m there, in exchange for letting me use the store’s wireless internet, or Wi-Fi, without charge.”

• 55% disagree (38% of them strongly) that “It’s okay if a store where I shop uses information it has about me to create a picture of me that improves the services they provide for me.”

The authors of the study note there is an inconsistency between these responses and actual behavior. Contrary to the third finding, when it comes to supermarket discount cards, 40% of those who don’t agree with the third statement participate in grocery store discount programs. The authors say this inconsistency arises from both the sense of resignation and a lack of understanding about what merchants and websites are legally allowed to do.

Among the examples they give are that 49% of people think a supermarket and 69% think a pharmacy needs your permission to sell your data. 65% think that if a website has a privacy policy, it means they won’t sell your data. All these are untrue.

“55% do not know it is legal for an online store to charge different people different prices at the same time of day.” (The same erroneous belief is held by 62% of people regarding off-line/physical stores.)

The study is interesting to read because it discusses how the research conducted by marketing and consulting firms finds people express a strong discomfort with the way personal data is handled. Observing the inconsistency between the expression of discomfort and action, the firms have chosen to interpret this as consciously choosing to trade privacy for benefits. While the study authors suggest that the irrational choices are due to resignation and ignorance, it is difficult to clearly discern the truth.

If nothing else, like teen promiscuity statistics, this trade off study helps to provide a sense that no, everyone else isn’t necessarily doing it.

I almost wish I had held off writing my post on CRM last week because a day later, I had a real life illustration of what the study was suggesting. I was presenting our board of directors some examples of the CRM capabilities available through the ticketing software services we had been considering. The examples contained a list of tickets and donations made by a hypothetical customer along with standard address information and notes about relationships with some people and employers.

Because the example was meant to illustrate the history of an avid attendee over the course of a number of years as they purchased tickets, merchandise and made donations, the bulk of the information was rather repetitive and mundane. For example, there were a lot of $2 donations for what was either a tacked on restoration fee or the guy rounding up his bill by donating to that fund.

The issue was, this made record of activity rather long and cover a few pages. People were concerned about amount of data that appeared was being collected on a person (all be much of it in $2 increments). It didn’t take long for someone to point out that far more data was being collected by Amazon, other retailers and websites than actually appeared on the sample profile I had provided. By then other people had already begun expressing resignation that this sort of thing was inescapable.

This reaction left me a little anxious that my hopes of making fundraising and marketing efforts more effective with better data collection and evaluation might get impeded right from the start. Later, thinking about it in the context of the trade-off study, I could see some benefit in providing some transparency and actually encouraging some oversight of the data usage by the board. That way they could better understand the process and provide assurances to the greater community that we were handling the information responsibly. Hopefully such assurances would result in increased confidence and support of the organization.

Info You Can Use: Getting Meaningful Feedback From Your Community

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Last month, I wrote about attending a session at creative industry conference where Marc Folk, Executive Director of The Arts Commission in Toledo, spoke about learning that one needs to go out to the community as a guest, asking to be hosted at meetings, gatherings, etc.

At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly how that idea translated into practice. Initially I envisioned something akin to the  electoral process in NH where people host intimate meetings with political candidates in their homes or perhaps being invited to speak at a community or church meeting.

I also thought that he might have meant participating as a true guest at first where you weren’t necessarily the focus of attention as a speaker, etc, but just invited to sit quietly and observe the first time out.

Marc had mentioned sometimes there was a tendency to view yourself as “riding in on a white horse” to save a community so I thought being the guest of honor at a meeting might reinforce that conceit.

Just last week, Margy Waller addressed the same issue in an Americans for the Arts blog post, “We Are From the Arts and We’re Here to Help.”

“In one of the sessions, a group of participants had a passionate discussion on using the word “help.” They noted that it really isn’t possible to have a conversation about an equitable community if one party is offering to help the other. The word help itself implies that one group has more than the other—more to offer, more knowledge, more resources, more capacity, and so on. Using the word help shifts the perceived balance of power—in a way likely to shut down true collaboration and partnership efforts.

The solution? If you find yourself using the word help when talking about the role of arts in community, stop. Listen carefully and ask whether this is really the way toward an equitable community.”

Curious about the process he and his staff used, I reached out to Marc just prior to the holidays to learn more, summarizing my impressions and assumptions noted above. With his permission, I am reprinting a portion of his response:

Our approach utilized a combination of techniques, including what you listed above.

As far as process we first identified a local community partner.  If possible, it was a community center or arts center in the neighborhood.  We then reached out to the leadership of the center or another community group if the center did not have leadership, or there was no center and asked for a meeting.  We then met with them and/or their board leadership to ask for their help in organizing a community meeting.

Once a meeting was called, we went back into the community centers/host venues and held “a listening tour” if you will.  An important technique was that we hired a facilitator/consultant that facilitated these sessions.  This created a degree of separation between the Arts Commission staff and the community issue and allowed for a more open and candid dialog from the community.

Out of this, we became more connected with “culture” or activities in these neighborhoods which has led to the building of genuine relationships.

A copy of the plan can be found here.

The reports from the neighborhood conversations can be found at the back of the plan.

I think the most important lesson is about language syntax/communication and authentic relationship development.  My point at the conference about the white horse or “going into these neighborhoods” revealed much about our perspectives and gave great clue to where we needed to start our work.

For those that are interested, the neighborhood reports start around page 50 of the strategic plan.

I greatly appreciate Marc taking the time to outline the process for me. The importance of involving a facilitator was something I suspected in the back of my mind that he confirmed.

Based on his response, I have already started a conversation with my board president about how we might adapt this in our own community. I have mentioned to colleagues at other arts organizations I had some ideas I wanted to run past them in the hopes of establishing a cooperative listening tour.

This Is Not The Ticketing Site You Were Looking For

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As the holiday season approaches, I am remind of the less than altruistic truth that others are eager to make money off your success..even if you don’t perceive yourself as successful.

Close to two years ago I wrote about a compliant I was called to the box office to address which turned out to be the result of another ticketing site masquerading as ours.

In the last day Thomas Cott tweeted a similar story about the Colorado Ballet’s Nutcracker tickets being bought up and sold at up to $1,100 for $155 tickets. In this particular instance, with tacked on fees, two tickets cost $3,000.

Even though the Ballet has received its money, the problem, as the Ballet’s ticketing manager says, is one of access.

Part of the problem comes when audiences can’t afford overinflated ticket prices and then stop considering going to the ballet altogether.

“We love supporting our community and we have our ticket prices set so that… every family that wants to come see The Nutcracker can,” Clark said.

This article was particularly timely because I recently noticed that the top Google results for our theater was a site with the pattern “theatrename.box-officetickets.com.” They are selling some of our events at 4.5 times the face value.

It isn’t just us. I did a little more searching with common theater names and Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Fox Theatre in Detroit and Bijou Theater in Knoxville all have sites with the same URL pattern that show up.

Lest you think that only big productions at famous venues are vulnerable, my theater is located in a rural area and the show in question two years ago was an Elvis impersonator. There was a good crowd scheduled to show up, but it was hardly the most heavily in demand event.

It doesn’t take much effort to check the Google results for the search terms including your theater name and location and see what shows up as selling your tickets. In addition to the theatername.box-officetickets.com address, I have also seen theatername.ticketofficesales.com as a common site names. I am sure there are others.

It can be good to remind potential and existing customers of the official ticket outlets. The fact that these are not the official websites are quickly apparent to many people, but to those not accustomed to navigating the internet and purchasing things online, it isn’t as clear.

At the prices some of these places are charging, all it takes is just a couple of people making purchases to make it worth their while.

N.B. In the comments, Marc Fleming shares a link to a video the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust created to combat this issue.

Positive Signs For Reimbursement Of Overhead Costs

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You may remember back in January that I wrote about the new rules promulgated by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requiring that any entity receiving federal funds much cover at least 10% of a non-profit’s overhead costs.

Don’t worry, its okay if you don’t remember. But this is relatively important and bears repeating.

One of the concerns at the time was that state and local governments and other funders might pressure non-profits with whom they contract or provide grants to waive a their right to receive overhead costs. The OMB rules prohibit this, but if a non-profit isn’t aware of the rules or are afraid to advocate for themselves, the problem may continue.

Given this context, it was a positive sign when the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to adopt the OMB guidelines and to write a letter to the state government to do the same.

It may not seem significant for a governing body to agree to adhere to the conditions under which federal funding was allocated, but as Non-Profit Quarterly notes there are “rob Peter to pay Paul” concerns about how funding may be manipulated.

Rules do not implement themselves without strong nonprofit monitoring and oversight—hopefully, as in this case, in partnership with government authorities. In this case, not only are the supervisors talking to state officials, but they will also be developing an implementation strategy in consultation with Los Angeles nonprofits, which we presume, based on what we have seen as policy statements from CalNonprofits, ought to address how to ensure that higher indirect cost reimbursements do not occur at the cost of lessening service delivery.

As I had noted in my earlier post, the National Council of Non Profits created a guide to educate organizations about the rules and provide responses to assertions from funding entities that the rules don’t apply.

One thing I had mentioned was that arts organizations should note that these rules likely apply to the funding you receive through your state or regional arts organization:

One- it doesn’t matter whether it is called a contract or grant or any other term, the rules are based on the substance of the transaction.

Two – Sub-recipient non-profits who are required to acknowledge part of the funding is received from the federal government are covered under these rules.

You Want To Do Better, But Aren’t Sure How

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A week ago I wrapped up my final post about the arts entrepreneurship training programs being developed in colleges and universities by pointing out that there was still the unmet need of artists who had already embarked on their careers.

I think the challenge faced by artists is summed up pretty well in the comments section of an article in The Guardian titled “Creating wealth: how artists can become inventive entrepreneurs”

Here is screenshot of the comments:

guardian snip

While there is a constant refrain that artists and arts organizations need to handle themselves in a more business-like manner, there aren’t a lot of sources of information and training that is tailored to the needs of creatives.

Wendy McLean’s comment is a reaction to the fact the story was framed as coming from members of the Guardian’s Small Business Network group, but when she went to sign up, the questions asked gave the impression it wasn’t really suited to her at all.

As the second commenter OddBodkin points out, any time you spend trying to distill lessons from generic information sources in order to discern what might be applicable to your situation, that is time you aren’t spending on your core creative focus.

It can be difficult to create a training program that is suited to artists. A regular schedule of classes may not work well for people with varying rehearsal and performance commitments that have them traveling all over a region or for artists who get so focused on creating they don’t look up until 11:00 pm.

Online resources that one can consult at their own pace can be very helpful, but guidance and clarification from a live person is just as valuable. Networks of colleagues can solve this problem, but frequently you simply don’t know what you don’t know.

I don’t have any clear cut solutions to suggest. You know I will share them when I find them.

There are good resources like Fractured Atlas that are revved and ready to help creative folks develop their careers.

I also want to put a plug in for ArtsHacker. (As you may know I am a contributor there.) While the site offers tips generated by the writers, it also solicits questions and problems readers for which readers would like solutions.

When the site opened about 11 months ago, I thought we would be fielding bunches of questions before long but there haven’t been too many. I know you all have burning questions you want answered, so get asking!

What Do We Mean When We Say Entrepreneur?

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Final day of observations on last weekend’s Society for Arts Entrepreneurship in Education (SAEE)  conference.

The Terms We Use Matter

Some of the best observations about teaching students entrepreneurship were made by Jeffrey Nytch from the University of Colorado-Boulder. There is a lot of conversation going on about how students need to be taught to be entrepreneurial with attendant ideas of what that means, but Nytch’s observations provide some grounding for that discussion.

He noted that what entrepreneurship is not, is pounding the pavement and marketing one self.  Entrepreneurship is creating value and implementing solutions to meet needs, which by definition is not primarily focused on getting yourself employed, but serving others. Among the other characteristics he listed were recognizing opportunity, customer focus, flexibility/adaptability, risk assessment (taking calculated risks), resourcefulness and an ability at storytelling.

He also emphasized that teaching entrepreneurship  has to focus on being strategic rather than providing prescriptive solutions like this is how to do marketing, this is how to apply for grants, this is how you get non-profit status etc.

When talking about teaching students to be entrepreneurs, it is probably important to be clear about what outcomes you are envisioning when you use that term. As a result of Nytch’s presentation, I have been careful to use phrases like “entrepreneurial mindset” and “teach students entrepreneurial skills” in previous posts in an attempt to delineate these activities from a engaging in a full entrepreneurial venture.

Mentoring Is Local and Global

There was another conversation about using mentoring to transition students to entrepreneurship.  A good deal of the focus was on helping people after they graduated.

Something that came up often during the conference was that university career service offices have a hard time working with arts students because their career path is so nebulous. It is easy to direct students with business, education, science, teaching, pre-law and pre-med degrees because career progression is fairly well understood.

In much the same way, it can be difficult for career services to provide support to entrepreneurs because by definition they seek to walk the road less traveled.

Among the suggestions that were made, most of them by a recent graduate, was using social media to create connections between entrepreneur programs across the country. One could easily find their ideal team members living elsewhere and you don’t necessarily all have to be located in the same geographic area to be productive.

Along the same lines was a suggestion for providing some basic support and access to graduates of partner programs. A person may graduate in one place but move elsewhere to start their venture so it would be good to be able to tap into the list of local mentors another program had identified. (Imagine how great it would be to be recognized for bolstering the local economy by “stealing” graduates of other programs from those communities thanks to your mentor and incubator network.)

It was also suggested that students be invited to the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship in Education (SAEE) conferences so they can share their experiences with the assembled educators. Especially in terms of what aspects of their training did and did not prove valuable to avoid reinventing the wheel or replicating the same mistakes as someone else.

Miscellaneous Thoughts And Resources

Michael Bills who directs the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Ohio State University said they were only offering entrepreneurship as a minor at the undergraduate level because they felt that entrepreneurship is a graduate level pursuit. (I should note this is a university wide program out of their business school rather specific to an arts entrepreneurship program.)

This is based on the concept of the T shaped skills. Briefly, the vertical bar of the T represents the depth of your skills, the horizontal bar is the ability to collaborate across disciplines. Their thought is that you develop your depth as an undergrad and then really focus on your ability to collaborate as a graduate.

I have heard similar philosophies about fine arts disciplines and know there are some universities that won’t teach arts administration as an undergraduate major based on the same concept.

DePauw University recently created a site called 21CM.org (21st Century Musician) as a resource and place for conversations among musicians about developing an entrepreneurial mindset. It is intentionally devoid of any mention of DePauw other than the copyright notice at the bottom of the page. The About section makes no mention of the school and the conference presenters pointed out the site doesn’t bear DePauw’s colors.

The school took the same approach in establishing a public music space for “courageous music making” in their hometown of Greencastle, IN. The space isn’t branded with DePauw’s name or colors (it actually appears to use the 21CM.org colors) though the website uses DePauw’s domain.

In both cases, the goal is for the community of participants to take ownership of the respective resources.

That is generally the extent of my notes from the conference that fit into the general theme of these three posts. It will be interesting to see how SAEE grows as an organization and how the whole concept of artist as entrepreneur (and how best to teach those skills) evolves over time.

Even as there is a need to introduce this type of instruction in undergraduate/graduate/conservatory training, there is also the obvious unmet need to train people who have passed that stage, may have some career experience and wish to acquire additional skills or engage in a venture of their own.

Making Ticket Refundability The Customer’s Choice

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When conversations about demand based pricing for the performing arts comes up, there is often a comparison made to the airlines and the way they factor in dozens of variables when they price their seats. One airline practice that doesn’t get mentioned is the refundable fare where you pay more in return for the right to cancel the ticket.

The right to exchange, and sometimes even get a refund for tickets, has long been a benefit extended to performance subscribers. Now that subscription sales are fading, perhaps it is time to think about applying it to single tickets?

The thought came to me when I was reading an story on a Microsoft blog about Jet.com The company is heavy into dynamic pricing to the point where the price of an item changes while it is in your shopping cart as variables are factored.

One of the ways people can lower the price of an item is to agree not to return it.

At checkout, customers can waive the right to return certain items, driving the cost down further; choosing one credit card over another — or paying directly from a checking account — takes dollars off, too. The system also suggests purchasing combinations that can save customers money.

With greater control over these variables, shoppers can strike their own personal balance between cost and convenience, something Lore’s team saw as missing in the industry. “The whole concept of Jet is to make transparent all of the costs that go into an e-commerce transaction, and then empower consumers to pull out costs as they see fit.

So what if you offer the opportunity to return tickets for an extra $5-$10 per ticket charge?

Generally the motivation for not allowing returns is fear of not being able to resell a ticket. There are also the labor costs and credit card transaction fees associated with processing a refund. Having different pricing makes the economics of all this more transparent and shifts some control to the purchaser.

If you do decide to allow a refund on a ticket sold as non-refundable, the rationale for a fee is clear. I know some performing arts organization charge an exchange fee which can seem punitive. In the context of this type of discount program, it can seem less so since the customer was offered the choice and the price difference has already been discussed.

I am not advocating this as a new source of income. There are social and emotional transactions that occur during the refund process, the results of which may not be directly correlated to whether a full refund was granted or not. It is better when the subject never comes up, regardless of whether you are generating any income from the exchange.

Still, it is something to think about. Especially if the choice of a discount in exchange for waiving the ability to make a return becomes more widespread and familiar.

If such an approach is implemented, it would definitely need to be handled at the time of sale from the positive perspective of “All our tickets are refundable, but you can get an additional discount if you don’t think you will want to exchange/refund,” rather than a more negative, “it will be an additional $10 if you want to be allowed to get a refund.”

Airlines handle it in the latter manner. Just think how much happier you would be if the $500 ticket were only $300 if you waived the right to a refund.

Airlines can’t really it that way because people initially hunt for the lowest price. They gain advantage from advertising the lowest price and adding costs as you choose options.

Price hunting doesn’t factor as much into the decision about which production to see so arts organizations have a little more flexibility in that respect.

I would be curious to see if a higher level of satisfaction might result from implementing this type of pricing. Would people feel more satisfaction secure in the knowledge they can either get a refund at any time or having gotten a great discount to something they fully intended to see anyway?

I imagine it would depend on the demographics of the community. Younger people and families might appreciate the low risk flexibility. More established audiences might view the unorthodox approach and additional level of pricing as confusing.

Just Pray Your Grandma Doesn’t Run Against You For Homecoming Queen

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Recently I have been seeing more stories about shared use of public buildings. In Bremen, Germany, the city philharmonic is sharing space with students in a local school building. In Cleveland, music students from the Cleveland Institute of Music live in a retirement community.

Now I see a Massachusetts school near Boston was shares space with the local senior citizen center.

But during the early phases of planning, as his team met with officials, they realized that the needs of the town’s elderly overlapped quite neatly with those of its teenagers. At the time, the senior center was using a small Victorian house that fell far short of accessibility standards.

The senior center had a strong dance program, Poinelli recalls learning. “We said, ‘Well, we have a dance room in the high school.’ In the winter, they took seniors in a bus to a local shopping center to walk—I said, ‘Well, we have this huge field house, you could use that.’ There was so much overlap, and it just seemed to make sense.”

[…]

Members of a knitting circle taught several students to knit, for example, and high-school sports teams give presentations to the senior men’s group, sharing their strategy for the upcoming season. Kids in need of community-service hours help serve lunch at the senior center, and veterans have been asked to talk to students about their service. The senior center gets 25 free tickets to every high-school performing arts event, and last year, the seniors’ dance team performed at the high-school talent show.

I was immediately struck by how this arrangement helps keep arts in the schools. It increases the demand for, and use of, arts facilities which helps justify their expense.

Even more importantly, it connects the interests and political clout of the largest generation as they retire to those of public education.

There is likely to be less grumbling about property taxes and not having any kids in school if people have an emotional connection to the students. They may also be more likely to advocate on behalf of the students. If retirees are using the same facilities as students, I suspect they will be better maintained.

If there is frequent contact between students and retirees, there may be subtle positive impacts on behavior and attendance thanks to the socialization.

Arts Participation Tied To Education, Not Wealth

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Some encouraging news coming from Pacific Standard in support of the growing trend to focus on participatory arts experiences over simple attendance. According to the results of a new study conducted in England,

“…most forms of arts participation are strongly correlated not with class, but rather with education. To his surprise, he found that in a large sample of the English population, those with higher incomes were actually less likely to be active participants in the arts.”

Let’s get it out of the way right at the beginning and acknowledge that arts participation may be more integral to the English education experience than the U.S. so this finding may not be completely applicable to the U.S.

Still, it is a factor to pay attention to when looking at the demographics of the people you are engaging and trying to engage. The findings are pretty captivating.

In other words, a certain percentage of people go to the opera in order to be seen, to impress their bosses (or in-laws), or because it’s what their friends and neighbors expect them to do. But if you are actually a member of the opera chorus, it’s probably because it feeds your soul.

[…]

Reeves found that “arts participation, unlike arts consumption and cultural engagement generally, is not closely associated with either social class or social status.”

Indeed, “those with higher incomes are less likely to be arts participants,” he writes, adding that this finding is unexpected and difficult to interpret. Perhaps, he speculates, those at the top tend to work longer hours, and have less free time to devote to creative pursuits.

However, Reeves found education was “a strong predictor of the likelihood of being an arts participant.” After adjusting for the influence of family background, he found that, compared to people who did not participate in higher education, those who had earned a degree were four to five times more likely to play a musical instrument, or be involved in painting, photography, or dance.

It is intriguing to think, even if just speculation, that the practice of providing art to be consumed may have been heavily influenced by the fact that those with the most money only had time to attend. Those who are highly educated, but not as affluent may have an interest in consuming, yet they have a stronger interest and availability in participation, but may feel convenient opportunities are lacking.

If you are in a community where everyone sings in a choir, but few attend a concert by touring artists, you may be witnessing this dynamic in action.

There has long been a criticism of a one size fits all approach to marketing, programming, development, etc., especially in terms of trying to replicate what another organization is doing. Now one needs to consider if an art for consumption model may be incompatible with their community as well.

Then there is this statement to think about:

In any event, the findings can serve as a rejoinder to those who argue the arts are strictly of interest to the elite—an assertion that implies the rich can fund these organizations themselves rather than asking taxpayers to help do so.

Despite the exciting prospects represented by this statement, what is still going to be a million dollar mystery question for most arts organizations is if you shift to providing a more participatory mode of arts experience, is there enough interest to support the organization?

Even though there is potentially a much wider scope of people to which to appeal, the knowledge really affluent people are most interested in arts consumption may deter change.

Thinking About The Implications Of Local News

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Arts organizations, and really any business, need to be cognizant of different environmental factors that may impact them. It is relatively easy to predict (or blame) the impact of the economy or local unemployment on earned and unearned revenue.

It can be a little more difficult to discern what effect zoning changes in different parts of your city might bring or if the adoption of Common Core standards by local schools is going to good or bad for the local arts over the long term.

Another thing that might not really be on your radar as a potential threat or opportunity is the availability and affordability of real estate in your community. An article predicting a worsening of the rental market on the Atlantic website says the number of people paying between 30%-50% of their income is expected to rise over the next decade.

The researchers estimate that the current rental crunch—the one where vacancies are around 7 percent, about half of renters spend more than 30 percent of their salaries on housing, and one quarter spend 50 percent or more—is only going to get worse over the next decade. Even if housing prices and income rise as quickly as inflation (about 2 percent annually) the number of severely rent-burdened Americans (those paying 50 percent or more) would increase by 11 percent over the decade, to over 13 million people in 2025.

[…]

According to their estimates, the current trend—where fewer Americans opt for homeownership—will continue. And that could be bad news for household finances, since a greater number of Americans will wind up using a major chunk of their income just to pay for housing.

When it is put in these terms, it doesn’t take much effort to understand that there will be less disposable income floating around with so much of it is going into housing. If you are paying 50% of your income for rent, there is that much more motivation to stay at home and get your entertainment bingeing on Netflix series.

Unless you have a lot of housing developers and public policy makers on your board that you can advocate to, there isn’t much an arts organization can do to directly impact this reality. If you see this sort of thing on the horizon for your city, you could be proactive in your next couple 5 year strategic plans to prepare for and lower economic barriers for residents who are challenged by rising rents.

Authenticity In All Your Diverse Dealings

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Yesterday when discussing the Arts Midwest study that is the basis for the effort to build public will for arts and culture, I briefly referenced the finding that promoting authenticity of experience is better than citing cultural diversity.

According to the study:

However, the word “diversity” can be problematic in describing the benefit or outcome of experiencing the creative expression of other people and cultures. Some resist the notion that our communities are becoming more diverse, and others are concerned with the “tokenism” associated with diversity that satisfies itself with quotas or counting or the most rudimentary of contact while failing to connect authentically with other people or cultures.

A similar sentiment to the tokenism concern was expressed in a different, earlier Arts Midwest conference session on Engaging Diverse Communities, facilitated by Kaisha Johnson, Meera Dugal and Robin Hickman.

One of the first points raised in the session is that the focus of engaging diverse communities has been on how the arts/cultural organization can benefit from the inclusion. This can make the effort feel disingenuous and leave people feeling marginalized. Few organizations can say why engaging diverse audiences is meaningful beyond seeking to expand sources of revenue.

The first step then is to articulate why it is important and what the organization’s concept of diversity is given that the term can encompass cultural, ethnic, social, sexual and other affinity groupings.

In terms of identifying and engaging groups, if one didn’t already have a sense of where to start, the panel’s advice was to seek groups online and via social media. The panel suggested engaging people as fans of a particular group or genre first rather than as a potential seat filler.

Discovering why people are passionate about a genre or group can 1- provide an initial basis for making a personal connection and 2 – can provide insight into what fans value about that person (i.e. it isn’t just about good music, but the political message or perhaps the group’s dedication to other social and environmental causes.)

An convenient source for establishing connections may be your organization’s staff. The panel cautioned that you should allow people to self identify their connections rather than deciding what they are. (i.e. You are a Chinese, bisexual, Millennial so you know all about…)

Once you have established relationships with individuals from an affinity group, the panel advocated for involving them in the curatorial process. These individuals can also help you understand the cultural dynamics and context of performances as well as avoid any potential pitfalls.

Meera Dugal used the example of a Moroccan group she scheduled at Lincoln Center during Ramadan. Thanks to the advice of her contacts, she moved the concert to a time after sundown and had certain types of foods available for participants.

While I had heard suggestions along these general lines before, one idea that never occurred to me but seemed like a no-brainer in retrospect was to commit to using vendors from target communities. While it sounded like the panel was suggesting this in relation to just specific events, it seems constructive to engage in continual commerce with businesses run by members of the community with which you wish improve your relationship.

If the people you want aren’t paying you to enter your doors, pay them to enter your doors instead by ordering flowers, catering, dry cleaning, construction materials, etc.

We often think that the only way to reach people is through whatever our primary product is. You know, the old idea that once they see what we do, they will fall in love with it.

But every transaction provides an opportunity to have a conversation about what our organizations do— “We are using your stuff for X, you ought to come and see.”

Not to mention, it reinforces the sincerity of any other expressed desire to include the group in your activities. (a.k.a. putting your money where your mouth is).

Since the study I wrote about yesterday seems to indicate older, white men appear to be the least likely to be engaged in arts/creative expression, using commerce to cultivate relationships with other groups may be a prudent course toward sustainability.

Could You Really Do That? Maybe You Could

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Apropos to my post last week about the value of college fine arts requirement classes, someone on my Twitter feed posted a link to a Huffington Post article about why you shouldn’t dismiss a work of visual art as something you or you kid could have done.

The article is actually based on on episode from PBS Digital’s series, The Art Assignment

Many of The Art Assignment episodes get people to go out and do or find things associated with their topic. However, some like the video above tackle how to relate and interact with art. As such, they provide a good starting point for novices, arts education programs and even arts educators seeking a way to communicate on these topics.

What is great is that everything comes back to the philosophy of experiential learning. So even though they say, yeah it isn’t as easy to do as you think, bub. They immediately follow with, but you should totally try to do it!

Among the videos I found that work along these lines are episodes on How to Critique, what works you can and can’t touch and why, and how (and why) to learn about Contemporary Art.

Recently it appears they have started to an effort to help people understand the work of specific artists in The Case for Mark Rothko and The Case for Andy Warhol.

This looks to be a good resource for visual arts organizations and something to keep an eye on as they continue to develop episodes.

The series leads to the inevitable question– can something this effective and humorous be created for theater, opera, dance, classical music? (Yes, of course it can.) I am sure there are some out there. Even some visual arts ones similar to the Arts Assignment episodes.

Heck, Thug Notes points out things in literature I didn’t catch when I was reading the works and is very entertaining.

So maybe someone is doing it right now and I don’t know about it. Let me know.

Maybe someone is thinking about doing something similar but is worried about the funding and should contact the Venture Arts Incubator.

Have You Gotten To The Point You Care When People Steal Your Work?

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You know how you are supposed to check the batteries in your smoke detectors every time we go on or off daylight savings time? It may be worth having a similar rule for checking your intellectual property licenses for your online presences. Maybe every time you renew your domain name?

There was a recent story about a photographer who had set his Creative Commons License to allow commercial use with attribution.

When a map company used his image on one of their publications giving him full attribution, he sued them for their use of the image and lost.

The tone of the article is that it was sort of silly of him to be protesting the use of his work in a way explicitly allowed.

But it occurred to me that it would be very easy for many artists and organizations to accidentally find themselves in a similar situation as their online presence evolved.

For example, maybe your website or blog just starts out as a source of information for people about what you are doing. You set your license to require people to quote you with attribution or a link. You aren’t trying to monetize anything and you would be happy if people quoted you all over the Internet.

Later, your organization starts a new exciting program where you are producing all sorts of interesting stuff (or if you are an individual, you take up a hobby/refine your skills and get really good).

You start putting images and examples of your work online, forgetting your license is so permissive and the next thing you know you are seeing your work appearing all over social media, people are selling tshirts and tote bags with your images and are using your video and audio tracks in their own videos.

If you have been publicizing/bragging about achievements and have realized ambitions much greater than when you first established your blog, website, Pinterest, Flickr, etc, presence you may want to go back and review how much permission people have to utilize the content of those pages.

A similar issue may arise if you are featuring other people’s work and their more stringent use requirements aren’t clearly discernible.

Upon review, you may be surprised by how lax your settings are. Or maybe you will despair that no one wants to steal your stuff despite how lax your settings are.

Stuff To Think About: Take My Employee, Please

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Last week I drew attention to Joan Garry’s post for people in the for profit field who wanted to interview for a position as a non-profit executive director.

Since then, I came across a post on Creativity Post where a researcher at Cambridge, Will McAskill, was urging people not to enter the non-profit field right out of college if they truly wanted to make a difference.

His reasons are as follows:

1. Most nonprofits have little impact
A significant fraction of social interventions don’t work, and this means that the nonprofits who implement these interventions don’t have any impact.

2. Poor skill development
Nonprofits are usually small and have a shoestring budget, which means there’s little room for training or career development compared to organisations in the for-profit sector.

3. Poor option value
It’s much easier to transition from the corporate sector into nonprofits than vice versa, so if you want to try both, it’s better to start outside of nonprofits, then enter later.

Instead, he suggests if people really want to make a difference, they should get into a lucrative career like finance and then donate a significant portion of their income. In that way, they will have a greater impact.

Other career paths he suggests are entrepreneurship, research, politics and jobs like consulting that allow you to build your skills. Each of these options will either afford you an opportunity to make an impact, or develop your skills to the level required by highly effective charities.

While McAskill’s findings are mostly focused on social welfare and health related charities, arts organizations need to grapple with most of the same issues. It is difficult for arts organizations to show quantitative impacts; there generally isn’t a budget for training and career development; and the sentiment that the organization ought to be run like a business often sees business people hired into leadership positions over non-profit career professionals.

The other consideration is that we are told Millennials want to make a difference. McAskill’s suggestion that non-profit work come later in life combined with pressure to study business or science rather than the liberal arts could see some of the most talented individuals diverted away from the non-profit sector.

The tough question the non-profit arts world may need to seriously grapple with is whether it might be better if we recruited for profit mid- to late careerists for our jobs. We all bristle at the idea–and not infrequently reality–of someone from the corporate world coming in and telling us we are doing it all wrong.

It might be possible to mitigate that by forming partnerships/alliances with companies to establish a non-profit track where interested individuals volunteer with your organization or take a position on the board. In that way you might solve the challenge of getting younger people on your board and groom people to eventually be a non-profit leader.

Perhaps only 10% of those in the track ever decide to transition from their corporate job, but those that do are more thoroughly versed in non-profit operations. Those that don’t have satisfied their urge to make a difference.

Though perhaps a simpler solution would be to see if your staff could piggyback on a professional development opportunity a local business is providing their employees. They may have a speaker that costs $20,000 to engage for one day so you would never be able to afford that. But if you pitched in $250 per employee, they might let you participate.

The same with conferences. There are a lot of artists that piggyback in on a vendor’s badge allotment at arts conferences or pay the reduced “additional employee” rate. Corporate partners may allow your employees to do the same.

Or as part of your sponsorship request, you could ask a corporate partner to out and out pay for your employee to join their employees at some training event or conference.

True, the content of the conference may not be entirely applicable to the arts–but it may inspire something you might never have considered. Not to mention 80% applicable can be better than no professional development at all.

Tagging along on professional development seminars doesn’t solve all the issues Will McAskill cites, but it does start to address them.

So You Want To Interview For Executive Director

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Now and again the issue is raised about people moving from the corporate to non-profit world without really understanding the philosophical and cultural differences between the two sectors. 

It wasn’t until a posting by Joan Garry, who made the corporate to non-profit move when she became the executive director of GLAAD, that I realized I had never really seen an attempt to provide an understanding of those differences.

Noting that given the demographics of her readership, she is probably preaching to the choir, she encourages people to forward her post to anyone considering making the transition.

She provides her advice in the form of probable interview questions a candidate for a non-profit executive director position will receive.

This also serves a good guide for the type of questions a non-profit board should be asking candidates. She addresses the obvious question right out of the gate:

1. Tell us about your previous nonprofit experience. How do you perceive the differences in the sectors?

This is really important. You need to have played in the nonprofit sandbox in some way. I’m hoping you have volunteered, been involved in a PTA, or in your house of worship. Consider the differences between that and your corporate job.

If you haven’t done any of those things, as a member of the search committee, I am going to be very skeptical indeed.

Later questions address the fact that employees of non-profits are motivated by entirely different factors than those in a corporate setting; the larger number of constituents with conflicting interests that need to be managed; the relationship between board and executive director and of course, the ever present issue of fund raising.

Since these questions are based largely on the questions that were posed to her when she was interviewing, I appreciated that she reflected on the success of some of her answers. She said she admitted she had no fund raising experience, but that she figured if she could get boxing promoter Don King to pay Showtime what he owed them, she could ask anyone for money.

I also appreciated that she recognized that she was weak in some respects, despite being highly qualified in a wide range of areas, and that it was her answer to the question, “Why are you passionate about THIS organization and THIS mission?” that got her the job.

An acknowledgement that there are always skill sets that will need to be developed is pretty much expected for any new job. As a commenter on her post notes, sometimes that isn’t the case and there is a sense that non-profit work is something one deigns to do after they have had a real career.

Diego Rivera and the Paintbrush of Destiny

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As part of our website revamp, I am in the process of adding content about the various murals located around the building. One of the best pieces is a little removed from the lobby and spans a couple floors so I have made a video and map to help guide people to it.

So it was with great interest that I read a recent piece on NPR about the rights visual artists, especially muralists, can exert to determine the disposition of the buildings in/on which they are painted.

As I started reading, I began to worry that more people might refuse to allow murals to appear on the sides of their buildings if they were aware of these issues. However, the story notes that Philadelphia, which has a robust, formal mural program, has found ways to strike a balance and work with both the artist and building owner to find some sort of accommodation. They are likely a good source for advice on these matters.

Only works created after 1990 enjoy this protection under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA). So Diego Rivera’s paintbrush technically hasn’t altered the destiny of any buildings as far as the Act is concerned.

This piece from the National Endowment for the Arts and this one from the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia do a pretty good job of explaining various aspects of the law.

One thing I think bears emphasizing since many of the commenters on the NPR story get it wrong is that while works for hire are not covered under the VARA, that does not mean that only works created for free are covered. If you are commissioned to create a work as an independent contractor and get paid for it, your work is covered. This is clearly stated in the Arts and Business Council flyer, but I wanted to reinforce that.

The reason I think it is particularly important to be aware of this law is because so many communities are utilizing murals to help spruce up the neighborhood. Often these murals are on abandoned buildings that are good candidates for destruction should those murals generate the the desired positive ambiance and attract new residents and businesses.

Since the rights are retained until the death of the last surviving creator, it might be good to form a general agreement that the work is being created with the expectation (and perhaps hope) that someone will eventually destroy it.

The other thing to note is that the VARA deals with the artist’s moral rights to the work which can never be given away. The artist can transfer ownership, but can’t give up their moral rights. Per the NEA Office of General Counsel article:

“VARA restricts the exercise of the rights of attribution and integrity to the author or joint authors of the artwork, regardless of whether he/they hold title either to the copyright or the artwork itself. Thus while both copyright and physical ownership are property rights which may be transferred, moral rights may not be transferred. Moral rights may, however, be waived. The waiver instrument must be very specific: the creator must consent in a written and signed instrument specifically identifying the artwork, the uses of that work, and with a clause limiting the waiver to both aspects.”

So even if a mural was presented as a birthday present to someone, the next owner of the building can’t immediately bulldoze it as the new owner of the mural. Notice of 90 days must provided to the artist(s) during which period of time they can take whatever action they decide is necessary from a final visit to take pictures before it is destroyed to seeking a court injunction against the demolition.

The one issue that isn’t really addressed is what protections exist for art that someone produces uninvited. People go out and paint over unwanted graffiti everyday….unless it is a Banksy in which case they may chisel out the section of the wall and sell it at auction.

If someone cares enough to chisel it out and keep it, aren’t they admitting it is valuable and not a nuance? So if Banksy (or Banksy’s lawyer) shows up and says the art is site specific (which many clearly are) and may not be moved/destroyed/defaced per VARA, who has the right to determine what happens with the work?

Corralling The Wild Volunteer

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The Wall Street Journal had a story entitled Docents Gone Wild sharing some stories about museum docents going off script, treating visitors rudely or diverting people away from works of art they didn’t approve of.

The take away for me wasn’t so much that you have to keep an eye on those crotchety senior citizens as much as the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation provides an opportunity to mobilize a large cohort of people on behalf of the arts. Only it will require some effort to effectively engage and train them.

In some respects this idea is a complement to the series on arts and aging/healing that Barry Hessenius hosted last month. That series dealt with the idea that there is an unmet need that the arts can respond to that is only going to grow as the Baby Boomer generation ages. However, currently most arts organizations lack the capacity to do so.

In terms of enlisting retirees as volunteer or in a type of semi-retired/second career role, arts organizations’ ability is a little more developed, but can still be improved. These retirees are people who are transitioning out of careers as highly skilled professionals and will likely enjoy a longer, healthier post-retirement lifestyle than their parents had.

They may want to contribute more than just ushering, envelop stuffing and phone answering during their retirement. If they can’t find an activity to hold their interest, they may choose another activity that they feel is better suited to the energy and ambition they feel they have.

Arts organizations may be wary about involving additional older folks on their boards of directors when they are desperately seeking younger voices, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some organizations managed to create special task groups that mobilized to advocate and lobby for them with government entities.

For all the foibles their docents may exhibit, I am pretty impressed by the rigor of the training program these museums have instituted for their docents. Not that I would increase the training we give our volunteers for its own sake, but it makes me wonder if we are investing enough attention to our training as well as care and feeding of our current volunteers even before addressing the issue of being prepared for new arrivals.

As I was I writing this post, I had a vague recollection of some futurist like John Nasbitt (Megatrends 2000), Faith Popcorn (Popcorn Report) or Alvin Toffler (Future Shock) coming out with a book in the last 10-15 years that said retirees would gather into fairly insular communities termed something like Yogurt Communities because they would value “active cultures” or cultural activity. I wonder if anyone can remember it because I can’t find it. I was curious to do a check back to see if predictions were coming to pass.

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.

The Kids Ain’t Given Up On Facebook Yet

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Citing a Pew Research Study about teen use of social media and technology, Quartz drew attention to a finding that wealthier kids like Instagram while less affluent kids like Facebook.

And while there has been intermittent hysteria over the past few years about Facebook becoming uncool, the Pew Center also reported that 71% of teens continue to use it—even as the same percentage say they use more than one platform.

Here’s where wealth comes into play, according to Pew:

The survey data reveals a distinct pattern in social media use by socio-economic status. Teens from less well-off households (those earning less than $50,000) are more likely than others to say they use Facebook the most: 49% of these teens say they use it most often, compared with 37% of teens from somewhat wealthier families (those earning $50,000 or more).

My first thought upon reading the Quartz article was that using a targetted boosted post on Facebook might be an effective way to reach lower income, underserved kids in order to make them aware of free/low cost performances, workshops, summer camps, scholarships, etc.

Looking at the Pew Research study findings provides some greater insights about the devices and social media sites on which teens frequently interact.

…African-American teens are the most likely of any group of teens to have a smartphone, with 85% having access to one, compared with 71% of both white and Hispanic teens. These phones and other mobile devices have become a primary driver of teen internet use: Fully 91% of teens go online from mobile devices at least occasionally. Among these “mobile teens,” 94% go online daily or more often…

African-American and Hispanic youth report more frequent internet use than white teens. Among African-American teens, 34% report going online “almost constantly” as do 32% of Hispanic teens, while 19% of white teens go online that often.

Income and race also often determine whether someone has access to a desktop or tablet computer. In any case, it seems increasingly important to make sure your website design is mobile friendly (h/t Drew McManus) if you want teens to have positive interactions with it as that is increasingly the platform of choice.

Gender also plays a role with females having a large representation on visual social media like Instagram, Pintrest, Snapchat, Tumblr and males spending a lot of time playing games on their phones, computers or consoles.

As always,  knowing the good places to reach a demographic is easier than knowing how best to interact with the group.

Info You Can Use: Can You Talk About Your Arts Org’s Secret Sauce In Less Than Two Slides?

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A little while ago Entrepreneur website had an infographic Guy Kawasaki created of the “The Only 10 Slides Needed When Pitching Your Business.”

I bookmarked the article because even though most non-profits don’t pitch investors the way a Silicon Valley company might, they still need to convince various constituencies to support them and doing so in a simple and effective manner can be important.

Or in other words–how to do a presentation without using a massive Powerpoint presentation. Kawasaki’s infographic maps out the order in which 10 slides (15 maximum) should be presented.

At first glance, you may not think every slide is applicable, but just think about the grant applications you make. How many of them ask about your business model, strategic planning, problem you are addressing, promotional plans, evaluation method, list of board and staff members and justify why you receive funding based on past successes? All of that is in the infographic by other names.

If you are talking to potential audience members or volunteers, you can eliminate some of these slides. The question still remains, can you go out into the community and talk about the programming and opportunities you offer in a simplified and interesting way, or are you going to have a slide for each of your events?

The slides can be metaphorical by the way. This is more about tight organization of thoughts than the availability and use of a projector and screen at a presentation. Trying to include too much content in your presentation is akin to trying to cram as many images from your upcoming season in one slide in order to limit it to 10 total. It reduces the effectiveness of the whole.

Right at the top of the infographic is says, the low number forces you to focus on the absolute essentials…the more slides you need, the less compelling your idea.

Kawasaki’s chart has one slide for the Value Proposition – “Explain the Value of the Pain You Alleviate or the Value of the Pleasure You Provide,” and one slide for the Underlying Magic – “Describe the technology, secret sauce or magic behind your product…”

These are the bread and butter areas of the arts. Arts organizations are all about the pleasurable experience and magic. But can you make that case in just a couple slides, even if you were allowed a total of four slides between these two areas?

Can you do it a way that is focused on the pleasure the audience/participant will receive? Nobody buys secret sauce that only the cook thinks tastes good. People have to know they will enjoy the secret sauce as well.

Obviously, this practice is transferable to other areas of the organization, especially marketing. Can you communicate the essence of what your event is in a poster, broadcast or print ad, social media post, email blast, etc? Can you make the case for donating in a brief curtain speech or solicitation letter? Can you give a gallery tour/play talk/concert lecture that makes people want to come back and learn more or do their own research?

Info You Can Use: Does The Blue Logo Make You Trust My Blog?

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If you are one of those organizations which find success packaging and promoting their shows as part of seasons, you may be looking toward the design of promotional materials for your upcoming year.

With that in mind, it seems like a good time to point out this article on the Psychology of Color that appeared about a year ago on the Entrepreneur website.

(Though you don’t need to have a subscription campaign to design for this article to be of use to you.)

The article does a good job of addressing all the ideas people have about what color means, what colors best appeal to different genders and which are best used for calls to action.

The author, Gregory Ciotti, essentially says most of the assumptions and theories are complete bunk. People bring too much of their personal and cultural experiences to colors to be able to attribute an consistent, specific emotional reaction to them.

It is better to try to pick colors that will generally align with your brand personality rather than to evoke a specific feeling with a color. Context matters more that just about anything else.

Certain colors DO broadly align with specific traits (e.g., brown with ruggedness, purple with sophistication, and red with excitement). But nearly every academic study on colors and branding will tell you that it’s far more important for your brand’s colors to support the personality you want to portray instead of trying to align with stereotypical color associations.

Consider the inaccuracy of making broad statements such as “green means calm.” The context is missing; sometimes green is used to brand environmental issues such as Timberland’s G.R.E.E.N standard, but other times it’s meant to brand financial spaces such as Mint.com.

And while brown may be useful for a rugged appeal (think Saddleback Leather), when positioned in another context brown can be used to create a warm, inviting feeling (Thanksgiving) or to stir your appetite (every chocolate commercial you’ve ever seen).

Bottom line: I can’t offer you an easy, clear-cut set of guidelines for choosing your brand’s colors, but I can assure you that the context you’re working within is an absolutely essential consideration.

One thing that may or may not enter your consideration of color is gender. There is a difference in color prefer between males and females. Given that women often drive the attendance experience, it may be useful to cater to women’s color biases.

(Though you should probably avoid anything that runs strongly counter to male biases lest the sight of a brochure or webpage entrench their resistance to attendance.)

Additional research in studies on color perception and color preferences show that when it comes to shades, tints and hues men seem to prefer bold colors while women prefer softer colors. Also, men were more likely to select shades of colors as their favorites (colors with black added), whereas women were more receptive to tints of colors (colors with white added)

The last thing that Ciotti works on debunking is the idea that a specific colored button on a website increases the number of purchases. He says rather it is the isolation effect making that button highly noticeable on a webpage, even if you have poor eyesight, that helps create a call to action.

So a red button on a page with a lot of green is more successful than a green button on that same page. The same is true with a mix of color and font size.

The article has a lot of infographics and images which illustrate his point so if any of this sounds interesting, it is worth a visit to the article.

Info You Can Use: Should I Make Video Ads?

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Thomas Cott recently drew attention to a post on Capacity Interactive encouraging people to eliminate a print ad in favor of creating a video. Erik Gensler makes many points worth considering about the value of a video to the promotion of a performance.

Something I learned was that Facebook provides far more organic reach to videos uploaded to their site over posts with links from YouTube. Still, given that I can’t post a Facebook video on my website, Twitter feed or in my email blasts, Facebook has some work to do if they really want to be YouTube’s competitor.

A couple things to remember about video advertising is that

1- People receive video and print through very different delivery channels and process the information in different ways. Gensler seems to acknowledge this when he encourages people to cut a print ad, singular, rather than ditching the format altogether. With some populations, print may still be effective.

2- While organic reach on Facebook may be free, the cost to make the video is not. If you already have some footage on hand or available from another source, the cost in time and labor to edit it into something usable may be the same as what a graphic designer might spend. Creating something from scratch is a more involved undertaking.

In that regard, Non Profit Quarterly recently posted an article that addresses the practical considerations and mistakes non-profits make with video.

The piece is somewhat geared toward video made for fund raising and reporting purposes, but the warnings and suggestions are equally valid for promotional videos as well. Among the points that made me nod in agreement were those about the CEO possibly not being the best spokesperson and a reminder that your board of directors is not the audience for the video. I am sure we have all seen videos where it was obvious these parties had far too much influence.

In terms of the practical aspects of video making, the Non-Profit Quarterly article reinforces the need to be clear about the story you are going to tell and the goals of the video you are making because it is going to demand a lot of time and resources from your organization. But much of that is about the editing side. They also encourage people to think about all the possible applications of the information and keep the raw footage around for other purposes.

8. Thinking your video is a one-time gig

Video costs are primarily driven up by the number of days shooting, so it’s OK to double-dip and repurpose raw footage for other videos and projects. Use interviews, visuals and even finished videos on more than one occasion and maximize your return on what often becomes a significant investment. Showing a video at your annual dinner? Post it on your website, too. Making an informational video? Show it at recruitment events, and link to it online afterward. Nonprofits should always think about how to strategically leverage video content.

9. Reacting instead of pro-acting

Creating a video is an intensive process that requires full attention from you, your staff, and your beneficiaries. If you choose to make a video, make sure it’s the right time for the organization. A classic mistake is entering the production process for political reasons. If you do, you may find yourself struggling to find the right story and wasting a lot of time and money.

Info You Can Use: Holding A Mirror Up To Fundraising

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Simone Joyaux wrote a must-read, “physician heal thyself” post for development teams in a recent Non-Profit Quarterly post.

In her column, Fundraisers: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, she enjoins development teams to look in the mirror before blaming others for failures. (If you have a hankering to listen to the theme music for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly movie while reading, there is an interesting guitar rendition here.)

Joyaux addresses many common complaints development departments have about board members not providing assistance with fundraising, board members not donating, issues with opinionated executive directors and weak economic conditions inhibiting efforts.

She provides some advice about dealing with each situation, mentioning a different approaches to use. In nearly every case though, she challenges fundraising staff to examine their assumptions and understanding of the situation to see if they are at least partially contributing to the difficulties.

Often she asks if the development team has sat down and spoken with someone to understand their limitations and concerns and whether the development staff has been providing sufficient support to a board member’s efforts on their behalf.

There are some things Joyaux writes about that I have rarely, if ever, heard mentioned in relation to fund raising efforts.

(By the way: How do you define fundraising? I hope you aren’t thinking about asking for money only. There’s so much more to fundraising than the asking point. Do you know all the steps and the neuroscience and the psychology and communications and all the rest? Can you help board members apply that, in partnership with each other and in partnership with you?)

When she mentions them, neuroscience and psychology make sense as factors to consider, but I can’t remember ever hearing them mentioned in connection with development before. (Actually, I have to admit I only have guesses on how neuroscience relates.)

As Joyaux notes, becoming effective at development is a process and there isn’t anyone who hasn’t committed some sort of poor practice.

In my early years, I know I must have behaved this way. I saw glimpses in the mirror. How about you?

Bad fundraising performance #1: The fundraiser didn’t handle well leads suggested by several board members.

Bad fundraising performance #2: The fundraising staff didn’t ask for specific support from a specific board member, and explain why, and provide support.

Bad fundraising performance #3: The fundraising staff doesn’t spend much time learning about the program. The fundraising staff doesn’t collect stories from program staff. The fundraisers rarely observe a program or talk with client beneficiaries. This produces weak solicitations, bad links with our heroes, the donors.

Oops, actually that last point reminds me I need to follow up with some participants of an education service we hosted last week.

Info You Can Use: Board Members Can Be Personally Responsible For Gross Inaction

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Responsible governance by non profit boards is becoming an increasingly important and discussed topic. Non-Profit Law blog recently pointed out a court decision that emphasizes the need for boards to take their oversight duties seriously.

The following should especially be of interest: (my emphasis)

…that governing boards of not-for-profits who have actual knowledge of mismanagement by the officers of the corporation and choose to ignore it and/or not take appropriate action, can be held financially liable for breach of their fiduciary duty of care. The decision carries special weight because it turns on its head the long-held assumption that nonprofit directors are insulated from financial exposure, barring personal involvement in corruption, venality or fraud. This should be a wake-up call to nonprofits about the very real perils of inattention or inaction.

This case is related to the board overseeing a not-for-profit retirement home where the board’s inattention was particularly egregious. Board meetings were poorly attended, there was no treasurer, no finance committee as required by bylaws and the board was aware that the chief financial officer wasn’t maintaining records properly.

It is the fact the board was aware of the mismanagement at the retirement home, (I haven’t listed even 1/4 of it), and allowed much of it to continue, exposed them to liability.

Many states have laws similar to that of Pennsylvania where this case occurred, which says a board member is:

“…entitled to rely in good faith on information, opinions, reports or statements, including financial statements and other financial data” prepared by employees or experts. However, “[a] Director shall not be considered to be acting in good faith if he[/she] has knowledge concerning the matter in question that would cause his[/her] reliance to be unwarranted.”

If a board member has based her decisions information and advice she has every reason to believe is accurate and dependable, then she is more greatly insulated from personal liability should mismanagement and impropriety be surreptitiously running rampant.

Most people need not fear joining a non-profit board of directors, even for an organization that appears to be struggling financially, if they are diligently monitoring the situation and taking steps to rectify it. (And making sure such actions are being properly recorded in the meeting minutes.)

As I have noted in the past, if you do find yourself on the board of a failing non-profit, even though it may occupy an inordinate amount of time and energy, it much better to stick it out until the bitter end than to potentially expose yourself to greater liability by quitting.

Info You Can Use: We’ll Help You Be Pinterest Awesome

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I saw a tweet today that immediately struck me as using a great approach for getting people to see a connection between their interests and the role of an arts organization in their community.

Full Disclosure: I worked for Appel Farm for a few years.

It is just a simple identification of an area that people in the community would have a strong interest in and positioning a program to meet that interest.

If you are familiar with Trevor O’Donnell’s repeated refrain that arts marketing needs to be focused on the audience and not be about how great the arts organization is, this is a good example of how to do it.

These classes are the type of instruction they already offer, but they couched it in terms that appeal to a passion people have. I don’t visit Pinterest and it excited me even before I thought about it as something I could mention on this blog.

Info You Can Use: Talking To Strangers

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The recent NEA report on why people don’t attend arts and cultural event mentioned not having someone to attend with was a barrier to entry. Daniel Pink recently tweeted a story that gave me an idea for alleviating that issue.

Seats on buses in Brazil are being reserved for “making new friends.” You sit in the seat if you are open to having a conversation with strangers. There are Post-It notes attached to the Reserved Seating signs with conversation starters provided.

Even though the content of this video is in Portuguese, I am pretty sure no translation is necessary-

The application for arts organizations is probably pretty evident. Reserve some really great seats at an attractive price for people who are open to having conversations with strangers.

You would want to sell them individually so friends couldn’t grab them themselves or at least sell them in odd numbers if you think you can trust two people who are acquainted to include the individual sitting next to them in a conversation.

The museum version might be having stickers people can wear or a bench at which people can wait in order to pair/group with like minded strangers and wander the galleries together.

Like the bus program, you can provide conversational prompts that are both generic ice breakers as well as specific to the event people were attending.

But don’t hand the ice breakers out to participants at the box office. Having little signs and Post It prompts attached to the backs of the seats in front of the participants is a good way of promoting the program and it gives other passersby an opportunity to grab some questions for themselves.

If you can provide an after event socialization opportunity in the lobby, local restaurant or bar, so much the better.

And if you can provide discounted tickets for a year to anyone who participated in your “Make New Friends” program, even if they only come back alone, that would be really great!

Having to increase the number of seats available to your “Make New Friends” program because former participants kept returning in order to extend their year of discounts wouldn’t be the worst problem to have.

Having them return with their newly made friends is no problem at all.

Info You Can Use: Do You Know The Value of A Volunteer’s Time?

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Did you know I am a contributor to ArtsHacker, a website dedicated to offering all sorts of solutions to arts organizations?

Did you know that a volunteer’s time is worth an average of $22.55/hour and may be worth more in your locale?

Did you know you can actually claim each volunteer’s time on grant reports and financial reporting that you submit?

Did you know I wrote all about these things in a post that appeared on ArtsHacker last Wednesday?

Did you know that a meme about volunteering featuring the World’s Most Interesting Man makes your post more interesting?

Well, hey, now you do.

All kidding aside, volunteer hours are very valuable to an arts organization both as a result of the effort they expend on its behalf and for the value you can claim on various financial documents. And with even just a few volunteers working for you, it can add up to quite a lot.

There are accounting rules, of course, that limit what and how much of a volunteer’s time you can claim. But even if you use this information for nothing more than helping your organization recognize the true value of a volunteer’s effort, calculating this number can be worth it.

Do you know the value of your volunteers’ time?

You Bet Your Art!

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In recent years, after every Super Bowl, the city whose team lost not only loses a great deal of pride, but an art object of great value. When you think about it, some of the most expensive bets on the Super Bowl are made by directors of art museums. They both wager a work of art and the museum that loses the bet lends the work to the museum that won.

This year it was the Seattle Art Museum and New England’s Clark Art Institute. Last year it was the Seattle Art Museum and the Denver Art Museum. In 2011 it was The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

I am not sure when this practice started, but I have been hearing about these wagers for a number of years. My first recollection was the 2010 bet between Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

It occurs to me (and I am embarrassed to admit it has taken so long) that such bets are a good way to raise the profile of arts organizations in a community and shouldn’t just be limited to the Super Bowl.

What better way for an arts organization to show they have the same investment and pride as everyone else in a local team, be it high school, college, Triple AAA baseball team, or big league team, than to enter into a bet with colleagues at an arts organization in the opposing community?

If much ado is made in both communities when the performers or art work leaves/arrives in order to pay off the bet, both organizations can benefit from the increased attention. There might be a fund raising opportunity available to enable an organization to support the trip to the other location.

Because you know, those guys are gonna make you suffer and gloat about their team’s victory all through the performance, so we need your support!

Of course, the reality is, if the visitors are received with grace at a big picnic/dinner with lots of pictures taken to post online, bonds can be formed between organizations and communities that are potentially constructive in the future.

Info You Can Use: Figuring Out True Program Cost

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After reading my post yesterday about how the federal government is requiring that non-profits receive at least 10% of grant/contract funding to cover indirect costs, you may be wondering how to accurately determine direct and indirect costs for your programs.

Getting an accurate picture of program costs is not only important for making sure you get proper allocations from government funded programs, but also for working toward a larger goal of providing boards of directors, funders and the general public with an accurate picture of the true costs of programs.

Providing an accurate picture is key in the campaign to diminish the use of overhead ratio as a measure of non-profit effectiveness.

In a piece on Social Velocity, Nell Edgington, emphasizes the need to present an accurate picture of costs and “break out of the nonprofit starvation cycle”

She also notes that it can help decide what programs really needs to be cut.

But don’t stop there. Turn this new knowledge about the financial impact of each of your programs into a strategic tool. Once you figure out what each individual program fully costs, you can compare the financial and social impact (how well it contributes to your mission) of each program to each other, like this in order to understand how well your entire program portfolio contributes to the money and mission of your nonprofit. Through this analysis you can determine what programs you should expand, which you should continue, and which you may need to cut.

She provides links to a rather detailed guide to determining the true costs of programs published by Bridgespan.

It isn’t an easy process. The estimated timeline in the guide is at least a month. Smaller organizations with fewer programs will take less time.

The guide discusses each stage of the process in detail, suggesting what staff roles need to be involved. It also provides some clear definitions and examples for what needs to be considered.

For instance, indirect costs:

Indirect costs can include general administration and management expenses (e.g. management staff salaries and benefits), infrastructure costs (e.g. rent and utilities, transportation, equipment depreciation, technical licenses), and other costs that are incurred for the benefit of all the programs within the organization (e.g. marketing costs, advocacy expenses).

It addresses questions about determining whether some salaries like those of the executive director and human resource personnel should be allocated across different programs or not.

(Just a note – The guide is about six years old and some of the internal links to templates and examples no longer work, but don’t be discouraged, most of them may be found in the appendix.)

Since there seems to be a slowly developing trend toward removing the stigma of overhead costs (that may evolve into a demand for a high level of transparency), nonprofits may want to start to invest in practices that will allow them to evaluate the true costs of their activities.

Info You Can Use: Know Your Funding Rights

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An event of note to be aware of is that last month the federal Office of Management and Budget said “that when governments hire nonprofits to provide services, those nonprofits legitimately need to incur and be paid for their “indirect costs”—which is government-speak for overhead and administrative expenses.”

According to Chronicle of Philanthropy, non-profits should receive at least 10%, if not more, “of the direct costs of their grant or contract to pay indirect costs.”

Given that non-profits are frequently anxious about revealing their true overhead costs for fear of having it count against them with donors and foundations, this mandate is seen as a victory because it starts to institutionalize the practice of covering those costs.

However, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy story, the enforcement of these rules may depend on the self-advocacy of non-profits.

While the new rules are now the law of the land, the indirect-cost regulations must be interpreted and applied consistently by tens of thousands of individuals in fragmented departments, agencies, and offices at “pass through” entities (usually state and local governments and large nonprofits) that use federal funds to hire nonprofits to provide services in their communities.

The regulations are already in effect, but the multiple levels and layers of government have not learned about or communicated the existence of the new rules, let alone provided consistent training programs, to employees scattered across these pass-through entities.

Making matters worse, there has been no transition time for the thousands of jurisdictions to purge and modernize their outdated statutes and regulations to enable them to comply with the new federal requirements.
[…]

Unless we all take concerted action, it’s quite possible that we will slide back to what had been the status quo: inconsistencies in our nation’s archaic, patchwork government-nonprofit grants and contract “system” that have left nonprofits at the mercy of often contradictory policies and practices of disconnected federal, state, and local government departments, agencies, offices, and employees. Arbitrary, unjustifiable caps on indirect costs could remain routine.

The author of the piece, Tim Delaney, chief executive of the National Council of Nonprofits, encourages foundations to lend a hand with this advocacy. He points out that often grant makers end up filling the indirect cost gap that government entities may refuse to cover. Correct practices could mean a savings for grant makers who would no longer need to provide this assistance.

As an arts organization, you may be thinking that you don’t have any government contracts so this doesn’t apply to you. However, notice that these rules apply to pass through agencies which, depending on the program, may include arts councils and other organizations receiving funding from places like the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Council of Non-Profits has put together a guide to help people know their rights and advocate for them. It presents different scenarios where you may be told these new rules don’t apply and how to respond to them.

Two points brought up in the guide that lead me to think these rules apply to state and regional arts councils: One- it doesn’t matter whether it is called a contract or grant or any other term, the rules are based on the substance of the transaction.

Two – Sub-recipient non-profits who are required to acknowledge part of the funding is received from the federal government are covered under these rules.

If you have been required to acknowledge part of the funding is received from the NEA, these new rules are applicable to that program unless specifically excluded by by legislation.

If You Got The Data, She Wants To Study It

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Reader Heather Grob responded to my recent post asking about more information regarding propensity score matching to learn more about arts audiences.

Heather, an associate professor in the St. Martin’s University School of Business writes,

Hi Joe,

Yes, I have used propensity score matching in a different venue than the arts. It was in a study looking at workers’ compensation pension outcomes. When you have a subject where there are selection biases (for example, that the more educated are more likely to participate in the arts) then propensity scoring can help to control for the outcome to more precisely estimate the effect on outcomes.

I think you explained it pretty well to a lay audience. I imagine it would be useful to use when you have a lot of data on attendees and non-attendees (or season ticket holders and not is more likely).

If anyone has data they want to “play” with, let me know. I’m interested in doing more studies on socioeconomic phenomena in the arts. –Heather

I wasn’t sure anyone would respond to the post with more information much less be interested in getting their hands on data to study. If someone is interested in learning a bit more about their audience and potentially their community, if the data is available, you may want to follow up with Heather.

Info You Can Use: Minimalist Design and Slide Decks

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I just finished teaching a public speaking course this semester. One of the pieces of advice I tried to emphasize for my students was not to fill your Powerpoint slides with tons of text.

It was difficult to accomplish this goal.  I must confess part of me was secretly pleased that members of the visually oriented Millennial generation were having the same struggles with simplifying their presentations as those who pioneered the use of Powerpoint.

This being said, the minimal look is definitely in.

Drew McManus has been advocating for flat and responsive web design for awhile. You can also see the increased use of a page spanning dominant image on sites like TED.com

ted example

and the Weather Channel

weather channel example

 

The SlideShare blog recently featured slide decks that Guy Kawasaki promotes for aspiring entrepreneurs that translates this minimalist approach to slide decks. The first has a lot of great examples of text heavy slides that were heavily trimmed down and had a single central concept set against a single dominant image. (requires Flash)

[slideshare id=295996&doc=sample-slides-by-garr-reynolds-1204852162670051-5]

Slide number 5 provides a good example of how to transition from what might be your current practice to a more minimalist approach, taking an image of President Kennedy from the corner and making the slide all about the image and his “Ask not…” quote. Many of the other slides are an example of an entirely revamped approach to a topic.

The other slide deck that caught my eye was the third. It provides a template to help a marketer create a presentation about different customer personas.  It is created as something your organization or company can use immediately to present what you know about the different demographics that comprise your customer.

When I immediately, I mean it is pretty much designed so you can download it right now, delete the instructional and example slides, plug in the relevant data and images and use what remains as a basis for a presentation if you want. (requires Flash)

[slideshare id=30601327&doc=buyerpersonatemplate1-140129195502-phpapp01]

Does Your Venue Policy Include Terrorism Insurance? Knowing Might Become Important Soon

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We get a lot of alerts about Congressional actions that might impact arts organizations all the time. Something that wasn’t really on my radar at all was the (non) renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. Basically, the federal government provides guarantees for insurance companies that end up having to pay out terrorism claims. If the act isn’t renewed by January 31, it is likely that terrorism coverage policies will be cancelled.

What is making this a big deal is the claim that the Super Bowl won’t happen if this isn’t renewed. This has been an issue before in 2006 with the World Cup when there was difficulty obtaining coverage that was not prohibitively expensive. (By the way, NBC says the game will go on regardless.)

I am not sure if this would impact performing arts centers or not, but I suspect larger stadium shows and outdoor summer festivals like those held in NYC Central Park and Chicago’s Grant park might be at risk.

According to an article on The Hill website, as of 11:00 am this morning, there was still some disagreement between the House and Senate on the details of the renewal.

This is one of those issues that can end up impacting you without you even being aware that it is looming. How many people know if they have terrorism insurance included in their commercial policy? When was the last time you read the updates to your policy?

I will confess, I don’t often read updates to my auto policy but recently did and discovered changes that are clearly aimed at keeping me from using my vehicle for ride sharing programs like Uber or Lyft.

Like it or not, the possibility of terrorism is calculated into so much of what we do. It’s issues like the renewal of this bill that comprise the thousand little things we aren’t aware may have a big impact on our operations.

I wonder, was there ever insurance against nuclear attack during the height of the Cold War? I have recently been listening to ’80s music and realized there are a surprising number of references to nuclear war. I thought I was just anxious because I was a teenager. I guess the absence of an actual strike prevented anyone from realizing what the potential payout might have been.

Basic Intro To Finance Options

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When I was at the Ohio Arts Council conference yesterday, I attended a session on finance for arts and culture. This is unknown territory for me because I am familiar with grants and fundraising, but don’t really have any significant experience with finance.

One of the things I learned were the differences between Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFI) and Community Development Corporations (CDC). (Which is to say, I know slightly more than the textbook definition, but enough to start paying attention and learning more.)

There were representatives of each of these type of organizations as well as banks and venture capital firms talking about somewhat familiar financing options like bonds. There were also tools that I had no idea a non-profit organization might consider like the EB5 program which provides foreign investors with a fast track visa process.

While I had a sense that a non-profit might get funding from a revolving loan fund, I had no idea that a non-profit might actually run one. One option mentioned during the panel was possibly partnering with people to run your fund and coming in as a second layer on a loan that a bank was underwriting.

The panel made us aware of New Market Tax Credits which CDFIs sell to banks to encourage them to fund/invest in projects in low-income, high-poverty, high-unemployment communities at a lower rate. They encouraged us to Google the terms “New Market Tax Credit Arts Culture” to see what sort of projects popped up in order to get a sense of what was possible.

There were some main points the panel wanted those seeking financing to walk away from the session knowing about:

• Investors want to know how your project fits into the overall vision of: your city, foundations providing support, other funders, the community and your own organization.

• Even if they don’t explicitly say it, economic developers are looking for how the project provides cohesion in terms of issues like market change, safety and stability in the community. Economic developers don’t concern themselves about the health of an arts and cultural organization except as an attractor of new business and enhancer of quality of life. They noted one of the reasons businesses are starting to orient back toward downtowns is because the density of activity provides for connectivity and innovation.

• They emphasized that no one source will provide 100% of the funding. It is going to have to come from a mix of economic development entities, banks, public and private grants and donations.

• As a result, you need to have all parties at the table, even ones that you won’t necessarily need immediately. You don’t want to be in position where you realize you will need extra funding and go to someone at the last minute saying you need money, trying to explain your project to them and get them connected to your story.

• The panel explicitly said, if you start talking to these entities when you have a project in mind, it is already too late. You need to be telling your story and have people aware of it years in advance of soliciting support for a project.

Ultimately, it seems like you have to be telling your story every day, all the time to your immediate community in order to gain short term support for your projects and to anyone else who may ever remotely be of any use to you for a hypothetical project.

To heck with “Always Be Closing,” you need to be “Always Be Charming” (Yeah, that stinks. Anyone has a catchy phrase, let me know.)

An interesting suggestion about bolstering confidence in your organizational story was to devote part of your annual budget to enriching your endowment in order to show potential investors that you are investing in yourself.

It was notable that the first question asked after the presentation was about the shame directed at non-profits for overhead and the fact they might try to pay people a living wage. One of the panelists said people shouldn’t be ashamed and that foundations should know better.

However, I felt like he was sort of hedging when he said to break down administrative cost by task rather than by roles and titles. For example- assessment,  program administration, engineering, capacity building.

I didn’t feel that overhead cost was of particular concern to the people on the panel. Their criteria for good governance and success seemed more aligned with the for-profit sector. So the fact this came up immediately may be a sign that the subject of judging an non-profit organization by overhead costs will become a more prevalent topic in the next couple years.

Guest Post: The Overhead Solution

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Back in June 2013, I wrote about the release of a letter by GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance urging funders to discontinue the use of overhead ratios to measure the viability of non-profit organizations. They felt the number was an inaccurate assessment of  an organization’s effectiveness.

Since then, the subject of overhead ratio has appeared a number of times in my posts.

Recently, the GuideStar, Charity Navigator and BBB Wise Giving Alliance have released a second letter. This one is aimed at non-profits asking them to assist in the effort by educating their funders about the true costs of the programs and by providing alternative narratives about program effectiveness.

I was approached by GuideStar with a request to host a guest post on the subject. As this has been an area of interest for me, I was pleased to do so.

 

A Message From GuideStar President/CEO Jacob Harold

In 2013, I joined with partners at the BBB Wise Giving Alliance and Charity Navigator in writing an open letter to the donors of America explaining that “overhead ratios” are a poor way to understand nonprofit performance. We named this campaign “The Overhead Myth.”

I’m glad to report that the response to the campaign, including the original Overhead Myth letter to the donors of America, far exceeded our expectations. More than one hundred articles have been written about the campaign. It comes up every time I hold a meeting or give a talk. For many in the field, it’s been a deep affirmation of something they’ve known a long time. And, indeed, many leading organizations– the Donors Forum, Bridgespan, the National Council on Nonprofits, and others — have been working on the issue for a long time.

But we also know we have a long road ahead of us. The myth of overhead as inherently “wasteful” spending is deeply ingrained in the culture and systems of the nonprofit sector, and it will take years of concerted effort for us to move past such a narrow view of nonprofit performance to something that fully reflects the complexity of the world around us. That effort is essential, however, if we want to ensure that we have a nonprofit sector capable of tackling the great challenges of our time.

That’s why last week the CEOs of Charity Navigator and the BBB Wise Giving Alliance and I released a second Overhead Myth letter—this one addressed to the nonprofits of America. In that letter, we suggest a set of steps nonprofits themselves can take to help dispel the Overhead Myth. We all share responsibility for allowing things to have reached this pass.  And it will take all of us to fix it.

We direct this letter to nonprofits not because we feel they are the originators of the Overhead Myth but because they are in the best position to communicate with their donors and funders. We want to recruit nonprofits to help us retrain donors and funders to pay attention to what really matters: results.  In the end, that means nonprofits have to throw away the pie charts showing overhead versus program—and step up to the much more important challenge of communicating how they track progress against their mission.

In simple terms, we must—collectively—offer donors an alternative. In the letter, and on the accompanying website, we call on nonprofits to do three things as their part of this evolution:

  1. Demonstrate ethical practice and share data about their performance.
  2. Manage toward results and understand their true costs.
  3. Help educate funders (individuals, foundations, corporations, and government) on the real cost of results.

We have provided a list of tools and resources related to each of these goals. These tools give nonprofits tangible steps they can take to engage their stakeholders around this critical issue. As the sector develops new resources and tactics, we will add them to the website.

We believe it will take a shared effort to focus donors’ attention on what really matters: nonprofits’ efforts to make the world a better place. It doesn’t matter whether you work at a nonprofit or donate a few dollars to a favorite charity every year, please join us as we seek to move from the Overhead Myth to the Overhead Solution.

For more information, or if you have a resource related to this issue that can help advance the cause, please email overhead@guidestar.org.

 

— Jacob Harold is the president and CEO of GuideStar, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that connects people and organizations with information on the programs, finances, and impact of more than 1.8 million IRS-recognized nonprofits. GuideStar serves a wide audience inside and outside the nonprofit sector, including individual donors, nonprofit leaders, grantmakers, government officials, academic researchers, and the media.

This letter original appeared on PhilanTopic blog and is shared with their permission.[divider]

Info You Can Use: When Is Your Arts Career Not A Hobby?

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There was a very interesting article on the Forbes website which explored the point at which the IRS determines your arts career is actually a job and not a hobby.

Since you can deduct job related expenses to a greater degree than hobby related expenses, the distinction is rather important to an artist.

And while a taxpayer may deduct expenses of a trade or business in excess of the profit earned by the business, thus generating a net loss, a hobby may only deduct its expenses to the extent of the profits of the activity; in other words, the hobby cannot generate a net loss.

The article author Tony Nitti, lists the 9 point test that the IRS uses the make the distinction. In the article he discusses a specific case where the IRS was challenging the filing of an artist and provides examples of how each question of the test would be applied in this case.

Later, he talks about how this particular artist’s career met the criteria of each of the test questions.

Something I found notable was that usually in these cases, a person has a steady job and then engages in a side activity which they subsidize with the income from their regular job.

In this artist’s case, she was an artist for about 20 years before she was hired on to the faculty of a college. The IRS was suggesting that her artistic career which preceded the steady job was the hobby.

This is one of the reasons I feel the article is valuable. For a great many practicing artists, this will be the path their career takes. It is only when they have proven their worth after some period of activity that they may be offered work on a consistent basis.

Now I should note, as Nitti does, that the reason the IRS was looking at this artist was because of the types of things she was claiming are expenses. That issue still has to be resolved in a separate hearing. Most artists probably shouldn’t worry about being targeted by the IRS.

The hearing about whether her artistic career was a career or a hobby has been completed. Nitti’s discussion about why her activities met the criteria is an important read. Even though this case addresses the career of a visual artist, it doesn’t take much effort to see how it applies to other disciplines.

Basically, if you keep adequate records, educate yourself about the market, consult with market experts, price your work to make a profit and have an expectation that work you are currently doing (which I suspect would apply to rehearsing and practicing) will eventually make a profit, then you might have a career as an artist!

Obviously it isn’t as simple as that summary so read the article.

Info You Can Use: Take A Look At The Broadway Books

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Though I don’t cite him very often, I keep an eye on the blog of Broadway producer Ken Davenport because he tends to ask questions about how Broadway can do a better job of serving the public.

We often see Broadway as a monolithic behemoth to whose gravitational pull most theaters are subject to some degree. It is interesting to see someone talking about how the business process in NYC might not be living up to its potential and gain insight into some of the inner workings.

In the next two weeks Davenport is going to conduct webinars breaking down the budgets of a Broadway show. These will be held on October 22 and 29, both from 7-8 pm EDT with a recording posted afterward. (my emphasis)

Over those two nights, I’ll walk you through my philosophies of budgeting, a strategy to make sure you come in under budget on every single one of your shows, and most importantly I will walk you through each and every line and page of an actual Broadway budget.

In other words, if a budget is the engine of a Broadway show, I’m going to pop the hood, take apart the motor piece by piece, and then put it back together again . . . so you not only understand how it works, but so you can build your own.

[…]

It’s going to be fun, and if you’re a numbers guy/gal, you’ll really love it. If you’re not a numbers guy/gal, well, all the more reason for you to sign up, because budgeting is where so many shows go wrong. It is the business blueprint of your production.

I emphasize this second to last sentence because even if you never think you will ever mount a Broadway show, this is an opportunity to have someone talk about a budgeting process for a performance.

For everyone who talks about transitioning away from the non-profit arts business model, this is a good opportunity to gain insight into what factors you need to consider in the commercial realm, even if you are already pondering a third (or fifth) alternative.

Joe Patti's Musings on practical solutions for Arts Management

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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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