State of the Arts

Talk About Your Org Before Someone Else Does

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Last week Americans for the Arts held a Private Sector salon on ARTSblog where they discussed where the interests of the arts and business intersected. Much of the discussion was very interesting, but one entry by Margy Waller stuck with me for a few days. Part of it was the timeliness of her subject. She cited the recent controversy at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) about a video that included ants crawling on a crucifix. She quoted a commenter on the NPR story about the controversy calling art the leisure pursuit of the elite.

It immediately made me wonder if the commenter was aware that admission at the NPG, like most of the Smithsonian museums, is free and that the gallery contains very accessible works of historical significance from portraits of Presidents, First Ladies, Founding Fathers and Cornwallis’ surrender to Washington at the end of the Revolutionary War to Stephen Colbert. I am not sure what more someone needs to feel that museum has something to offer them rather than deciding it is only in the purview of others. Even with the exposure provided by people like Stephen Colbert and millions of people wandering through the NPG for free every year, people are unaware of the experience the museum offers. The museums really only get national attention when there is controversy and at that point, no one is interviewing the person talking about the benefits of the arts or the thousands of other works hanging in the galleries.

This weekend when the Honolulu Symphony decided to ask a judge to allow them to dissolve rather than undergo Chapter 11 reorganization, (a request which as of this writing, the judge has granted), the 140+ comments people made on the initial newspaper article revealed just how uninformed and unaware about the symphony’s operations people were. I am not referring to people making spiteful comments about how elitist classical music is who weren’t making any effort to learn. There were plenty of them. But there were others conducting conversations in which people were learning about the business aspects of the symphony for the first time.

A commenter with the handle 1SWBP wrote:

“Shamonu–mahalo for the explanation. That makes more sense now. I appreciate your taking the time. My empathy now runs much more deeper and the union stuff makes perfect sense. I guess I never realized how ‘large’ our symphony was. I do regret not being able to get out more and enjoy them more often.”

What made Margy Waller’s post most inspiring however was a video of Cincinnati mayor Mark Mallory talking about the economic benefits the arts have brought to his city in his State of the City address last year. It reinforces the idea that you have to talk about what you bring to the table, and talk about it, talk about it some more and then get others to talk about it when people get sick of hearing you. A little depressing though that there are only 113 views so pass it on if you like it.

You Need To Make An App For That

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In the last couple weeks I have come across two stories about iPads being used as part of art exhibits. Museum Marketing had a few examples of iPads being used to provide more information about an artist; an app that lets people use various features of the iPad to “Shake, touch, tilt your way through 10 different science and social history themes; and a game another museum is using to “convey the difficult of managing an urban water system – dams, water towers, water filtration, sewage treatment, and storm water – with a growing population.” A second piece I came across on The Telegraph website covered an effort by a Buddhist temple to display 3D images “restoring” now faded and semi-inaccessible statues.

Using handheld devices to deliver information about arts is nothing new. Concert Companion aimed to do just that for classic music concerts. With these devices and the wireless networks necessary to serve them becoming more prevalent, the opportunity to offer interactive support for performances presents itself. And it occurs to me, so does the anxiety of being able to meet people’s expectations of available cool apps on a non-profit budget. Makes me wonder if every production of Hamlet will be accompanied by a mini-game where you have to try to pour poison into a sleeping king’s ear.

Best scenario, such interactive tools break down barriers by helping people understand performances that intimidate them and a whole industry emerges to create apps to support making the arts accessible. Right now not only are there more people with handheld devices to deliver the content to, the ability of amateurs to develop these apps has increased since Concert Companion was first envisioned.

Adjust Your Back For Bach

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Via The Art Law Blog, is a story about physicians in upstate New York who have come together to barter health care for art and artists’ services. This is a topic I wrote on in the early days of this blog. In fact the program at Woodhull Medical Center which I discussed in that early post is cited in this article. It would depress me somewhat if I were to learn that Woodhull was included in the piece because it has been the only successful program of this type started in the last five years.

But that may not be the case to much longer, according to the story, the organizers of the O+ Festival (O positive) in upstate New York are looking to incorporate as a non-profit to continue these activities. “Chandler and other organizers are incorporating O+ as a nonprofit and want to put on art-for-health-care festivals in other cities next year. Like-minded artists, musicians, and physicians from Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Nashville, Berkeley, and Lowell, Mass., have contacted O+ looking to replicate the organization.”

People interviewed for the story concede this is only a stop gap solution that won’t solve the larger problem of artists not having access to affordable health care. Still the “232 hours of service, valued at more than $38,000” the health care professionals donated is nothing to scoff at. Though as The Art Law Blog reminds us, you have to declare bartered goods and services on your tax return.

**By the way, if anyone has any clever suggestions for this program a la my title, I would enjoy hearing them. Especially bad puns are welcome. Among the others I had thought of were Tosca to Set A Tibia and Cesareans for Cezzanes. There were some unformed idea about scapula and sculpture as well as some icky thoughts about colonoscopies and hernias I would prefer not to mention.

Must Read: For-Profit Arm No Panacea For Non-Profit Funding Woes

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If you have ever thought that starting a for-profit arm for your non-profit to help support the latter’s mission, you must read The Nonprofiteer’s post on the subject. I have been hearing it suggested that non-profits embrace these types of arrangements as grants and donations have become increasingly difficult to secure. A study linked to by The Nonprofiteer requires one to pause in such considerations.

Writes the Nonprofiteer of the study:

“nonprofit agencies which choose to support themselves with for-profit businesses end up serving their clients less and worse. Moreover, when the businesses thrive the profits go back into the business, while when the businesses falter the losses are taken out of the hide of the agencies. “

I took a look at the study, “Social Enterprise: Innovation or Mission Distraction,” in which author Rebecca Tekula analyzes the 990 filings of Human Service organizations in New York County from 2000 to 2005. The number of organizations this encompasses is not cited though Tekula writes that the data “represents 700 organizational years” which averages to 116.67 organizations for each of those six years.

What Tekula says she found is that enterprises that yield non-business related income undermine the value provided through the non-profit program-

“As hypothesized, the internal capital markets of nonprofit firms seem to follow that of for-profit firms in that diversification leads to value loss as proxied by programmatic expenditure. What can be inferred from my findings is that this particular type of external enterprising behavior is associated with less value in the programmatic output of human service nonprofits.”

And, no surprise, ineffective programs can be a drain on the resources that should be directed to the effective ones-

“My findings are in accordance with cross-subsidy theories of diversification in which internal budgeting allocates funds to divisions with few investment opportunities (ailing enterprises of nonprofits) while failing to channel funds to those with ample investment opportunities (effective, efficient programs). While this research is a first step toward identifying the factors associated with earned income behavior in nonprofit organizations, there is much work to be done in this area.”

Tekula is careful not to say this will be true for all sectors of the non-profit world and encourages similar study of the arts, healthcare and education. But does caution, (my emphasis)

“Clearly more thought and research must be invested in this area and caution must be given in popularizing and glorifying the unproven benefits of unrelated or external enterprising activities on the very organizations that have become important service providers for society’s neediest individuals.”