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Welcoming and Belonging For All

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Last week I received an email from Arts Midwest noting that September 9-18 is Welcoming Week, an international effort to provide a welcoming experience at all levels. This includes government and social policy and action to make communities more welcoming to organizational efforts to provide a sense of belonging in workplaces and other social interactions.

The concept of creating more metaphorical doors through which people can engage with arts and cultural organizations is a frequent topic here so I wanted to call attention to the effort and some of the resources that are available. In addition to the Welcoming America website, Arts Midwest created a page of resources focuses on how arts organizations can create that sense of belonging for employees and community members with whom they interact.

Arts Midwest is also hosting a webinar on Wednesday, September 14 4 pm EDT/3 pm CDT/1 pm PDT on the topic with a focus on “how arts can transform, deepen, and enrich immigrant inclusion work. ”   Sign up if you would like to learn more.

 

Spend, Not Give Donations?

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The folks on the Non-Profit Happy Hour Facebook group posted a link to a Ohio State University (I’m sorry, THE Ohio State University) post which claims that charities should not use the word “give” when requesting donations.

They say it is a matter of feeling in control of how a donation is used. According to an analysis of the responses by 2700 people who participated in seven studies, people would rather give their time rather than money. This conflicts with charities’ general preference for monetary donations.

Overall, the study found that people prefer giving their time to nonprofit organizations rather than their money, because they feel more personal control over how their time is used, according to Malkoc.

“It is not possible to separate ourselves from our time, the way that we can from our money,” she said. “When you give your time, it is still a part of you. You are still living through it.”

The suggestion they make is that using the word “spend” provides people with a greater sense of control and therefore makes them apt to donate greater amounts.

People approached for a financial donation offered more than twice as much when they were asked to “spend” their money ($94) than when they were asked to “give” their money ($40).

And here’s why: Participants were asked several questions that measured how much control they would feel over their donations. Results showed that people who were asked to spend their money reported feeling more control than those who were asked to give their money.

[…]

When given control, people were nearly equally interested in giving, whether it was time or money.

“If nonprofits gave more control over how donations are spent, or made donors feel like they were spending their money rather than giving it, that may alleviate some of the disconnect people feel about financial gifts.”

Having read this, I believe there would have to be a good deal more work done on messaging and terminology employed to give people a sense of control rather than using a term like “spend.” The sense of donations being a transactional relationship is already a big problem in terms of the belief non-profits need to be run like a business; conceiving results achieved in terms of return on investment; large donations providing access, perqs, influence, and naming rights; the last of which many organizations have been trying to disentangle themselves.

Not to mention the growing prevalence of donor advised funds which provide tax benefits and a high degree of control without the obligation to disburse.

It seems like employing terms like “spend” will only exacerbate current problems and serve to entrench the use of restricted giving. While there are ways to give donors a greater sense of control over how their money is spent and technology available to facilitate the process, I would be concerned that this would mean staff would be further diverted from providing core services to underserved communities.

The model the study seems to be suggesting feels like it would be along the lines of the ubiquitous TV ads that told you that for $4/month you could purchase a meal for a child and that you would receive a packet with updates about the child. As a donor to this program, you feel a high degree of control over how your money is being spent.

The better solution is probably to employ broader, more consistent messaging emphasizing unrestricted giving without the expectation of expensive benefits. People absolutely do deserve a sense of assurance and control. You don’t want to give to con artists who are going to run off with your money. But that can come from providing easier access to information attesting to the legitimacy of the charity.

While there are websites that provide that sort of analysis, people aren’t widely aware of them as resources. The metrics these sites have traditionally employed have been problematic. There has been a tendency to focus on overhead ratio as a measure of effectiveness. There are probably a lot of diversity, equity and inclusion issues with what data is used and how it is analyzed too. Ultimately, a complete overhaul over a long term will be necessary.

Can Annotated Press Releases Be A Good Communication Tool?

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Last week Aubrey Bergauer made the following post calling the attention of arts organizations to an annotated press release put out by the financial company Ellevest announcing their success in raising $53 million.

While there were some silly annotations like calling Bankrate “smarties” for naming Ellevest “the #1 mission-driven investment offering,” on the whole the annotations were used to provide deeper perspective on the effort that went into raising those funds and telling Ellevest’s story.

For example, the annotation stating Ellevest is funded by 360 women and underrepresented investors revealed:

“I get the game on these raise announcements. I know what the narrative is “supposed” to be: that institutions were throwing money at us to invest in Ellevest.

What really happened: As we began our raise, we had dozens and dozens (and dozens) of meetings with potential investors, and they were going … fine. Fine to good, in fact.

And then … the women showed up.

Caroline Lewis, of Rogue Ventures, heard about our raise and contacted us. … Then, so did Jesse Draper at Halogen Ventures. And so did Jenny Abramson at Rethink Impact. And so did a number of others.

This opened up our funding round to these underrepresented investors — for them to support us (by funding the company), and, we hope, for us to support them (by working hard to deliver a strong return and build their track records). …

The annotation quoting Caroline Lewis saying there is a need for financial products that serve women stated:

“Like, actually serve women. Not just market to women. And not just be a pinkwashed version of your father’s financial advisor…”

The annotated format serves multiple purposes. For those that just want something formatted for publication to quickly copy and paste, there is the surface text. For those that want the deeper story about the challenges and process, the annotations provide threads to follow. The format opens up all sorts of possibilities.

A release about a milestone anniversary of your organization may list all the people who performed for you over the years, but an annotation on some of those artists might note that the trumpet player in the band met his wife at a performance, settled down in the community and now their daughter is the executive director.

You may send out a release acknowledging that dozens of people worked thousands of hours over the course of a year and a half to implement your equity and diversity policy and practices. You may not be able to list everyone in the press release, but you can include them in an annotation.

Obviously, the biggest issue is that an annotated press release is only available on a web format. You can’t squeeze all that into a PDF or Word document emailed to a media outlet. On the other hand, people are getting their information from traditional media outlets less and less frequently so there is a good chance to get eyeballs on your press release by linking to it via social media posts.

People are able to consume as much or as little additional information as they may like. That way you can keep the details short and sweet for people with passing interest or short attention spans, but let those who are really invested and interested in your organization feel like they are in the know by digging into the tidbits in every annotation.

If I recall correctly, it is relatively easy to include annotations on a number of web and blog platforms like WordPress. I thought my blog had that option so I could illustrate, but since I didn’t use it much I suspect it disappeared during an update years ago.

Focus On Product vs Process

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On Museum 2.0 Seema Rao asks why museum educators are so undervalued in the context of a question she was asked about the difference between a Sip and Paint session and a class on marbling technique.

She answers by noting that Sip and Paint sessions are focused on the final product while learning an artistic technique is about teaching you the process with the goal of empowering you to make it your own. However, they are intentionally designed to look the same to help learners feel comfortable with the experience.

Sip and Paints are product focused, in a sense. They prove to participants there is a simple set of steps to get something. It’s closer to learning to write a letter. Sure, we all have different handwriting, but we are essentially communicating the same sound. Much of modern and contemporary art, particularly, is often about communicating an “a” by drawing a cow, or rather coming up with new forms of communication. Teaching you to paint a sunflower step by step will not get you closer to appreciating the innovations of Van Gogh, largely because you’re skipping right past being innovative.

Museum educators working with adults, though, know adults yearn structure. Society rewards the structured in school and work. So, they come up with projects that mimic the safety of Sip and Paints, projects though that don’t have one single end-point. They safely allow adults places to not follow the rules or forget there are rules at all.

Rao goes on to mention that museum education departments are typically the most under-resourced area of their institutions, to the point there is often an expectation that they execute their operations with volunteers. This immediately put me in mind of the debate that has arisen about the Art Institute of Chicago “firing” their volunteer docents. I half wondered if she weren’t making an oblique reference to that situation.

The Art Institute was phasing out their docent program with the plan of replacing them with paid educators. The Art Institute had required quite a bit of their docents in terms of engaging in a long probationary period and engaging in research projects. It was acknowledged that these could prove impediments to diversifying the composition of the docent corps. Unfortunately, while paying people for their labor and working to diversify the composition of the education staff were positive steps, there was also a perception that the museum was dismissing 82 of their most avid supporters.

From reading Rao’s post, I think she would appreciate that the Art Institute of Chicago’s docents had invested so much time into educating themselves about the collection, but would be just as happy that the museum was directing financial resources into education rather than depending on the passion of volunteers.

“What’s the solution? One is that educators need to stand up and show their work, show the challenges, and highlight the hard work behind the scenes. “