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Anthropologist Eye For The New To Dance Guy (or Gal)

December 26, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

About 8 years ago I received a copy of Presenting Dance by Mindy N. Levine, a book that provided some great insight about dance gleaned from conversations at National Dance Presenters Leadership Forum at Jacob’s Pillow between 2002 and 2006. I the post I wrote in an attempt to summarize the ideas therein, I repeatedly bemoaned the fact the text wasn’t available online. It still appears the text is only available as a physical document.

What I really appreciated were the suggestions for demystifying dance that the book contained. There was very little in there that couldn’t be adapted directly or minimal effort to music, theater or visual art.

One of the main suggestions was to have people approach a dance piece with one of a variety of lenses. As I wrote:

The chapter suggests presenting different ways for audiences to approach a dance piece, with a Journalist’s Eye, Anthropologist’s Eye, Linguist/Grammarian Eye and Colleagues and Conversation. Now I think using these terms with audience members probably will add to their anxiety but the suggestions in each area are geared toward getting people past “I liked it,” “I didn’t like it,” or “I didn’t understand it” and on to discovering why.
[…]
For Anthropologist Eye, the audience approaches dance as if it were an unknown culture being discovered. An attitude which may actually fall closest to the mark. Questions suggested in this area might be whether men move differently from women, if movement is in isolation or groups, are their forces that bring people together or separate them, are there rules applied to the movement and if so, are they flexible or rigid?

In the post I summarize all the listed lenses, but as I suggest, the Anthropologist Eye is probably the one with which a new attendee might most closely identify.

Art(ist) Education, Audience Relations, Terms and Ideas

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Donor Baggage Revisited

December 21, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

I am going to be away for about a week for the holidays. As always, I have prepared some posts to fill in for my absence.

Since we are coming to the end of the year and non-profits are making last minute pushes for donations, I thought a piece I wrote in June 2008 about the baggage donors bring to giving requests might be particularly appropriate.

Particularly the following:

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

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

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

Audience Relations, Fundraising, Info You Can Use

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What We Know And How Well We Know It

December 20, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

Createquity just released a valuable tool for arts advocates. They compiled the data from all the studies they could find to provide a comprehensive report on Everything We Know About Whether and How The Arts Improve Lives.

I haven’t had an opportunity to dig deeply into the data and ponder what it all means. What I find most helpful is their graphical depiction about where findings about the value of arts fall on two axis – how strong the quality of the evidence is and does the evidence indicate that a benefit exists.

So you can easily see that there is low evidence that cultural engagement can help encourage healing after traumatic events and that the quality of the evidence is weak. On the other hand there is strong evidence that arts participation in early childhood promotes social and emotional development.

The good news is that no survey found that there is an absence of benefit to the arts. Some people may be disappointed to learn that there is very mixed evidence, leaning toward negative, that arts education may improve scholastic attainment in terms of test scores, grades, etc and that the quality of the research backing that is very strong. As recently as 2016 research has “found no or minimal effects for arts and cultural participation or education on attainment measures.” Even the positive research say “overall, the impact of arts participation on academic learning appears to be positive but low.”

I had heard things along these lines and had started collecting information to verify if this might be the case and assess how valid the findings were. Fortunately, the folks at Createquity have done a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard.

Despite what may seem like disheartening news, a large amount of the findings fall into the “evidence that a benefit exists” category with many having medium to high quality levels of research in support of the findings. Many of those in the low quality evidence sector are only there due to lack of research on the subject.

Createquity admits this project is a work in process. As more evidence emerges, they will update it. If they find that the basic premises and interpretations of the researchers is flawed, they will revise the materials.

So often we hear about so many different research findings about the arts it is difficult to assess the value of the findings. Createquity provides a much needed degree of clarity by putting the research on a continuum. Advocacy becomes much easier when you know what you are saying is corroborated with evidence and you know just how strong the evidence is.

Advocacy, Art(ist) Education, Info You Can Use, Leadership, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Rethinking The Term Business Model

December 19, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

In Arts Professional (UK), José Rodríguez recently wrote about how non-profit arts organizations frequently misunderstand what a business model is.

The first misconception he lists is that only businesses need business models and since non-profit arts organizations aren’t businesses, ergo, they don’t need a business model. I don’t think I have ever heard a non-profit in the US suggest they weren’t a business, but he talks about a perception of “business” as a dirty word which is definitely something I have heard in the arts community.

The misconception he addresses that is worth attention is that business models are not necessarily related to moneymaking. My emphasis.

2. Business models are only about money

There are many definitions of business models, which sometimes makes it difficult to understand what we are actually talking about, but what most of these definitions have in common is the central role of value creation. And here lies the main difference with what people usually think about business models. It is not only about how your organisation makes money, but about how it creates value and organises itself around its value propositions.

Value is defined as ‘the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth or usefulness of something’. Value can be money, but it can also be many other things. Value is what is important for you and your stakeholders. And for being able to create value, we need to understand the desires, needs, challenges and problems of those that we are trying to serve: audiences, community, employees, volunteers, customers, funders, sponsors, etc. Keep it in mind: Business models are not (only) about money, but about value.

[…]

So what is a business model?

A business model is a vital concept determining the success of any organisation and not a complex formula relating to its profit-making mechanisms. A business model is just a story explaining who your audiences and customers are, what they value, and how you will be able to sustain the organisation in providing that value.

At its most basic, every business model has three components, which respond to a few simple questions:

Which stakeholders do we serve? Which of their needs do we seek to address?

What do our stakeholder groups value? How do we create that value for each one of them?

How do we generate income, and attract other necessary resources, to be able to create value for our stakeholders in a sustained way?

Since it is in the last paragraph of the article, it can be easy to miss but an important feature of business plans is that they are temporary. Since the stakeholders you serve may change, the things your stakeholders value may change or the way you are able to create value for your stakeholders may change, then of necessity your business model must change.

By his definition, making changes to your business model doesn’t necessarily mean a change to your tax status unless you significantly change the way you generate income. Conceiving of business models in this context may help you operate in a more flexible, nimble manner since it moves you away from thinking you need to act in a set way to stay within certain strictures.

Audience Relations, Business Models, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts