Terms and Ideas

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported on some interesting research that has emerged about what motivates people’s giving.

Scholars have found that fund-raising appeals do best when they are crafted around a single gripping image, informing donors about big gifts that their peers have contributed helps expand giving, and holding an athletic marathon – or even a walk over smoldering coals – might do more to encourage donations than a picnic or gala ball.

A quick expansion on these findings and summary of the article- A single picture of an impoverished person was more effective in getting donations than the same picture with stats or a picture with two impoverished people. People who were told that another person gave a large gift just prior to them were more likely to give more, up to a point, than if they were not informed. People will pay more to do something strenuous for a cause than a pleasant activity. One person’s research actually found that people gave more after putting their hands in ice water.

So what are the implications for the arts? Well, first off I should issue the caveat one of the researchers gave, while physical discomfort may be effective for raising money to succor those who live uncomfortable lives, it may not motivate people “…to support an art museum or the Girl Scouts of the USA.” That is actually the next avenue of research in which some intend to pursue.

What the research does suggest is that donors like to have a personal connection with what ever they support. The article mentions penpal programs and an ability to socialize with the beneficiaries can be effective. I know some arts organizations engage in adopt an actor or dancer programs already so that is a possibility.

I remember reading a blog or article mentioning some negative aspects in to these programs though. I have a vague recollection that it had something to do with the performers feeling like commodities. You also run the risk of having some performers, (or pieces of art if a gallery tries this), being more prestigious than others. I know of an acting conservatory that encouraged donors to “adopt” their students and the elephant in the room was often that some sponsored students were in better roles than others or appeared on the more prestigious stage.

One thing in the realm of personal connections I found interesting was the idea that non-profits often underestimated how committed people might be if they lacked a personal connection to a cause.

“Rebecca Ratner, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Maryland at College Park, found that some charities expressed doubt that potential volunteers without a personal tie to the cause could be serious and committed.

“Don’t underestimate how much people care about your organization, even if they don’t have a personal connection to it,” she said.”

One of the things the researchers noted was that people like to spread their money out among a number of causes rather than invest it in fewer causes. They suggested giving people various ways to support a single cause in your organization may be a way to tap into this inclination.

“A donor who supports a single charity by sponsoring a child, paying for school supplies, and supporting advocacy may feel more satisfied than a supporter who gives the same amount to a single program within the organization…”

What seemed to be a core concern for all donors is that an entity in need was realizing the fullest benefit possible from their giving. People would rather have a program inefficiently use their money than to have it devoted to overhead like administration and marketing.

After spotting a mention of the list in a New York Magazine book review of economist Tyler Cowen’s new book, I searched Cowen’s blog to see if he had included his tips for visiting an art museum there. (Presumably the list is in his book, too.)

The entry appeared about two years ago. The impetus for writing on the subject, a post on Two Blowhards blog, actually has some interesting commentary about different people’s styles for moving around a museum.

Cowen’s post is a little more pragmatic attempting to strip away any pretense in one’s relationship to the art itself.

“A key general principle is to stop self-deceiving and admit to yourself that you don’t just love “art for art’s sake.” You also like art for the role it plays in your life, for its signaling value, and for how it complements other things you value, such as relationships and your self-image. It then becomes possible for you to turn this fact to your advantage, rather than having it work against you. Keeping up the full pretense means that you must impose a high implicit tax on your museum-going. This leads you to restrict your number of visits and ultimately to resent the art and find it boring.”

As cynical as it may sound, it might be the most honest way of approaching art, be it visual or performing, that I have heard. I have yet to attempt embracing this view in practice.

He offers a couple suggestions about experiencing visual art that can make the encounter interesting for novices including trying to decide which work in each room you might take home and why and going with other people to see it through their eyes.

He also gives people permission not to like what they see noting that many museums display “large numbers of second-rate paintings by first-rate artists. Try to find them. Don’t think it is all great, it isn’t.”

A museum probably wouldn’t be well served by having docents pass these last bit of instructions on to tour groups. Some of the other exercises he and other suggest would probably make the experience even more engaging. Intimating that each work is more masterful than the last is probably confusing and ultimately alienating to people who are pretty sure it simply is not so.

I have been coming across a lot of interesting information lately. It’s just that very little of it is pertinent to arts management. At least, not in a way that my brain has been able to perceive connections.

As a believer in the need to expose ones mind to myriad ideas in order to stop thinking about work and day to day concerns all the time, I will step out of the usual theme of this blog and suggest some thought stimulating material.

In this case, I would like to point you to the TED website. They hold an annual conference where they invite thinkers and performers who have something interesting to share. Every week they post need video of sessions that were conducted during the conferences.

I have been checking a couple out each week for a month or so now and can attest to the quality of thought being presented. I hate to admit it, but I haven’t watched any of the performances yet because so many other topics are so compelling.

The videos are only about 20 minutes long so they fit a lunch break or short quiet moments you might be able to grab at home.

Among some of my favorites of the ones I have watched thus far-

Charles Leadbetter talking about creativity.

Sir Ken Robinson discussing the problems inherent to removing creativity from education (very funny guy)

Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell talking about marketing and answering unrealized needs.

Now granted, some of the above talks will cover areas of interest to people in the arts. But I was also intrigued by-

Barry Schwartz talking about being overwhelmed by choices. An interesting supplement to Gladwell’s praise of offering more choices and Godin’s discussion of how people are so bombarded with advertising, they tune out.

Steven Levitt talking about why crack dealers still live with their mothers.

Peter Donnelly discussing how, when even mathematicians are mistaken about statistics, the layperson can make enormous errors in believing them. (A caution to us, perhaps, about the validity of survey data.)

Hope you find something that fires your imagination and interest.

There was an article on Salon.com yesterday that tickled the edges of my intuition a little. It was one of those things that I wasn’t sure about the applications to the arts but seemed to bear watching and considering.

The article was about a woman who develops Alternate Reality Games where they propose “What if” scenarios and use the combined brain power of participants to play the situations to help predict what might happen. In a “World without Oil” scenario, not only did people talk about where they would acquire resources and how they would go about their lives, “document[ing] their imagined scenarios in blogs, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and podcasts,” some people actually took action and planted gardens and converted their vehicles to run on bio-diesel.

The concept was used to hype the release of a Microsoft game and political action groups have made appeals to members/readers to help sift through large government documents. Darker applications have occurred to some who have begun exploring how the structure could be used to manipulate the public or use large groups for surveillance activities.

On a less somber note, the article mention flash buying mobs that have formed where 100 people will show up at a store and commit to buying products if they are given deep discounts. I know a lot of arts organizations who would readily extend discounts if that many people would pop up at their door.

While the temptation to use this sort of thing to manipulate the public may be great, I was thinking of something along the lines of leveraging collective brain power to discover how altering practices may make attending performances and exhibits more enticing. How to do it effectively rather than as a hi-tech survey, I don’t know.

Partnering with a company so they will include your organization in one of these souped up scavenger hunts is probably also counterproductive. No matter how entrancing a performance or gallery show is, the participants’ attention will be on gathering information. God forbid they decide they have gotten what they need in the middle of a performance and then head for the doors.

It would be fascinating to see if some sort of performance work or even a theatre facility could be created in this manner. I am not talking about creation by committee, which tends to generate awful results, but rather tapping into the collective knowledge to do research on a time period or on architectural features that work. I imagine people sending video and pictures of weaponry and costumes to a creative team. Or perhaps they send images of hallways, door knobs and light switch placements that work well in buildings.