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Stuff To Ponder: Volunteer Bill of Rights

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One of the many items I bookmarked to write on when I returned from my holiday break was an entry Robert Eggers did on the Volunteer Bill of Rights he helped institute at DC Central Kitchen. He said he took his inspiration from a concept championed by restaurant reviewers in the 1960s and 70s that diners had rights and didn’t have to take what was set before them if it was sub-par. (Hard to imagine there was a time when you didn’t send cold food back to the kitchen.) Eggers says this is what drove restaurants to offer better service and improved and expanded diners’ culinary knowledge to the point where we are now focused on the provenience of our food. One result he says is that every city now has great dining establishments rather than just a few cities.

In the same way the Internet provides a channel for customer driven feedback, Eggers feels that encouraging volunteer feedback and involvement will drive innovation faster than hiring expensive consultants. (DC Central Kitchen has 14,000 people volunteer every year which certainly does represent a lot of brain power.)

DC Central Kitchen’s bill of volunteer rights is:

ALL volunteers have the right to:
* Work in a safe environment.
* Be treated with respect by all staff members.
* Be engaged in meaningful work and be actively included regardless of any physical limitations.
* Be told what impact your work made in the community.
* Ask any staff member questions about our work.
* Provide feedback about your experience.
* Receive a copy of our financial information or annual report upon request.

They want their volunteers to ask the tough questions that will help them operate better, but Eggers says the middle right is the most important.

“….but the most purposeful of these is the one right in the middle—the right to “be told what impact your work made in the community”. THAT’S the kicker. We want, and think it’s critical, that every nonprofit in America be prepared to answer that question, in detail. No more fuzzy, feel good platitudes. No more bromides, brothers and sisters—it’s about facts and figures. Verifiable, Hard Core, Detailed Deeds.”

And following his philosophy of using the feedback of volunteers to make DC Central Kitchen run better, he solicits the assistance of the reader and offers some himself.

“We are an open source organization, so feel free to use this Bill of Rights in your shop. Add more rights if you see fit. If they rock, let us know so we can adapt our version. Call if you want and we’ll talk about how we trained our staff to translate talking to volunteers about these rights into opportunities to elevate the idea of what we are doing, together, so that folks can’t wait to come back—with friends, time and wallets in tow.”

Stuff To Ponder: Alternatives To Forming A Non Profit Org

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If your new year’s resolution is to do good this year, go for it! But if you are thinking of starting up a non-profit, you should be aware of the challenges you face. Both the normal processes to follow when starting a new organization as well as emerging scrutiny by the federal government. The Non-Profit Law blog has been packing a lot of informational goodness in their posts over the end of last year and the transition in to this one. Among their tweets of the week for last week was news of extra scrutiny of non-profits by the IRS.

The Gene Takagi and Emily Chan who write Non-Profit Law Blog also linked to a piece they wrote for the American Bar Association outlining the considerations a lawyer and their clients should use to evaluate whether they should actually form a non-profit organization. Many of the suggestions made are just good sense for forming any business including evaluating the need, whether it duplicates the efforts of another group, if there is sufficient clientele and a support base present in the community. They make suggestions of alternatives to consider.

But another person they link to in their tweets of the week really does a great job of providing these alternatives. Allison Jones makes suggestions for 6 alternatives with links to more information about pursuing these options.
 I had never heard of an intrapenuership myself.

* Free agent: More and more people are affecting social change outside of an organization. Harnessing social media, you can mobilize your network to take action or support a cause without the hassle of incorporating….

* Informal group/club: If the issue you are addressing is small or very specific (cleaning up a local park or stacking shelves in a local food pantry) you may just be able to round up a group of friends and get to work….

* Giving circle: … In giving circles you pool money and resources together to support an organization you all select. The focus is usually on a local organization, often extends beyond giving financial support, and the circles can be formal or informal….

* Local chapter of a national organization: … You can build on existing resources, support, and guidance to make a difference. Organizations that focus on professions, such as Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, Grant Managers Network, or Emerging Leaders in the Arts, tend to have chapters across the country. However other organizations in different causes, like the Reeve Foundation are open to supporters launching local chapters as well….

* Intrapreneurship: Do you work or volunteer for an awesome organization? Maybe you noticed a need because of the work you do? This can be tricky as many organizations are pressed for resources and time. However, you can harness your organization’s infrastructure to make small steps in addressing the need you have identified. Organizations are more willing to support innovation if there is someone (i.e. YOU!) willing to take the lead. Start by collecting information on the need and presenting it to your organization….

* Fiscal sponsorship: In fiscal sponsorship a nonprofit will allow you to operate under their 501c3 status….You should find an organization whose mission and work align with what you want to do and reach out to them directly….

Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Ticket In Your Hand?

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My mother lives very close to Bethel, NY where the original Woodstock Festival was held. I had written about the plans to develop the grounds of the festival with a performing arts center and museum about six years ago. Both structures have now been constructed as part of the Bethel Wood Center for the Arts so I stopped by to see them during my visit.

Because of the cold and snow, we weren’t allowed out on the festival grounds when I was there last week. I could see a little bit of the pavilion from the top of the hill near the memorial, but because of the way the hill folded down, it was difficult to see it clearly. In that respect, the building isn’t a massive intrusion on the beauty of the surrounding countryside. While the current lay out is quite a change since my last visit, my festival coordinator eye was wondering if it was developed enough. The road looked too narrow to accommodate the capacity of the performance space and I wondered if there were enough lights in the parking fields.

The museum was very interesting. It occurred to me that it may be the only museum devoted to a performing arts event. The only other place that might come close is the restoration of the Globe Theatre in London and that isn’t really about a specific event. There was a simplicity to the museum design that I appreciated. Most of the exhibits were multi-media as you might imagine. Even though the festival has been documentaried to death at every significant anniversary, I still found myself learning quite a number of new things about the festival (like the fact there was actually a security plan). In fact, when we went in to see the once-every-30-minutes film in the movie theatre, I wondered aloud if there was anything new to mention given all the other video exhibitions. It turned out there was.

There is a fair size events room in the museum that allows them to host performances even when the outdoor stage is gripped with ice and buffeted by winds. Apparently there was a history conference there a week or two before and one of my mother’s friends who attended commented on how wonderful the grand fireplace was.

As I am wont to do, I paid close attention to all the customer service interactions we encountered. The volunteer docent was very welcoming and informative and pointed out that they had brought coat racks out into the lobby so that we didn’t have to go downstairs to the coat check. One guard tended to hover outside the psychedelic bus while I was inside watching a short movie. I was half expecting him to poke his head inside and scowl disapprovingly and grumble something about damn hippies. Maybe that was calculated to give you a feel for the whole experience.

One of the things I appreciated the most about the museum was the sense that the experience was still in process even though the event it recalls is over 40 years in the past. There was a booth for people to record their memories of the event for inclusion in the museum. There was also a special exhibition of recently acquired pieces. What was interesting about this was that while some of the pieces were really great, there were some flawed pieces as well. One film they had running had poor video and some times audio quality. At certain points it is entirely black and all you can hear is some music. I was impressed that they choose to include some less than perfect footage of less than notable parts of the festival when they clearly had no lack of good material to utilize.

I guess in an age where people are posting poorly made videos on YouTube, this practice becomes less remarkable than it might have been. When I saw it though it reminded me of blog posts and articles I have read urging arts organizations to discuss their failures along with their successes in a public way.

You Talk Funny

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Okay, admittedly this doesn’t have a lot to do with management, arts or otherwise, but as a person who started out in theatre, I am always interested in dialects of different places. Linguist Rick Aschmann has created an interactive map of all the North American English dialects. It is really a fascinating project in terms of being able to look at the dialect boundaries for different dialects.

One of my original intentions was to point out just how small a geographic area the Greater New York City accent actually covers. I grew up just an hour north of NYC but constantly have people express amazement that I don’t have an accent. New York State isn’t New York City, kids, no matter what you see on television. But my intent was circumvented by the revelation that Downtown New Orleans is a sub-dialect of Greater New York City. Will wonders never cease!

Aschmann also has audio samples of different dialects and is grateful for suggestions and samples to add. I noticed that a lot of the samples were politicians. I figured this was because politicians posted a lot of their campaign ads on YouTube which made them good sources. Aschmann addresses this noting the different sources for dialect samples and why they tended to be reliable.

“DISCLAIMER: I do not necessarily agree with all of the people speaking here: I have simply selected them as good examples of their dialect! Nor does the fact that many of them are politicians indicate that I particularly like politicians: The fact is that politicians tend to retain their local dialect more than other public professions (actors, artists), to maintain their identity with the locals. Also, they talk in public a lot, so the data is readily available. Country singers and southern gospel singers also tend to be reliable, and I like them better than politicians. Somewhat surprisingly to me, NASCAR racers seem to be very reliable, also: even though they travel a lot for the races, they tend to raise their families in their old home town, from generation to generation, and don’t care in the least how they talk!”

We speak about the arts as a medium of expression that we don’t want to see disappear. The same can be said of many regional dialects. So take a look at the map and take pride in your dialect! (Even though you talk funny).

New Year’s Not To Do List

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So I am back and raring to go. This is the first Christmas holiday season I have been away from my bed in about 10 years. I went back to visit places I used to work and gained some insights and ideas. I bookmarked things to write about when I returned, but it will take a little bit for me to sort and process some of these things in my brain. One bit of wisdom to start off the new year I came across was linked to by Daniel Pink. It was an entry on the Drucker Exchange, a blog maintained by the late management guru Peter Drucker’s Drucker Institute.

The entry titled, Your Not-To-Do-List, essentially advises organizations and individuals to examine themselves and decide what efforts they are no longer going to pursue. It sort of follows the idea that if you bring something new into your house, you get rid of something old. In this case, you are encouraged to get rid of something old to leave room for the arrival of future innovations. The Drucker Exchange cites a 2004 interview in Forbes where Drucker says:

“A critical question for leaders is, “When do you stop pouring resources into things that have achieved their purpose?” The most dangerous traps for a leader are those near-successes where everybody says that if you just give it another big push it will go over the top. One tries it once. One tries it twice. One tries it a third time. But, by then it should be obvious this will be very hard to do. So, I always advise my friend Rick Warren, “Don’t tell me what you’re doing, Rick. Tell me what you stopped doing.”

The only hitch I think arts organizations might have with this is that waning audiences can make many programs look like they should be put on the not-to-do-list when some just need the attention being spent elsewhere to succeed. I think it is telling that Drucker focuses on the almost successes and achieved goals for elimination rather than targeting poor performers. While the latter should certainly be examined for elimination, Drucker reminds us not to become too invested in the moderate successes just because they provide a degree of satisfaction.

I just read the article this morning and spent most of the day catching up with a backlog of emails so I haven’t really had time to ponder what I might want to eliminate both personally and organizationally. However, over the holidays I had been thinking of discussing with the staff a new approach to one of our events with an eye to more closely connect with the local arts community. The old approach to the event might be the perfect thing to put on the top of our not-to-do-list.

Holiday Power Down

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I am away from home for the holidays this year so my mind will be turning to thoughts other than arts management until after the new year. A couple of time sensitive links before I sign off until then, both from the Non-Profit Law Blog.

First is a piece in the Wall Street Journal about mistakes people make when donating to charity. Important things to think about if you haven’t given yet, but definitely intend to. One nuance that I wasn’t aware of-

“When you’re donating tangible physical property, you can only deduct its fair market value if the charity’s mission directly relates to the property. So, if you give your picture to a museum, whose mission is to display art to the public, you can donate the full appraised value. But if you give it to a school or other charity that doesn’t showcase art as its primary mission, the deduction is based on what you actually paid for the piece”

On the other side of the equation, a quick primer from Pro Bono Partnership on what sort of acknowledgment is required of a charitable organization when donations are made. They include some examples of ways to structure an acknowledgment letter. They also remind you about what portion of a donation is and is not deductible.

That is about it from me for the year. Best wishes to you, your families and your arts orgs for joyous holidays and a prosperous new year.

Importance of Being Involved With/From The Ground Floor

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Christopher Blair’s guest post on Adaptistration today on the subject of concert hall design is particularly relevant to me because we have been reviewing architects for a pretty major renovation of our facility. Unfortunately, my staff and I weren’t invited to the meeting where the architects were interviewed, nor did we have much opportunity to interact with them as they toured the facility so all we have to go by are the presentation packets they submitted during the interview. The presentation packets are heavy on why the architects and their team are so great and light on what their vision for the facility is. My technical director has been making inquiries about their work on some of the local projects they have listed to find out what the consensus on their work might be. (By the way, I am not using this blog as my outlet to complain. I have had conversations expressing these frustrations to the vice chancellor of operations. He is not entirely in control of what meetings we are included in and is having us participate as much as he is able. It is characteristic of a government bureaucracy that it tends to focus on its needs over that of the users.)

What I do know of the proposals is that all the candidates unanimously join us in our desire to raze our box office, a monolithic column which obstructs views of our gorgeous lobby mural, has no shelter from the rain for ticket buyers, is cramped and has poor lighting. Of course, we have our own requirements for the renovation which include improved restroom facilities, better drainage and lighting system. Though the details are scant, some of the architects are take a more utilitarian approach than others who are focused on the experience of the patron as they arrive in the parking lot until they get to their seat. Right now, that is the quality that is elevating some over others. Of course, there is also the matter of whether we can afford that vision or not.

One interesting thing that emerged from each of the proposals was that many of the same companies the lead architects were proposing to handle some of the specialty areas like environmental engineering keep appearing again and again. I don’t think I have it in me to pursue a degree in engineering as a second career, but if I were to do so, I saw some areas of low competition.

Coincidentally enough, I initially had one of the same concerns about the renovation to the stage floor that Christopher Blair had. Our current floor is pretty old larch. So many people were coming away with splinters that we covered it with a temporary masonite/plywood layer. One of the solutions proposed by an architect would be to replace it with a composite that wouldn’t splinter but would have enough spring to accommodate our frequent dance performances. While our stage is not laid over concrete as in one of the examples Blair cited, but one of my first concerns was how it might change the acoustics of the room. Even though we don’t really operate as the concert halls Blair designs for, there were some issues with the temporary flooring muting the sound someone wanted to produce almost immediately after we laid it down. My suspicion though is that it won’t adversely impact the sound in the room in any significant way. Still, it was satisfying to have confirmation from Blair that the relationship between the floor and the sound of a room are important consideration.

Speaking Art to Power

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Tonight we hosted a retirement party for one of the art professors on our stage. We were sort of the victims of past success. About 7-8 years ago, a professor had her retirement party on stage and it fired the imagination of the art professor. But this woman has had a 40 year history with the school which is no insignificant thing so when she asked us to host it back in August, we found a date we were dark for Nutcracker and penciled her in.

There were a lot of other art professors and some of her former students getting up to talk about how she impacted their lives and what the experience of taking her class meant to them. One woman had sustained an injury that prevented her from continuing her work in healthcare and she went back to school to study art and ended up winning some awards thanks to what she learned.

And the best part of it all was that the governor was sitting there the whole time. The retiring professor (who is not at all retiring personality-wise) was a long time friend and supporter of the governor since before either of them moved here. She supported him when he started running for office nearly 45 years ago and stood behind him on his first run at governor this past year. I knew he was coming, but I expected him to be in and off to another event. Instead, he stayed the entire night, got up, spoke about the value of the artist in society, signed his first proclamation as governor commending her and sat right back down.

The night unfolded essentially just as I had it should in my post yesterday when I advised talking about the value of the arts over and over again in front of decision makers or get them to talk about you. I have never had something I suggested in a post manifest itself so quickly and without so little effort on my part. Though it will likely still be hard going from this point forward, I will take the gift.

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.

I Write For Creative People Only

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Last month Ciara Pressler had a great post on the Fractured Atlas blog about changing the way you talk about what your offering so the focus is on the potential audience and not the art organization.

Your marketing is not a mirror, it’s a window. Rather than reflecting on you, any pitching of your product or production must explain to the potential patron why their hard-earned money or precious time should be spent here when there are so many other options out there.

We have heard this sort of thing before, but Pressler offers some fun examples of how you shift the focus to audiences without constantly saying, “You will love this” or “audiences love this.” (I apologize in advance for the amount I include here, I just like so many of her examples.)

“We’re #1! (reference unavailable)

It’s about you: Amazing Jewelry is the most amazing jewelry.

(PASS: At that price, it better be amazing. Know what I think is amazing? That jewelry I saw at the mall the other day on sale. At least I’ve heard of that brand before.)

It’s about them: Amazing Jewelry is dedicated to creative design for creative people.

(MASS: Dedication, how admirable! I am pretty creative… I’ll click on this link and check out their designs, which I will find creative because a creative person like me recognizes creativity, and will value it accordingly.)

Non-Editorial Process Disclosure, aka, Oz Was Behind a Curtain for a Reason

It’s about you: After one year of development, we present: Our Show.

(PASS: Why did it take so long? How long is it supposed to take? Man, if I took a year to do something at my job, I wouldn’t have a job. Just sayin’.)

It’s about them: Be the first to see Our Show in its limited Our City engagement.

(MASS: Oh yeah, I’m an early adopter. Just check out my iPad! I can’t wait to tweet this to all my followers while I check in on Foursquare. I hope I can still get tickets.)

No One Puts Baby in a Corner

It’s about you: Unsigned Indie Band is completely original, no-genre music!

(PASS: Eh, this clip sounds like something else I heard once but I don’t have the available brain space to connect it to anything I already like. Next.)

It’s about them: The progressive orchestration of Arcade Fire meets the ethereal vocals of Florence and the Machine – with a beat you can dance to.

(MASS: Who are these guys, my perfect Pandora station? It’s about time someone mashed up two bands I’ve heard of with an activity I’d like the option to take part in.)

While Ciara is right in noting that people do need a reference point when evaluating something new, I am a little wary about making comparisons to other people/groups because so many people are promoted as the (different age/gender/generation) version of a person or as the next (insert popular entity here.) You can suffer when fans of the existing entity don’t feel the new version measures up. People who read fantasy novels roll their eyes at claims that a writer is the next J.R.R. Tolkien because it happen so often. I once read a book review where the writer proclaimed his joy that there was finally another writer in the genre good enough that comparing people to Tolkien was no longer necessary.

A number of years ago I linked to a series of posts by Greg Sandow who gave examples of poorly written press releases that cited musicians winning awards and competitions that might as well been made up for all the significance it had to most audience members. Ciara Pressler’s post reminded me of that because that sort of approach focuses so heavily on the artist and doesn’t provide as much time letting the audience know what they will receive from the experience that they wouldn’t with some other soloist. If there is no significant difference, then best not spend so much focus on that person when you could be focusing on the value to the potential audience.

The first reaction I had to Ciara’s “audience comment” that “Man, if I took a year to do something at my job, I wouldn’t have a job,” was that it took a lot longer than that to get Spiderman up on Broadway and people still want to see it despite all the weak reports. But then again, most of us ain’t putting up something with the cachet and hype to endure development delays and technical difficulties.

By the way, did this post title make you want to read 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.

Info You Can Use: Google URL Builder

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Technology in the Arts recently had a tip about Google’s URL Builder. Designed to work with Google Analytics, the URL builder helps you track targeted campaigns by putting identifying words or phrases into your links. For example, you can post a link to an upcoming show and mention it on your Twitter feed and Facebook. Analytics will tell you that visits were referred by Facebook and Twitter, but if you inserted a link into posts across the course of a week from different accounts, you don’t know which post or account may have been effective or if the referrals actually come from your posts or someone entirely unrelated to your organization. Creating URLs with identifying information can help you determine how effective different efforts may be.

These links can also be used in emails and newsletters to accomplish the same thing. Tara George who wrote the Technology in the Arts entry notes, “For smaller organizations or independent artists who do not utilize broadcast email service providers (like Constant Contact), Google URL builder could prove to be a viable alternative for tracking traffic deriving from e-mail communication.” I am currently using a email service without these tracking abilities so I thought our “Give The Gift of Live Performance” holiday email campaign might be a good opportunity to use the URL Builder. I inserted a couple different tracking words into my emails to help differentiate between the lists and sat back to see what happened.

Well, there were fewer click throughs than I expected given the low number of opt-out requests we received. On the other hand, the number of ticket orders we received in the week after sending the email closely matched the number of referrals from the email. People who were interested enough to follow a link seemed to follow through with an order. One thing Analytics and URL builder can’t track is number of emails that were opened. There may have been a lot of people who opened the email but just weren’t ready to buy tickets for shows after the Christmas holidays or already knew enough about our performances from our brochure, website and previous emails that they didn’t need to click on any of the informational links in the email.

The tool can also only track when people follow links to URL addresses that you own/control enough to have placed the tracking script in webpages. So you can track visits to www.acmetheatre.org/ElvisShow.html, but not necessarily to the YouTube video the performer posted of Elvis Show. This didn’t immediately occur to me, though it should have, and I placed my tracking words in links to YouTube I included in my email because I wanted to track how many people were interested enough to watch the videos. Now the folks at YouTube will have my “ChristmasNews” pop up as a campaign word if they care to look at their Analytics report.

Tara George suggests asking others to create custom URLs for you or create these URLs for them so that all parties can track responses to interviews, stories, events and other collaborative endeavors that may drive traffic to each respective site.

Silent Evangalization For The Arts

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For years now I have been getting emails from Arts Job Listing Project alerting me to job openings. I don’t quite remember how I got on the list, but I know I have been getting the emails for about 7-8 years now. Until today, I didn’t even know they had a webpage. What I also didn’t know was that the emails came to me as a service of Revelation Spiritual Church in Cincinnati. According to the pastor, Brian Eastman, the “project is a function of my church’s belief in the value of arts.” Among their other projects are apparently http://booksfortheneedy.com/ and an insulation/corn furnace project, http://cutheatingcosts.com/

I learned all this for the first time in nearly a decade because the listing project has run short of funds and Eastman sent out a plea for donations. While they will send the listings for free they apparently normally hold listings until they get a couple together. If someone wants a listing sent out quickly, they would be charged a fee and that kept the project funded for about 8 years without much problem. The last two years have been a little tougher, unfortunately. While you can send in a donation or contact them directly, their primary suggestion is to order books through their Biblio site.

Honestly, the thing that struck me most about the email was learning that there was a church that had a program initiative to support secular arts organizations. I had not ever heard of any program like that. Sure there are plenty of churches that provide support to arts organizations, mine included, but Eastman lists this effort among his church’s specific ministries. The other thing is, in 8 years of getting emails, there was never any indication of it being associated with the church. No tag at the bottom saying “Revelation Spiritual Church” or scripture passages.

You could argue this is a genuine manifestation of a religious principle of letting your actions do all the speaking. But just as a matter of practice, how many of us could go 10 years without trying to garner a little recognition for the work our organization is doing. Though there may be a difference in degree, arts organizations and churches both engage in some evangelizing to garner support.

I am not going to necessarily suggest everyone donate to them. But if you are going to buy a book, may be think about doing it through their Bibilo account.

Given that paying for rush listings supported the service for a good number of years, maybe the best thing to do is think about paying a little bit for a the service they are willing to offer completely free. Most of us do this sort of thing already by dropping some money in the “Donations Welcome” box at museums with free admission.

Political Philanthropy

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Via the ever interesting Non Profit Law Blog and apropos to the portion of Barry Hessenius’ interview with Fractured Atlas’ Adam Huttler I recently focused on, is a piece by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post about politicizing your giving to non-profits.

In a piece titled “Giving is personal. Make it political,” Klein paraphrases Shakespeare, “I come not to praise charity. I come to politicize it. Or at least make it more aware of the political world around it.” He essentially takes the “give a man to fish…teach a man to fish” approach by suggesting while giving to a organization focused on helping the community assists them in their immediate purpose, giving to a non-profit that does policy advocacy helps change the operating environment for all the non-profits pursuing that goal.

He ends the piece saying,

“The point of this isn’t to polarize philanthropy or to warn anyone away from traditional charities. There’s room – and need – for an array of approaches. But at the end of the day, the government is the central player in many of these spheres, with the scale and power to make changes that other actors simply can’t contemplate. Charities that work to make the government’s policies better have a unique ability to take small investments and turn them into tremendous outcomes. If you’re looking for bang for your philanthropic buck, they’re the place to start.”

I have to admit a fair bit of skepticism when I read this. Klein writes for a paper in a town where lobbying makes the world go round so his view about effective use of money is necessarily tainted by that.

On the other hand, he writes for a paper in a town where lobbying makes things happen so he has first hand expertise on the subject.

And as I noted as I began this post, there is a lot of discussion these days that the arts need to assert themselves in the political arena. It is a sentiment being repeated so often of late that I wonder if this has become the equivalent of the stereotyped artist who doesn’t want to be bothered with the dreary details of handling the business side of their career and gets cheated. Politics can be a dirty, intimidating business that most right minded folks don’t want to get involved with. You need only read a little further in Mark Antony’s speech where he keeps referring to Brutus and those who stabbed Caesar as honorable men to recognize this is a situation which has endured in politics for a very long time.

Many lobbyists tend to be a little unsavory too. It is enough to make you wonder if the lesser evil might be to give to a local charity who may have high overhead costs versus paying large amounts to a lobbyist and getting little in return. Is it better to be cheated locally? Granted, the arts have a number of national and regional groups who perform various advocacy functions and the arts world is small enough that we can interact with the leadership and gauge their trustworthiness.

But would you encourage your supporters to donate to them rather than to you? Would you try to convince them to support the national group so that things would be better for your organization five or ten years down the road? People give to people, not organizations so your local supporters would likely prefer to give to you. Do you then pass some of their support on to an advocacy group? Even if their gifts are not designated to a particular use, most donors likely give because they believe the donation will have a direct benefit in their community. Do you tell them your plan is to create a better environment for all the arts in your state/city/county through political activity of some sort when you solicit their donation?

Perhaps these are conversations people will start to have with those that provide support. Some may have a sophisticated understanding of the process already and can provide assistance. A minimal benefit of such effort may serve to raise the profile of many advocacy groups in the public’s mind in the process shifting them from a logo in the “We Thank Our Supporters” section to the guys fighting for policy decisions. Granted, it might be difficult to explain why the local arts organization wants to give funds to the regional organization which gives the local guys funds for the summer concert series. It can be tough to understand why the regional organization can’t use NEA grants dedicated to free public programming for advocacy efforts.

Info You Can Use: Viral Media and Intellectual Property Guide

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The people over at the Technology in the Arts have been offering some nifty guides and podcasts for performing arts folks. Those I have looked at are fairly concise and easy to consume in a short period in your busy day. One of the more timely guides I have recently seen is about the legal considerations associated with posting video online that you hope will go viral.

As the guide author Amelia Northrup notes, technology has been moving faster than union agreements have been made so it can be difficult to know what is allowed and what is forbidden. Yet there is a fair bit of pressure to have a more extensive multi-media representation on the internet.

“Many of us have received well-intentioned comments from a friend or board member about posting performance footage online. However, there are not a lot of people giving practical advice on how to avoid an ugly legal run-in with your dancers over streaming video or negotiate with a union to ensure you are able to post the video of the third movement of a string quartet to your Facebook page. Building audiences with performance footage is wonderful, of course, but the benefit is nullified when your efforts cause a lawsuit from the composer!”

The guide has some case studies comparing the experiences of different arts organizations, both union and non-, who have worked to broadcast their works over the internet with varying results. Northrup also provides a brief guide to copyright law with a graphic that does a pretty good job at helping you get a general sense of which of the myriad copyright laws may apply to your production. (Though no guarantees you will be completely sure after looking at the graph.)

Northrup also discusses the fair use doctrine and address an assumption I never considered people might make. She points out that since using materials for educational purposes is permitted under fair use and non-profits are classified as educational entities, non-profits may assume there is nothing forbidding their use of protected materials. In short, it just ain’t so. On the other hand, some unions have rules that define use within certain parameters – “Actors’ Equity contracts have allowances for “b-roll,” which is approximately three minutes of footage that can be made publicly available, usually without royalties being paid to the performers.”

The guide also points out that more than just the work of the performers is covered by copyright and union protections and may involve payment of royalties and residuals.

“Artists contribute to the production by creating intellectual property, and therefore essentially become authors themselves. Any art used in the show, such as set, costumes, and lighting design are the intellectual property of these additional artist/authors (lighting designers, technical directors, etc.). This is also often a problem in the entertainment industry. In his book The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig describes the difficulties that movie producers have clearing rights for logos, artwork, even furniture.”

And don’t forget that a video you post online highlighting interesting sections of a performance will also involve the intellectual property work of the video editors and related production crew as well.

The guide includes a list of Dos and Don’ts which reiterates knowing what the rules are, negotiating for the widest latitude of use from the outset and sticking to the agreement. One of the case studies reinforces the “don’t” of assuming the two related unions you are making arrangements with talking to each other, even if they say they are. There was one “don’t” that wasn’t really discussed in the rest of the guide- “Don’t assume that designers, actors, or any other artist or author will automatically equate your organization’s promotions with publicity for them.”

I have never run into an instance where this became a problem between an organization and artists, but I have had encounters where people at arts organizations assumed that an artist or designer wouldn’t mind if they used the artist’s work because it would promote them. I think that could potentially be the biggest area of contention in the future since technology seems to be fostering this attitude. That was the basis for a big discussion debate on composer Jason Robert Brown’s blog this summer. Brown is a big defender of sheet music royalties and had that view challenged by a young woman who felt she was helping promote him by trading his sheet music over the internet. Brown found 4,000 instances of people offering his work for free and was a little concerned about the loss of royalties that might represent. One of the points the young woman used as a counter during their lengthy debate was that he might stand to make money if someone used the free sheet music in a talent show which lead someone else to download Brown’s music from iTunes.

This is a topic that has no quick or easy answers. There are hundreds of comments on Brown’s post debating this topic and from what I heard, visits to his site rocketed into the hundreds of thousands. I daresay the basic conversation about intellectual property and the best intentions of fans when they use it hasn’t exhausted itself yet. You can sue those with malicious intent with a clear conscience. Responding to exploitation by those who adore you is another matter entirely.

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.

Innovation In Practice

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A colleague recommended a piece on innovation that appeared in the Fall issue of Grantmakers in the Arts by Richard Evans called, Entering upon Novelty. Evans starts by talking about how the current state of things is based on the expectations created by the Ford Foundation when it was the preeminent arts granter starting in the later 1950s. He quickly moves to his vision of an alternative approach that he feels is more appropriate to the new environment within which arts organizations must operate. He presents a chart comparing the two which I have recreated here- Old Structure on the Left,  Emerging Structure on the Right

His commentary on the chart had some resonance with me.

“The emerging features are clearly those of a very different kind of organization, built on different assumptions. For example, in the third comparison, there is an underlying shift in assumptions about the nature of the artistic experience. From ”The quality of the artistic experience we can offer is dependent upon high levels of technical execution that are otherwise rarely experienced” to “The quality of the artistic experience we can offer is dependent upon the connection we make between our own and our participants’ creative aspirations.”

And, in the last comparison, there is a shift in assumptions about financial management. From “Permanent capital funds and buildings will stabilize our organization and protect us from annual upsets” to “Liquidity and fungible assets will support our ability to adapt rapidly to meet new conditions.”

Evans goes on to talk about how the arts have hobbled themselves by not engaging in a “genuine integration of artists into our organizations — not to represent a programmatic perspective, but as full members of the team, divergent thinkers and creative strategists.” It occurred to me that this approach helped to institutionalize the idea that artists must focus on their Art and can’t be distracted with the picayune details of business. Now we are engaged in attempt to get artists to think about the practical details of their careers and perhaps it is time to examine if the businesses have the artist’s creativity to be nimble and innovative in their operations.

Evans discusses how changes might manifest and the need for business models to change–and foundations’ funding criteria to make a corresponding shift in acknowledgment. What really interested me was his assertion that innovation could be institutionalized. He mentions a year long process that EmcArts, of which he is president, conducts to facilitate the move toward an institutional practice of innovation.

“The work is structured in three facilitated phases. The first phase concentrates on building an innovation team (not from the usual suspects!), researching possible new strategies, and focusing the team’s efforts on its most promising discoveries. The second phase is a midproject intensive retreat — five solid days locked away in the woods that telescope months of meetings and increase project momentum — serving as an Innovation Accelerator as decisions begin to be made. The third phase focuses on trying out the innovation through repeated prototyping and evaluation, in relatively low-stakes environments, as each organization decides whether, and how, to move forward with fuller implementation.”

It is the last stage that interested me most because as Evans says, arts organizations don’t have the resources in time/money/personnel, etc to test out new things. According to Evans, those who have participated in learning the process find that failure of an implemented plan has been productive for them and they are eager to try again.

As you know, we here at Butts in the Seats are interested in practical solutions.The desire to try again was the part that convinced me this approach might be worth serious consideration. There are a plethora of management and leadership techniques and theories that emerge all the time, many of which get discarded after a short time or when the next fad emerges. Just as when a business is recommended by a friend who says they will patronize it again, the fact someone is eager to employ an approach again says a lot for it.

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.”

Little More About Politics and Art

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I finally got around to reading an interview I bookmarked where Barry Hessenius conducted with Adam Huttler, Executive Director of Fractured Atlas. There was a lot of interesting things said, but I thought I would focus in on some sections related to some recent posts I made.

At one point Huttler touches on the topic I discussed yesterday. The NEA doesn’t get much funding and what it does get is subject to contentious scrutiny. Huttler points out however there are other areas in which people can advocate which can greatly impact the arts.

“Meanwhile, policymakers – on both a local and national level – have countless other levers for impacting cultural vitality. Zoning laws can determine whether urban cultural enclaves remain dynamic hubs of creativity or gentrify into sterile swaths of Starbucks and bank branches. Immigration rules can facilitate or inhibit international cultural exchange…We need to take a more holistic view in which the arts play a role in projects funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, or the Department of Homeland Security.”

Hessenius points out that the NEA is not the only source of funding for the arts and in addition to those departments Huttler mentioned, there is also the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Smithsonian. The conversation moves toward the idea that the arts need to exercise their political clout a lot more if they expect better results. There is a discussion of 501 (c) (4)s and political action committees as a tool and some of the complications relative to those structures.

As conversation in this area continues, Hessnius talks about an option I had mentioned as a possible consequence of people turning their back on NEA funding and perhaps 501 c 3 status–performance to benefit political ends. I actually didn’t know that it was permitted under current status as apparently many don’t.

“Some have argued (me included) that the nonprofit arts sector (by taking advantage of its ability to do performance benefits to fund its political activities) ought to be one of the most powerful special interest groups on the playing field – with real political clout that might not only help us to obtain more funding, but pass diverse legislation on all the levels as you suggest – from tax laws to zoning regulations. Yet we do not.”

Huttler notes that laws governing political lobbying and activity make things a little more involved than that, but still an under utilized option that Fractured Atlas will be exploring.

Where Your Duty As A Non-Profit Lies

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I had to wonder if people were intentionally misreading the post I made about the Arts Council of England requiring applications for funding. My declaration that “Once again, Europe proves their arts policy is superior to that of the U.S.!” was meant to be read a little tongue in cheek lampooning the constant refrain that the arts policy and audiences in Europe are better than in the U.S. And even if that tone didn’t come across, I would have thought that when I wrote sentence or two later that the reality was that the policy is exclusionary and then spend 500 or so words talking about how it will be improved, it would be clear that I wasn’t seriously supporting the old way of doing things.

But I wasn’t really put off by the comments on the entry or by Leonard Jacobs post criticizing this view on The Clyde Fitch Report. In my mind, I was guilty of the age old failing – If you have to explain the joke, you didn’t deliver it correctly. Besides, I figured my blog would get some traffic from the Clyde Fitch Report post.

But then I got to thinking about it. No arts organization ever forms for the purpose of filling out grant applications. Yes, you know when you form your non-profit, it is something of a necessity for doing business. It isn’t a surprise that filling them out does indeed divert energy from the core purpose of the organization. So yes, on second thought, I do think it is pretty much the duty of every non-profit organization to gain funding with the least effort possible so they can get on with their core purpose. It isn’t just me saying this. The biggest measure of non-profit effectiveness is the ratio of how much raised goes toward programs vs how much goes toward overhead and expenses. This is the measure Charity Navigator used to rate my local United Way dead last among local non-profits.

Charity Navigator admits their evaluation doesn’t look at the quality of programs non-profits offer, a fact those at the bottom of the list are quick to cite when they decry the legitimacy of the rankings. But this is a measure that is gaining more and more traction, especially among politicians who are questioning the salaries of those few non-profit executives who actually make enough worth noting.

No surprise politics plays a big part in who gets government funding and who doesn’t. In that context it is get tougher to say that the old policy for funding by the Arts Council of England is really worse than that of the NEA. There are categories of people who were once eligible for funding by the NEA who no longer are due to changes in laws and policies made in reaction to political pressure. We have had mayors of New York City who have unilaterally declared that arts organizations will not receive funding because of program content. Are situations where individuals have the power to rescind funding awarded by a small group of people based on an application any more egalitarian than a situation where a small group of people are empowered to decide who will receive funding based on their own judgments (as well informed as they may be by the vastly superior arts environment which exists in Europe)?

Actually, on the face of it, I would say yes since the criteria being used by the NEA to award grants are clear from the outset, regardless of the pressures exerted to shape those criteria. As I mentioned in my original post, the process and criteria by which the Arts Council decided which organizations to fund and how an organization might even enter the council’s consideration was murky at best. Politics are going to tinge any decision making process where judgments are present. Lets not pretend though that the lengthy application process, be it an electronic or paper submission process, is the best and only way for governments to disburse funds.

When my consortium met last week, one of the aspirations we had for our fledgling merger was right in line with the regional partner initiatives the Arts Council of England hopes to implement. We are looking to become organized enough to propose becoming a partner organization to the state arts foundation and receive annual funding for our activities outside of the normal granting process. To my mind 10-15 performing arts entities coming together to work in partnership is an approach worth funding in an alternative manner. I believe it would be counterproductive to require each of us to submit a separate applications because it would perpetuate the idea that we needed to compete as individuals for funding rather than to collaborate.

Let’s be honest, there is a lot of self-interest when non-profits are seeking funding. As Leonard Jacobs notes, many funders have restrictive criteria about what they will fund based on interests, geography and shifting priorities. Our interests in the criteria for government funding is based immediately on whether we and perhaps our close partners qualify. A desire for an egalitarian arts policy that benefits everyone else is more philosophically abstract, based generally on creating an environment in which our potential audience base comes to appreciate the arts. If our perceived rivals gain significantly more largesse, our attitudes can become less charitable.

I am all for any system that encourages a shift toward group interest and responsibility–especially if the group shares in the paperwork rather than just me. But more importantly if you haven’t guessed, I would welcome a shift away from the damn paperwork. Leonard Jacobs says to stop whining about the paperwork and do some work for it. Well, it is the art that is the work you are doing for the grant, not the paperwork. Nobody is interested in funding paperwork. Though reviewing written applications may be efficient in terms of cost, the paperwork is really about the least effective way to measure the worth of a project. It is just a measure of good writing ability, which granted is an art itself and deserving of support. But that is just the genteel way of saying that someone knows how to bullshit well and use all the correct phrases and keywords. Many of the online application forms don’t let you submit them if your costs exceed your income and therefore require that you lie to complete them even if the truth is that you spent $50 more than you made. The whole process is dishonest before anyone even looks at the application.

The arts by their very nature are meant to be seen and experienced. Yes, sending people out to visit grantees is expensive, but perhaps it would be done if there was better funding. Yes, the visiting team might make subjective judgments about the worthiness of your organization, but they are doing that already when they read your grant application.

Colleges and universities are accredited by regional bodies who send people to evaluate them on a regular basis to bring them into compliance with current standards. Now I will readily admit that compliance translates into paperwork. I will also concede that the schools probably pay quite a lot to be part of this process. And even though they aren’t part of the government, members of Congress have been criticizing the accrediting bodies. So I won’t even pretend this idea would satisfy the NEA’s biggest critics.

But if arts groups were organized under regional bodies, then the cost could be borne by many just as it is with the schools. The experience of those participating as visiting evaluators would be much more valuable than sitting on a grant review committee. Instead of learning what committees were looking for in a grant application, the committee member could actually learn about the best practices by groups in their region and share that information with their home organization. Not to mention they would be sharing information and developing deeper relationships with other arts professionals beyond what can be accomplished at conferences.

Granted so much of this is pie in the sky idealism currently, but that doesn’t mean we have to complacently accept the current way of doing things. Really, it may not be that the written application is a bad format, but rather the criteria it looks to evaluate is flawed. The visitation process I am suggesting would change the evaluation criteria out of necessity. But as an alternative, as our ability to record and share our accomplishments on media improves, it can be just as valid a tool in shifting what criteria is emphasized too.

Though I really think that that an extensive program of visits by well trained teams would go an incredibly long way in improving arts leadership and management. While I think the sites that hosts the visits might receive some excellent guidance, were I designing the program, my focus would be on cultivating the abilities of the visiting team over telling the host what they are doing wrong.

Consortium Merger Update

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This week the state booking consortium of which I am a member met to start planning our upcoming seasons and also move forward toward our plan to merge with our sister organization. The governance committee upon which I sit had met about three weeks ago to discuss the steps we would have to take to accomplish the merger and work on rewriting our bylaws to come into compliance with practice. The committee spent about an hour discussing the relevant rules and laws the state attorney general’s office has for dissolutions and asset transfers of non-profit organizations and physically rewriting the bylaws.

Another three hours were devoted to discussing the implications of the changes we were proposing. Our consortium had already agreed we should shift from a membership to a board organization. What we ended up proposing this week was to shift from having organizations as board members to having individuals as board members. This was a rather significant move so discussing how it might manifest and what the impacts might be required some serious conversation. We felt this would provide much more flexibility and open up possibilities. For example, instead of focusing on writing grants to support the tours member organizations had arranged, the consortium would seek funding for touring or educational outreach and then decide how to apply it. The difference may be hard to discern, but it is possibly a significant change in the way the consortium operates and has the potential to position us as a partner to some granting organizations and foundations.

The biggest advantage is that the board would be free to choose its members rather than depend on specific organizations to send a representative. This would provide opportunities to bring people on based on their knowledge rather than affiliation. It could also allow the consortium to decide as an entity that it wanted to initiate a statewide arts in healthcare program where artists could barter their services working with hospitals, hospices, retirement homes, etc in return for low to no cost health coverage. The consortium’s direct involvement might be arranging outreach activities to these institutions by touring artists, but the benefit would be to all artists across the state, some of which may not be members of the consortium. Yet some of the board members may represent arts organizations that frequently employ these artists and find it in their best interest that the artists not have to worry about health care as they practice their craft. In this case, the board might seek to add a member from the healthcare field to advise and perhaps rally industry support for grants.

As the governance committee meeting was drawing to a close a few weeks ago, I mentioned that what we were proposing might cause a lot of debate at the full meeting because it was such a departure from the way business had been conducted. I noted that a shift in thinking away from the way we currently did business would be required. In fact, there was a lot of discussion about the proposal. There were a lot of “what ifs” asked based on the way we engaged in our activities. Some of the questions we had already considered and had responses to, but others illuminated the need for the creation of policy and procedures. Ultimately, I was happy to hear a board member who had not been part of the governance committee pointed out that we couldn’t think about the changes in bylaws completely in the context of how we currently operated and that it would require shifting our thinking.

There is still a lot of work to be done on the bylaws and one of the members of my committee uncovered more regulations governing dissolution and mergers with which we need to comply. I feel very optimistic about the work being done and the potential of the reorganization. Of course, it helps that the local community foundation received a large amount of money from the founder of eBay and they are directing some of it toward encouraging innovation in non-profits. It makes what we are doing seem relevant and timely.

Gentrifying Both Space And Time

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So apparently arts activity can not only gentrify neighborhoods, it can gentrify time as well. I was attending some First Friday performances on the lawn of the state arts museum this past Friday and got to talking with the guy who organizes the activities. He is a prime mover in the arts scene involved with boards of a couple organizations, presenter of performances and a key figure in the arts district revitalization.

He told me that the downtown arts community was thinking about moving the gallery walk activities to another Friday. What had begun many years back as an attempt to bring activity to downtown at night by having galleries open succeeded a little too well. The First Friday activities made the district such a cool place to be that eventually the older mature crowd ended up supplanted by a younger, rowdy bar crawling crowd. Actually, this probably qualifies as a de-gentrification, doesn’t it?

Now no one is visiting the galleries and buying on First Fridays, but the bars are making their monthly payroll in one night. Things have gotten a little rowdy to the point where the police department is requiring that the downtown merchants association bring 14 more special duty officers on. The bars are being levied for the extra cost.

About a year ago, I started hearing about “slow art Fridays” on the 3rd Friday. From my discussion Friday night, I understand that this was laying the groundwork for the shift. Galleries and fashion houses are open on the 3rd Friday for this event and apparently the older, art buying demographic is showing up.

In the meantime, less effort is being put into the programming and promotion of arts events on First Fridays. There are still things going on and the doors are open, but the resources are being redirected. I was speaking with a ticket office clerk yesterday and he confirmed that things were dead in one of the cornerstone venues this past Friday.

So you are probably wondering, what keeps people from going down every Friday night and getting drunk in the streets? Nothing. There is nothing stopping people from doing the same thing on third Fridays, but they aren’t doing it yet. Since people aren’t really patronizing the galleries, that isn’t a motivating factor for coming downtown. Perhaps I am not listening to the right radio stations or reading the right newspapers or Twitter feeds, but I haven’t really seen bars pushing drink specials on First Fridays. They don’t have to. Probably the energy of being part of a big crowd is what is most attractive to people.

Perhaps it is the perception that they are engaging in a cultural activity that motivates people to attend even though they make a beeline for the bars. If the galleries and related businesses start closing up at 5 pm on the first Friday, then maybe the crowds will start to dissipate or end up migrating to the third Friday. If the galleries have the resources to open on First Fridays, it might be good in the long run training people to appreciate art through the continual exposure. Even if they aren’t buying now, they may be more open to doing so in the future. There is a proverb that one generation plants the tree and the next enjoys the shade. That is a tough thing to endure though if you have to pay your bills today.

The thing I think will keep third Fridays from being overrun is that it takes more effort to ascertain if the current Friday is the third one in the month than it does to recognize it is the first one. That may be the saving grace of the slow art theme of third Friday.

It is rather frustrating to keep hearing stories of artists becoming victims of their own success. You eke out an existence in squalid setting. Gradually things get better to the point where you are recognizing some success. But that means you have a handful of successful years before you are either priced out of your location or the aura of success attracts people who aren’t interested in your products driving away those who are. Is there any place that has been able to strike a balance and maintain the long term success and affordability environment for an arts community that was responsible for sparking a neighborhood revitalization?

Death To Funding Arts Related Acromyns!

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There are a lot of people calling for the end of federal funding of the arts this past week. Only it isn’t coming from politicians or groups opposed to having tax dollars devoted to the arts. It is coming from people within arts disciplines. Last week fellow Inside the Arts blogger Bill Eddins posted an entry calling for the end of the National Endowment of the Arts. Leonard Jacobs at the Clyde Fitch Report expanded on Eddins’ theme. On Friday the NPR show On The Media had an interview with the editor of Reason.com, Nick Gillespie, who suggested ending funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as a means of denying politicians a perennial bugbear needing to be slain.

Gillespie’s interview was in reaction to an editorial, Steve Coll wrote in the Washington Post suggesting the big networks like Fox News should be charged more to broadcast and the proceeds directed to the support of the CPB. Coll’s editorial was in response to one that South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint wrote calling for NPR to support itself.

Common to both Eddins and Gillespie was the idea that the funding support to individual arts organizations and broadcasters that trickled down from the NEA and CPB was such a small portion of the total funding, it might be better to lose the money altogether and be free of the recriminations and accusations about how poorly the money was being used. Nevermind that it is only about 42 cents per taxpayer, the perceived rate is so much greater and so ingrained in people consciousness that contradictory evidence finds no purchase.

Some who commented on Eddins’ post point out that the indirect impact of NEA funding actually provides more support than is immediately perceived. State art foundations pass along funding and may actually owe some of their continued existence to NEA funds as states cut back funding in that area more and more. I know that many in my state wonder if our foundation would still be in operation if not for administration of stimulus funding that necessitates it existence.

Gillespie felt that the cut in funding to radio stations wouldn’t impact them that much and they could either thrive without it or might find an increase in funding from other sources. I was a little skeptical at that since I wondered what sources have been holding their dollars back in reaction to federal funding.

For all the resistance part of me feels toward the idea of spurning federal funding, there is another part of me that wonders if the current situation isn’t a little like that faced by 20somethings living with their parents after graduating college. The support the parents provide isn’t a whole lot, but they keep complaining about the resources being diverted toward supporting their generally responsible adult children (as opposed to those slacker kids). Most of those bills they would have to pay even if you weren’t living in the house but they keep talk as if it is all due to you! At the same time, moving out and giving up that little support is pretty scary first step to take.

For some arts organizations, not receiving federal monies may actually open their programming up and embolden them. All that money flying around during political campaigns may end up directed their way as political action groups hire groups to paint murals and organize flash mobs to either support their view or embarrass the opposition. Though most arts groups’ aversion to being perceived as selling out might preclude that sort of thing. And of course this is based on the assumption that the dearth of funding from both public and private sources will make non profit status and the attendant restrictions on political activities less desirable to have.

Even if they aren’t engaged in politicking, knowing that they won’t have to rein in controversy could result in more experimental fare once people move past the “we can’t do that” mindset that the culture wars surrounding NEA funding has created. As the song says, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” That might result in the creation of things that will really scandalize politicians, only they won’t have a carrot or stick to wield any longer.

While money does equal access and control in the world of politics, it tends to be a little divisive in the arts scene -> who has it – who doesn’t = who has sold out – who does “pure art.” Maybe if there was more money available on a dependable basis this wouldn’t be the view. But right now the best thing to do to keep the arts community divided may be to give out a lot of money. Because in an environment where there is no money, the seeds of a unified vision seem to be sprouting.

End of No Application Required Funding In England

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So learn something new every day. I discovered that until recently an arts group did not have to fill out an application to receive funding from the Arts Council of England. Once again, Europe proves their arts policy is superior to that of the U.S.!

I say this having just spent a lot of time filling out applications for funding. In actuality, the old policy was pretty exclusive. According to BBC arts editor Will Gompertz,“If you were in the club, you tended to stay in the club; if you weren’t, there was no obvious way of joining.” Apparently this was the way the Council was set up when it was established during the Second World War. Funding was solely based on the council members’ judgment that an art organization had a reasonable chance of success.

Now the process will be opened up to any who want to apply. Partnerships and collaborations are being encouraged. According to one report by the BBC, “Some successful applicants will also be asked support smaller companies by providing facilities and expertise. ” The Guardian quoted Arts Council executive director Alan Davey, “A few will have a “strategic relationship” with ACE, meaning they will be expected to deliver for the wider good. Davey said: “We might ask them to take responsibility for talent spotting or helping smaller organisations with fundraising expertise or offering back office services.”

I will fully admit these are the type of relationships that should be encouraged in the U.S. I have referenced the duplication of effort I see in many communities. I do want to point out that the United States is a whole lot bigger than England though so this can’t be applied uniformly across the country. While Davey does talk about potential strategic partners as those having valuable skills, he also mentions relationships based on geographic proximity a couple times. If arts funding policy in the US was going to look to leverage strategic hubs, it would have to acknowledge that this is easier to accomplish on the coasts than in other places.

This change in funding policy by the Arts Council of England was precipitated by a deep cut to the Council’s budget. Even though the process is more accessible to a greater number of organizations, it is anticipated that about 100 organizations would lose their funding. In that environment, you would expect that people would want to work to make sure that they weren’t one of those hundred. A different article quotes Alan Davey. “Davey also said that organisations should not be looking to change their remit in order to secure funding, but should build on their existing strengths and character. He said: “‘I would hope that they would see things within the goals that we’ve got that they would be able to latch on to.'”

Shifting priorities or creating programs that don’t quite fit the organization for the purpose of getting funding has long been a problem in the U.S. It is a pity to see the possibility that arts organizations may be driven to that practice in the hopes of competing for support.

Be True To Your Arts Council*

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Yesterday was the deadline for grant proposals for to our state arts and culture foundation for the next biennium. Due to budget cuts by the current governor, we don’t know if we will be getting any money from the foundation this year which possibility makes applying for funding in the next two years an time consuming exercise in futility.

On the other hand, today is election day so we will have a new governor very soon. I wondered if that had any bearing on the grant deadline being the before the election. Actually, it occurs to me that it did in a way. The grant deadline is usually on a Friday but with budget cuts, the foundation staff is furloughed on many Fridays. The staff probably felt it was better to move the deadline to Monday rather than deprive applicants of a day to prepare by making it Thursday.

There wasn’t much talk by either of the candidates about restoration of arts funding that I read or heard about this campaign season. I know at least one of the candidates is an avid arts attendee because I have seen him in my venues as well as others around town. I am hoping he wins, but we shall see.

Despite not knowing if we will get any funding this year, we are crediting the foundation for funding both in our print and web materials and thanking them from the stage in the curtain speech. They have provided support for us in the past and it doesn’t take much effort on our part to tell people that they are benefiting from the funding when they attend our performances. Besides, if we do get funding at some point this year, the foundation requires the credit so it is better to have it from the start.

And as I said, politicians attend performances so it is useful to have them sit in a crowded theatre and be reminded that funding the arts does a lot of good for their constituencies. In turn, they can tell the public that they work to provide those sort of experiences.

*Apologies to the Beach Boys

Don’t Believe Everything You Read On The Internet

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Bit of a cautionary tale about how we process and evaluate the deluge of information we receive these days thanks to microblogging sites like Twitter. I follow a number of people via Twitter and I think it has helped the quality of my blog posts because it is easier for me to get information on a wider variety of topics than I can often get reading other people’s blogs. (Though there are a lot of blog I follow faithfully as well.) I have been considering starting a Twitter account associated with my blog because there are so many tidbits I come across that aren’t necessarily worth a blog post, but interesting and worthy of some consideration just the same.

I imagine that is the situation David Dombrosky is in. He probably follows more people than I do and passes along anything that sounds a little interesting as he did last week when he retweeted Jeese Newhart’s tweet “Seth Godin: Why Artists Think It’s Safer To Fail Small” David probably didn’t get a chance to watch the video in the blog post using that exact phrase as a title which Jesse linked to. Judging by the number of tweets Jesse has, he may not have had time to watch it either.

I bookmarked it to watch this weekend with the intention of doing an entry expanding on Seth Godin’s thoughts.

Problem is, Seth Godin doesn’t say this at all about artists. He doesn’t mention artists at all. His talk is about entrepreneurs who heed their lizard brains and never fully commit to taking risks. Granted, these statements can apply to artists, but the title and in fact the text of the entry claim Godin addresses a problem specific to artists and music when he references neither.

“Seth Godin gives a speech on how artists sabotage their work. They follow the pattern and attempt to fail small…. At the last minute, most artists will take a half step back and take that compelling elements out of their music because it’s safer to fail small. The resistance causes them to compromise truly great music and settle for an album that’s good enough.”

Commenters on the post criticize all these misleading elements but I didn’t even look at those until I started wondering when Godin was going to talk about artists. I lay the blame for laziness and poor quality on the shoulders of Kyle Bylin who authored the post. Given the text of the post I can’t blame those who saw something of potential interest to the arts crowd and passed the link onward.

But now thanks to the speed at which information can be passed along using texts and tweets and status updates, when arts people gather to discuss the trials and tribulations of working in the field as they are wont to do, there is the potential that thousands may utter something akin to “Did you see that Seth Godin says artists are too meek and only produce commercially viable products?”

While there is a good chance that he might say that, he didn’t.

I am sure it doesn’t come as news in times such as the current political campaigns that it is easy to spread misinformation to a great number of people. We have to remind ourselves that it can happen in areas we don’t perceive as political.

Spend More To Make Your Donation Really Worth It

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For the last couple weeks I have been attending films at the Hawaii International Film Festival. I actually don’t go to the movies all that often so seeing a series of movies over 11 days got to be a strain at times, but the opportunity to see a number of quality films is too good to pass up. Of course, I paid attention to the way the festival interacted with their audience.

I became a member at the $100 level this year and received an allotment of free tickets in exchange. Membership also allowed me to enter the theatres first before those who had purchased their tickets singly. This is an option for providing a perk in a general admission setting. Though it required that I queue up about a half hour in advance. They did a good job assigning their movies to appropriate sized theatres in the complex. My friends were in the non-member line and handed me their coats to put on the seats next to me. The theaters never got so full before they were able to gain admission that I had to contend with the no saving seats policy.

There was one house manager that was excellent. I encountered her in a number of films. She had control of the audience of 200-300 people all by herself. She filled the space with her voice and promised ludicrous things to anyone who identified an open seat. It got people laughing and on her side.

Getting back to the membership structure again. Intentional or not, the way the festival structured the membership benefits, it had my friends talking themselves into buying more tickets. In addition to free tickets and getting in first, membership also allowed you to purchase the $12 tickets for $8. The way my friends figured it, if I paid $100 for my membership and got 6 tickets free ($72 value) the membership would be worth it if I purchased an additional 7 tickets (four dollars savings on each one equaling $28, thus saving me my $100 membership.) Of course, by that point I would have spent $156 which I am sure the film festival would have appreciated. That convoluted attempt at reasoning made me reflect on the psychology of pricing and the way people make decisions. I have been reading bits and pieces about the field of behavioral economics as discussed by people like Dan Ariely. Episodes like this make me think I should be paying better attention.

The one other lesson I took from the festival is that even though technology seems to be a threat to the performing arts, it can’t be a substitute for a story. Though it often seems that way.

Julie Taymor’s The Tempest had some great acting, an interesting location (filmed on the lava fields of the Big Island of Hawaii and island of Lana‘i), and an intriguing dynamic created by casting Helen Mirren as Prospero, a role Shakespeare wrote as a male. But the movie had a such a large amount of CGI, some of which seemed to be left over from the psychedelic parts of Taymor’s Across the Universe, it made the movie disappointing for me.

Zhang Yimou’s Under the Hawthorn Tree depended entirely on the story of two people falling in love during China’s Cultural Revolution to make its impact. The movie is based on a true story and was so heart breaking, I was hoping some of the chaste lovers’ interactions had been exaggerated for dramatic effect because it the reality of it would have been too hard to bear. (I am sure the reality was indeed much worse.) I was so anxious that they were going to be found out and their lives ruined for mundane things like the guy buying the girl boots so her feet would be protected against lime burns, I was a little relieved by the sorrowful ending that left the audience in tears because it didn’t involve prison or re-education camps.

There is great importance to a good story told well. This isn’t a matter of comparing an American director to a Chinese director. People are hailing Zhang Yimou for returning to this type of storytelling after big garish extravaganzas like Curse of the Golden Flower which relied so heavily on spectacle.

The Scandal!

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Tyler Cowen of Mariginal Revolution is reporting that the iTunes version of John Cage’s 4’33” is actually only 4’31”. Just another example of how the fidelity of classic works of art are being abridged and destroyed by technology.

The comments on the entry are pretty amusing and bear a look. My favorite –

“I saw the sheet music recently, cleverly priced at $4.33.

I memorized it on the spot rather than buying it.”

Info You Can Use: More Cell Phone Donations

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Back in February I wrote about using texting to donate to charities the way people were doing immediately after the Haiti earthquake. I had noted the high cost of setting something like this up was probably cost prohibitive for most. I also suggested that the costs would likely come down as its use became more prevalent or someone figured out a more efficient way to process the payment.

According to Fast Company , it looks like someone has done the latter. Mobile companies Obopay and Benevity have created a way in which you can text a word, choose your cause and have the money and acknowledgment issued immediately. Not only does everything get processed faster, but there is flexibility in the amount you can donate. According to a press release issued by the company:

“The new mobile giving solution enables charities to collect much higher amounts – up to hundreds of dollars – and provides the non-profit with much faster access to the funds, compared to other text-to-donate offerings that have been limited to $5 and $10 amounts and have taken over 90 days to get funds to the cause.

[…]

…said Bryan de Lottinville, CEO of Benevity. “As personal and corporate philanthropy recovers following the recession, mobile donations and campaigns will have increasing importance. We’re delighted to be part of a new solution that will provide companies and consumers with an easier way to give to causes that resonate with them. We’re also thrilled about making this functionality accessible to all charities and consumers, regardless of their size or the amount they can donate.”

No mention of the costs which I will grant, could be just as high as with the text giving I reported back in February. With faster receipt of funds and increased amount people can give, the costs can start to look more reasonable. Again, as people use it, the costs may come down. This partnership may or may not become the dominant player, but what the CEO says about donating by phone becoming more prevalent is likely true.

Since people tend to act on impulse with their phones, texting and calling their friends as soon as something happens, non-profits may benefit and receive more donations than they normally might if people had to pull their check books or credit cards out. I think it also likely non profits will face donors remorse in the wake of such giving and will need to formulate policies to address it.

What’s My Cue To Exit?

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David Dombrowsky, Executive Director of Center for Arts Management and Technology, retweeted an article from Inc magazine about exit strategies for non-profit entrepreneurs asking, “Can you think of arts examples?” Since the Inc piece is about entrepreneurs using their exits strategically to help their organizations grow/transition, my assumption is that Dombrowsky is asking if anyone can think of a person who has done so in the arts. I can’t.

I have covered the topic of succession planning or the lack thereof a number of times on this blog. Most arts organizations haven’t addressed the absence of a succession plan much less examined if that plan considers how to leverage the departure of the founder/executive director to their benefit. I will be honest and say that outside of signs of mental instability it never occurred to me that the departure of the founder could be cause of increased confidence. At best, a well executed transition could maintain existing confidence that might grow as a successor proved their mettle. At worst, a poorly handled transition (or complete absence of a plan) could be cause for alarm and unease.

Says Susi Soza in the Inc piece,

This leads up to the second reason why exits are so important: They signal to the market that an organization has reached a certain level of financial sustainability and scale. Exits are, by definition, big, and for a company founder to achieve an exit—whether by acquisition, a mezzanine round, or an IPO—that means it has achieved significant milestones in terms of revenue, profit, and market validation.

[…]

In the non-profit social entrepreneurship space the word exit appears like a misnomer. How can you have an exit for an organization with no owners?….

Non-profit social entrepreneurs would benefit from exits just as much as their for-profit peers. I believe more non-profit exits would actually attract additional capital to the non-profit space as it does in the for-profit space. Donors are persistently frustrated by fragmentation and duplication in the non-profit market, and I believe exits – whether by acquisition, merger, or even just closing down shop – would bring some welcome consolidation and efficiency that would provoke additional philanthropic investment.

Exits are also important for organizational realignment and revitalization. In the for-profit world, exits are often accompanied by changes in leadership team and business strategy. Unless businesses build exits into their lifecycles, non-profits rarely have catalytic events to spur these types of transitions. Furthermore, succession planning and transition beyond the founding social entrepreneur are often neglected because there are no unambiguous end points in sight. What if non-profit social entrepreneurs could aim toward an exit that came with a $50,000 bonus to do with what they wished?

While her observations are mainly directed at the social rather than arts sector, there is still a lot that is applicable. The comments about donors being frustrated by duplication of effort especially resonated with me. Partially because I am meeting this weekend to discuss governance of our booking consortium after we absorb our sister organization. But also because the idea that there are too many non-profit arts organizations conducting similar operations in the same geographic area is more frequently discussed these days.

I recognized her point that there are not too many widely recognized milestones against which non-profits and their supporters can measure organizational growth. With that in mind, a clear plan for recognizing transitional moments can be valuable. I also like the idea of working toward a $50,000 bonus. Something like putting $5,000 away annually for 10 years, but not adding to it if the leader stays past the agreed period might provide an incentive to move along.

Of course, that only works if everyone has been working toward grooming a successor. If they haven’t it becomes too easy to fall into the trap of deciding the current leader is the only one qualified to direct the course of the organization and extending their tenure and bonus.

But briefly back to Dombrowsky’s question. Are there any arts leaders who have done this? Even if it is only a handful, their example provides a template.

Alec Baldwin Hates NPR and Turning STEM into STEAM

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If you have been listening in on the public radio fund drives occurring the past couple weeks, you probably heard Alec Baldwin issuing various over the top threats about pledging to your public radio station. If you haven’t some of his greatest hits are collected on the KPLU website. In the first, he channels his character from 30 Rock and in a later one, reprises one of his speeches from the movie, Glengarry Glen Ross. Not included is an extremely frank, but very funny bit he did on This American Life this weekend. I have been trying to find it to no avail. If anyone has a link, send it my way.

Alec Baldwin has come a long way since his first appearance on NPR. (Warning, double entendres)

In other news, I got in to work just as the President’s Council on the Arts and Humanities started a live streaming chat this morning. Chuck Close, Margo Lion, George Stevens, Jr. and Damian Woetzel were talking about the place the arts have in the US and what can be done. You can watch the archived video here if you missed it. There was a simultaneous chat on the White House Facebook page so you could watch and discuss at the same time. (And let me just say, apropos to yesterday’s entry, as I listen to the archived video I realize how much I missed while trying to stay abreast of the comments.)

Chuck Close seemed to carry the day among commenters with his dismay/disgust with the lack of the arts in schools. He mentioned, as he often does, that the arts gave him hope in school and he credits the arts with keeping him out of jail. After the subject how the focus of education is on STEM courses, someone in the chat suggested it be changed to STEAM to include the arts.

It got me thinking that acronym would really lend itself to some good slogans. – STEAM drives America’s Productivity and Creativity; STEAM Powers The Economy. Not the most imaginative perhaps, but I am sure the products of STEAM education can generate some inspirational ones. It provides a good shorthand to use during advocacy because it binds the arts in with concepts in which many policy makers are already intellectually invested in advancing.

Twitter Thursdays

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So we have a production coming up that will have six performances. Because one performance is generally poorly attended, we generally offer some sort of last minute rush promotion requiring people to say a silly phrase to get their discount. Since the audience for this show tends to be younger, I thought I might also experiment and make that night a “social media performance.” Essentially, we would have a night where people would openly be invited to do text friends and update Twitter and Facebook status. The only thing we couldn’t let people do due to intellectual property concerns is record or take pictures.

If it was successful, I might consider expanding it to other performances as appropriate. We don’t get a more than 5-10 people commenting about our shows on social media sites so I wanted to see what would happen if we openly encouraged it. Because most classes were required to see the production the previous week, we wouldn’t see too many grouses about being forced to see the stupid show by a professor.

Knowing that a lot of people don’t like to have those around them leaning over a glowing cell phone, I thought having a specific performance dedicated to the practice might help draw those who liked the practice and allow those who disliked it to attend at other times. It wouldn’t guarantee a texting free environment at all shows, but might lead both groups to feel we recognized their needs.

When I brought the idea up at the weekly production meeting, I thought there might be some resistance. My biggest concern was for the actors who might not get the same audience reactions on that particular evening as they did in other performances due to divided attention. In fact, there might be more conversation at that performance as individuals whisper inquiries about what has transpired after everyone else laughs or gasps. I figured there would have to be some discussion of appropriateness and shifting expectations.

What I hadn’t expected was a vociferous and absolute refusal to perform that night from one of the creative team. The individual was wholly opposed to the practice which he felt was an awful trend and inappropriate at a live performance. He was under no illusion that it wouldn’t happen anyway regardless of what we did, and perhaps become more common and widespread, he just didn’t want to be party to an effort to encourage people to do it.

I think this is just part of a set of concerns that has existed for awhile and may become more prevalent soon enough. Do we diminish the performance by validating something outside of the usual practice? For orchestras, it has been projection of video images in support of the music in some way. In theatre it has been stunt casting of television/movie/pop music figures in stage performances. This isn’t just about Broadway casting choice. All across the country weather forecasters and football heroes get cast in the hope that their popularity will bring more butts to the seats. I am not sure what the characteristic corresponding situation would be in fine arts and dance.

In many ways this is different. Those elements, for better or for worse, are part of the artistic product. It may be cheapening the product to dilute it in this manner in the name of getting more attendance. It is another thing to encourage people to ignore the performance entirely to tell their friends to come to the show.

In one of my favorite Take A Friend To The Orchestra outings, Drew McManus takes a guy to a concert in Carnegie Hall. Drew tells him it is okay to be bored during some portions of the performance and I think brings binoculars so he can look more closely at the musicians during these times. Even though Drew says it is okay to be bored and not entirely engaged by the performance, his suggested alternatives encourage his companion to try to remain involved even if the music isn’t finding purchase in his ear.

Encouraging people to text sends the message that is okay to be bored, but encourages them to disengage themselves from the performance entirely without making the attempt to involve themselves in some other aspect of the experience and give the performance a chance to connect and draw them back.

I know I sound like I am siding with the objector against something I proposed doing. But this is really a matter of the two sides of my identity as an arts professional in conflict. From the marketing standpoint, allowing people to tell their friends about their experience can improve attendance. Not just as a matter of simple recommendation, but as a way for experimenters to lead their more wary friends to new experiences.

But it changes the way people are interacting with the arts in some undesirable ways. If people are viewing a performance in terms of what they can report on every few minutes, there isn’t any time given to digest the experience. There are many inveterate arts professionals who aren’t really sure what they thought about a show until the next morning. If you view a performance as a loaf of bread to comment on a slice at a time, you may never see the golden beauty of the loaf as a whole. You decide that Helen Mirren as Prospero is dumb when she first appears in The Tempest and then look for the next moment to comment on, and then the next and the next, you may miss what Julie Taymor was trying to do with the story.

Is this the way we want to encourage people to approach their experience with art? Mediated through the lens of whether what just happened was interesting enough to report to their friends at the expense of missing/incompletely comprehending what happens next? I remember reading about how certain actors in Shakespeare’s time were judged masterful when the girls wandering the aisles stopped hawking oranges. Will the power of a show be judged not by a standing ovation, the value of which seems to have degraded of late, but by the fact people were so entranced that they stopped texting?

Tip You Might Be Able To Use

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With all the discussion of using GroupOn to sell subscriptions and tickets that has been occurring of late, (neatly summarized by Drew McManus last week), my brain was receptive to the mention of a similar service which may be better for both the consumer and the business.

I was listening to the radio when I heard an interview with a representative of a company called Tippr that provides a similar service to GroupOn’s. The benefit for businesses is that they have representatives in every city in which they have a presence who can sit down and structure an offer specific to your company and needs rather than the same arrangement everyone else gets. This includes making sure responses don’t exceed your company’s resources and ability to service them. One of the biggest problems businesses have had with Groupon is being overwhelmed by the number of people seeking to redeem deals. Tippr seems to view themselves as a service that provides growth to businesses rather than a discount deal site.

Which is not to say the consumer doesn’t benefit. Tippr offers three deals a day rather than just one. But the real value comes in what Tippr calls an Accelerated Deal. The more people sign on to deal, the bigger the discount. It starts at 50% but can go up to 90%. Presumably, the business can set a cap on how large the discount grows to.

You won’t see the Accelerated Deal anywhere else. The process was patented by a company named Mercata in the 1990s which went belly up according to Gigaom because, “Online social networking didn’t exist back then, customers were much less likely to spend money online…” Tippr bought the patents on the process.

When I first heard the Accelerated Deal described, I thought it was a system that rewarded early adopters. In my post on GroupOn, I had suggested that with the correct timing, one could use that service to reward people who committed early.

When they first started talking about how Tippr worked, it almost sounded like you could pay $10 for $25 worth of merchandise and then as people joined in the next level of discount would have you pay $15 for the discount which might now be at $30. Except that since the discount was the same for everyone, the person who paid $10 now was getting $30 worth of merchandise. So as the discount increased, the late comers were getting a really great deal, but the early adopters who were driving the whole effort really made out well.

For the business, this could really work out well if you structured the curve of the discount well. Sure, you may end up giving $100 of merchandise for $10, but if the cost of the discount went up to $20 after the first 10 people bought, you limit that exposure. The same if you limit the number of $20 deals knowing the discount will top out at $100 merchandise for $60. If you have a couple hundred people buying at the $60 range when the average sale in your store is $15, it might be good planning. Especially if you know from more modest offers that a fair percentage will return to your store to buy at full price and since they have already paid $60 in your store once, they are inclined to spend more than the normal $15 average.

While that isn’t how Tippr actually works, if more companies enter this market niche, you may see companies using this type of model of obscene discounts for the first responders to differentiate themselves from the pack. Hmm, maybe I should download the patent paperwork….

I am not sure how well Tippr might work for arts organizations. It may make sense for subscriptions over single ticket sales. If earned income is 40% of your budget and you have the potential of discounting your tickets anywhere from 50%-75%, it could be a perilous situation. But it can be absolutely worth it if you decide rather than spend a couple thousand dollars on print and radio advertising, you will forgo a couple thousand dollars in ticket revenue knowing every few dollars lost is a guaranteed audience member. Since Tippr has a representative to sit down with you and listen to your concerns so you can develop a sane plan for how much to discount and limit the number offered, you can also be guaranteed not to incur any more expense than you intended.

Free Markets And The Artists Unappreciated In Their Own Country

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I was reading a piece by economist Tyler Cowen on how Milton Friedman’s views apply to the arts. According to Cowen, Friedman essentially felt that free market commerce creates diversity in the arts, in types, method of expression, funding and innovation. “Our most effective arts policy has been tax incentives for donations, which has kept choice and quality control in private hands,” writes Cowen.

Cowen acknowledges that we don’t always like the way this manifests itself.

“In other cases, many people, most of all intellectuals, object when apparently nonmeritorious individuals earn huge salaries. The same objections surface in the cultural realm. Madonna earns hundreds of millions, whereas a first rate opera singer might pull in only $50,000 a year or perhaps cannot earn a living from singing at all. The best response, well understood by Friedman, is the same. A system that permits such “inequities” will in fact generate the greatest number of opportunities for performers of virtually all kinds.”

I am sure I was being stubborn when I decided I wasn’t completely convinced by this assertion, though there were enough examples to support Cowen that kept creeping into my mind. It wasn’t until later in the piece when Cowen cited the example of Monet that I had to reluctantly fall more in agreement with him.

This story of free trade and creativity runs throughout the history of culture. Claude Monet had little success marketing his paintings to the government run Salon in Paris in the late nineteenth century. His style and colors were considered to be too radical and too unpleasant. Monet had greater success selling to wealthy North Americans, who were not bound by prevailing French artistic conventions. His haystack paintings proved particularly popular in this country, which is one reason why they appear so frequently in American art museums.

The Monet example illustrates a broader (but sometimes neglected) benefit of international trade. The common arguments for trade cite the benefits of drawing on producers from other countries. But trade also mobilizes the benefits of the consumers from other countries. Consumers hold embedded knowledge. Their purchases can induce suppliers to elevate quality, help suppliers pursue careers of greater pleasure (for example, art), and help generate the artistic heritage of mankind. The greater the diversity of consumers to draw on, the better markets will perform these tasks.

This past week we premiered an original work about the Hawaiian snow goddess, Poli‘ahu which pretty much illustrates his point. It employed hula, ballet and contemporary dance. The artistic director brought in dancers from Japan, a Yupik Eskimo from Alaska and an exchange student from Mongolia to work alongside local dancers to tell this story. While we hope to tour this throughout the rest of the state and take it to the continental United States, there were already plans forming to take it to Alaska and Japan as the show closed opening night. Colleagues at another performing arts center took a show about Kahekili, the chief who nearly united all the islands under one king to Germany a few years ago.

As Cowen’s talked about how international trade brings benefits to the arts, it struck me that without it, the performance we just had would not have developed as it did and the opportunities that may open up and indeed have opened up for colleagues doing similar works, would not be possible. Some of these developments are owed to technology and the internet which enables people to become aware of these shows and evaluate performance videos. But international trade and interactions make people more comfortable and curious about each other and willing to consume other artistic experiences.

The inspiration for our production of Poli‘ahu originated during a bush flight over the Anaktuvuk Pass when the artistic director we partnered with was invited to bring hula to the Arctic Circle a few years ago. Granted, trips to Alaska from Hawaii are not international and there are some areas where they share a certain kinship, but in many respects they are diametrical opposites.

The dancers from Japan didn’t bring anything overtly Japanese to the performance. The role they played could have been performed by any well trained dancers. But their presence was a product of the international commerce to which Cowen refers. The artistic director of the production had been visiting their dance school in Japan for over 10 years and had worked with these women since they were children. He arranged accommodations for them during the rehearsal period so that they could participate in his production as part of his company.

It has been awhile since I invoked the concept of the Creative Economy so let me do so here. This production probably won’t constitute a large enough segment of the emerging economy to pull us out of the recession, but the dynamics which made the production possible and the activity yet to result from it may play a tiny part in moving things toward such an economy.

Social Network Just For Non-Profits

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Via Non-Profit Law blog, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is launching a social network, JUMO, later this year to connect non-profits with supporters. If you watch the video accompanying the article, you will learn that while Hughes has left Facebook, he is still supports its use. Jumo users will be able to easily transfer their Facebook information over when he opens the service.

Hughes’ hope is to provide a way for organizations to develop relationships prior to requesting assistance. “Hughes thinks that the call for support should come only after people and organizations have built that connection with one another. All too often, said Hughes, the donate button on websites is big, flashy, and colorful, and email calls to action are usually in all caps, starting with the word “Urgent!” Hughes hopes that Jumo will move organizations toward a new era where relationships are forged and cultivated before calls to action.”

Earlier the article notes: “To do that, the platform will be broken up into three main components: Find, Follow and Support. First, Jumo will help you find non-profit organizations by learning the types of things that interest you and making suggestions. Second, the site will help you follow those organizations by receiving a stream of updates about the work they’re doing and how that work is affecting real people.”

In the comments section, some wonder if people will really join another social network. I don’t necessarily share that concern. I think people who are interested in causes will welcome a place that aggregates information and lets them connect with those causes. Non profit organizations should differentiate how they use the different technologies. You might encourage people who want information on ticket specials and the hot news about just signed artists to pay attention to your Twitter feed or Facebook account. Whereas you would provide information on outreach efforts and volunteering opportunities on the Jumo account.

Focusing on a few communication channels is about all most arts organizations have the staffing to handle in any case. Developing a separate flavor for each channel and leveraging it to serve the interests of different segments of your audience is probably better than replicating the same content verbatim on each is probably a better use of staff time in any case.

The real benefit to non-profits would be if people started using Jumo in ways not anticipated by the creators, spurring the development of features specific to the needs of non-profits.

Ticketmaster’s New Invisible Pricing Policy

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So I see on Fast Company that a class action suit brought against Ticketmaster has moved forward with everyone who purchased tickets between October 21, 1999 and before May 31, 2010 named as parties to the suit. The suit focuses on the order process and UPS delivery fees notes the Fast Company article:

Plaintiffs assert that Ticketmaster’s Order Processing Fee is deceptive and leads consumers to believe that it represents Ticketmaster’s costs to process their orders, and that the Order Processing Fee is just a profit component for Ticketmaster, unrelated to the costs of processing the orders. Ticketmaster disputes these allegations.

Plaintiffs allege that Ticketmaster’s UPS Delivery option is deceptive because it leads consumers to believe the price they are paying Ticketmaster is a pass-through of the fees that UPS charges to Ticketmaster and that Ticketmaster substantially marks-up the amount it actually pays to UPS. Ticketmaster disputes these allegations.

I had read a piece on the MSNBC website back in September saying that Ticketmaster had created a blog site and were acknowledging that people hated their fees and would offer more transparency about the charges. But that hasn’t been the experience of Herb Weisbaum who wrote the MSNBC piece. He didn’t find out the exact amount of the processing fee until he reached the point of reviewing his order.

And this was after CEO Nathan Hubbard admitted on the Ticketmaster blog, Ticketology (my emphasis),

The problem is that historically we haven’t told you how much you have to pay for a given seat until very late in the buying process. And our data tells us this angers many of you to the point that you abandon your purchase once you see the total cost, and that you don’t come back. The data also says (and this is the important piece) that if we had told you up front what the total cost was, you would have bought the ticket! So by perpetuating this antiquated fee presentation, fans are getting upset, while we and our clients are losing ticket sales.

This practice changes today.

Now with all the changes to programming that probably needed to occur to make good on his promise, perhaps it was too optimistic to expect that would be changed in the first couple days. Or three weeks later when Herb Weisbaum bought his tickets. Or you know, right now 6 weeks later when I tried to buy ticket, clicked on the price details and was told about a $9 convenience fee, but didn’t find out about the processing fee until I was ready to hit submit. True, when it said “The price displayed includes the ticket/item price plus, when applicable, convenience charges, facility charges and additional taxes. Click Price Details for more information.” And that doesn’t mention that there might be charges they may not be telling me about. Silly me for assuming there weren’t unstated charges after reading that there would be more transparency early in the purchasing process. Their new pricing policy is transparent all right, it still remains to be seen.

The other thing that makes me skeptical that Ticketmaster is sincere about changing their ways is that there have only been two entries on the Ticketology blog. The first was in August where the CEO made this promise along with stating Ticketmaster would be offering refunds at select venues. (Which admittedly is a step forward.) The second entry was in September where the CEO talks about how much everyone loves their refund policy.

That’s it.

With all the events for which they sell tickets, all the myriad venues they operate out of and serve, they can’t muster more than 2 entries in 6 weeks? They could have pictures of their employees in and around some of the most famous and attractive venues in the world making you dream of seeing whatever you could just to walk through the doors and sit in those seats.

But all they got is a post about policy changes and another that is sort of self congratulatory about one of those changes. It pretty much screams, “this is a corporate propaganda blog.” Nothing is going to be posted that isn’t vetted by marketing and maybe legal. Ticketmaster protests that they aren’t responsible for the high prices and varied add on charges, but they aren’t doing a very good job of making that case.

Five Rs of Success

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So I am beginning to think that adding the Non-Profit Law Blog to my Google reader was one of the best things I have done in terms of keeping myself informed on stuff to blog about. Not to send everyone abandoning my blog to hang out there, but they offer a lot of worthwhile information. (In case you haven’t been reading my blog for very long.) Last week Emily Chan did an entry on social media policy resources for non-profits.

Among the links she lists are pieces by Beth Kanter, one of which deals with the question of whether your organization needs a social media policy. Chan also links to a piece by Sharlyn Lauby on Mashable about 10 things that should appear in your social media policy. I found both of these helpful, but there are a number of other good links Emily Chan lists and then Beth Kanter has a slew of other related links in her article.

Kanter’s article has some good links for developing policy, case studies and cautionary tales about how posting the wrong sentiments and pictures can get you fired. The one that really caught my eye because of its constructive approach was a slide show by Sacha Chua, “The Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 at Work” Chua created a hand drawn slide show aimed at Gen Yers which warns them about treating co-workers like college buddies and not applying themselves to their work.

Her tips for success at work are to Read, Write, Reach Out, Rock and Repeat: Read as much as you can; Write and Share What You Have Learned; Reach Out to others (help, get mentors, as questions); Rock at what you do and work at strengthening your weakness; and of course, repeat all those steps.

It’s more exciting and informative with her illustrations, trust me.

I don’t think it takes much effort to realize these are good guidelines for every worker, regardless of what generation they have been categorized in. I especially take it to heart because like Chua, my blog helped me get my job. While I do share links that are of interest, I don’t do it as often I want to because I don’t want to be that guy who sends a lot of links that have little relevance to the recipient. I am thinking maybe I don’t need to send more links as expand the list of those to whom I send really relevant ones.

Are You Getting Your 24 Cents Worth?

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Daniel Pink had an entry this weekend where he presents a taxpayer receipt created as part of a policy paper by some gentlemen at Third Way. David Kendall and Jim Kessler who wrote the piece for Third Way start their paper by pointing out that we know the breakdown in the nutritional value of the food we buy, but we haven’t the faintest idea what sort of value we are getting for our taxes.

Given that so many politicians promise to control spending without touching Social Security and Medicare, they wanted to create an easy to understand listing of where all that money was going and what would likely need to be cut to make good on those promises. Since the median taxpayer in the U.S. earns $34,140 and assuming all that income is taxable, they created a graphic breakdown of where the $5,400 in taxes paid in 2009 went.

Of course, I gravitated directly to arts spending – 24 cents. Now remember, this isn’t the amount spent on arts per person, just what the median tax payer’s share is. Those with higher incomes are paying more and those with lower incomes are paying less. The amount per person is probably closer to the usual rule of thumb of the cost of a postage stamp. I was a little surprised to see that benefits and salaries for Congress fell below the arts at 19 cents until I remembered there are only 535 of them compared to all the arts organizations that seek funding.

If you visit Pink’s site, you will see that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid top the list at $1,040.70, $625.51 and $385.28, respectively. Next down on the list is interest on the national debt and military operations. Cutting spending on the arts isn’t going to vastly improve the lot of any other area. Above arts spending is the Smithsonian Museum at $1.12. Giving all the arts money to the museum doesn’t improve their budget by a quarter.

When people complain that they don’t want their tax dollars going to support degenerate art, the truth is more money was likely spent powering their computer while emailing those sentiments and then paying a Congressional staffer to read and perhaps print it out than is spent on the arts. If a person mails their complaint, well they have already spent more on the stamp than they probably paid in taxes to the arts.

Info You Can Use: So You Wanna Join A Board?

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I believe I have covered the subject of considerations to make when joining a non-profit board before, but Emily Chan did a terrific entry on the topic on Non-Profit Law Blog this week. She links to the BoardSource page on this topic at the end, but she reminds us of additional things to think about.

Among her suggestions are to research on the organization you have been asked to join by reviewing the financials, bylaws, ensuring they have board liability and evaluating the personality dynamics on the board and their work process. Chan also mentions one of the areas I think is often overlooked–education. People who are familiar with boards on a basic level will know there are fiduciary and legal responsibilities to attend but may not really push to receive a thorough education in these areas and about the organization in general.

Education: Will you have the tools necessary to succeed at this organization?

Incoming directors at an organization may have different educational needs for creating the right environment to thrive on the board. Factors such as past board experience or work experience in the nonprofit sector can be useful in quickly adapting to a director role and executing those responsibilities. Likewise, an organization’s investment in or opportunity for board development and mentorship may be an important factor of an ideal work environment for individuals who are first-time directors or new to the nonprofit sector. For those seeking board education, a few topics to consider are:

* Orientation: What information will be covered? What are you expected to take away? What type of resources will be provided? Will you need more help or information after this?
* Training programs: Are they offered? If so, do they address the skills and areas you need the most help with? Are they pre-scheduled or provided as needed? Will you need more training and education down the road?
* Job description: What is being asked of you? Are your responsibilities and duties understandable and realistic? Can you fulfill this role?

I also really like Chan’s comments on how to evaluate the personality dynamics of the board, but I didn’t feel I could copy that much of her entry and offer so little original insight of my own. Obviously, the article can also serve as a guide for the materials, information and education non profits should be prepared to present to a potential board member so that a well informed decision is made.

Prices So Low, It Might Be Insane!

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There was a fair bit of discussion on Adaptistration two weeks ago about the Joffrey Ballet’s success in gaining over 2000 subscribers in a single day using the GroupOn discounting site. As a theatre manager, I get caught in the debate between making 25% of my ticket price vs. having an empty seat against possibly training people to wait for the deep discount in the future.

One of the best points that I think is made in the comments on the Adaptistration entry is that while you may be making 25% of the ticket revenue, you don’t have the marketing costs usually associated with promoting the show when you work with GroupOn. My assumption is that most arts organizations marketing costs aren’t 75% of the ticket price so there is still a danger of not meeting the other overhead costs you have by using GroupOn, but if the discount is structured correctly, you could end up doing marginally better than you might have and have a fuller house. Looking like you are successful is half the battle in convincing donors and granting organizations to support you.

Still, I was pleased to see Chad Bauman, the Director of Communications at Arena Stage take the subject on. In addition to suggesting that you are rewarding the wrong kind of behavior with these discounts and risk alienating the person who paid full price months ago, he notes that paying less than full price seems to translate into less than full commitment in both renewing and attendance.

“We must always remember that discount buyers behave differently and you must budget for that. Full season subscribers at most organizations renew at a rate between 85% to 90%. However, I have found that full season subscribers that purchase their subscriptions at a drastic discount renew at a much lower rate (around 60%). Additionally, because they spent significantly less amount of money per ticket, the no show rates are also substantially higher, sometimes leaving large empty holes in your house.”

As an alternative, Bauman suggests a slightly more work intensive process of acquiring mailing lists, sorting out your current subscribers and ticket buyers and-

5. Using the exact same deep discount offer you were going to give to Groupon, develop a cheap, but effective mailer and send to your list. Make sure it is an offer that is impossible to pass up, and that the offer leads in design and has a deadline. (note: if you don’t have a large box office staff, then make sure the offer is online only, or you will be swamped). The key is to keep production and mailing costs low–send using non-profit postage and use a discount printer/mail house.

By doing this, you get to keep the entire purchase price of the discounted subscription, and you minimize the possibility that your dedicated and loyal patrons will see that you are heavily discounting late into your campaign after thousands have already purchased.

Taken together, the Adaptistration entry and comments and Chad Bauman’s take, give a pretty good picture of the factors to consider and some alternative approaches to take.

I haven’t used GroupOn yet for personal consumption. In fact, it appears it might not have a lot of traction locally because there is no listing of past deals for my city. Though that could just be a technical matter. I wonder if you can effect the timing of the offer. That way, you can use it in a manner closer to that used by airlines. Not everyone in the plane is paying the same for their seats, but generally it is recognized that those who purchased earlier got a better deal. If you can arrange things so that people need to commit to the performance a couple months out, then at least you emphasize the need to plan ahead. Only problem is that if people don’t show up because their investment is as low as the price they paid for the ticket, you may judge it something of a mixed blessing.

Entranced by Gorey’s Details

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This weekend I attended an opening of an exhibit of the works of Edward Gorey. I honestly had no idea he was as prolific an illustrator and writer as he was. I had grown up seeing the openings he created for PBS’ Mystery and a college roommate had a poster of his Gashleycrumb Tinies. I had nearly forgotten that he did the set and costume design (as well as playbill cover) for the Broadway performance of Dracula back in the 70s.

But there are scads more that he produced, so much of it so very wickedly clever. I loved his pop up books. There was this one book that expanded like an accordion. You peered into one end and apparently as you expanded and contracted the book, the different figures would emerge and retreat from your field of vision changing your perspective about the details of the scene. (I wish I could find a picture of it online to show you!)

As I looked around, it occurred to me that technology is no substitute for talent. Gorey used paper and ink of various qualities and grades to express himself in ways that can’t be replicated or remixed by someone on a computer who lacks Gorey’s vision. He had a series of story cards with images and short phrases that could be shuffled and laid out in myriad ways to create alternative stories. The ones on display in the case had a mystery theme and depending on the order you gazed upon them could have people sneaking around possible as a cause of what came later or as a reaction to what happened earlier. There were books with the pages sliced into about ten stacks of slips that could be used the same way. Flip to the 3rd slip of the top pile, the 8th slip of the fourth pile, the 3 slip of the 9th pile and you had a one variation of a thousand stories. I liked the cards a little better because I could see them being easier to use on a long car ride and the illustrations contributed to my imagination. In one variation, those on the card looked around furtively. In another, they just looked bored.

In most theatre classes, students are often reminded that the fancy lights and effects and detailed costumes are not the performance, but merely enhance the experience. All you need is a good performer with a good story. The rest is superfluous. Gorey brings a lot to his work. Even though you experience the art and text on a static medium, as the speaker said yesterday, you have to interact with his work to get something out of it. He requires imagination, intelligence and thought.

Arts, Feel The Burn. Love the Burn!

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Andrew Taylor has the video of Diane Ragsdale’s address on Arts Alliance Illinois 2010 Members’ Meeting on his blog today. Her speech was titled, “Surviving the Culture Change” and she tackled the general idea that expectations are changing and the arts need to change too. My favorite moment was when she likened the experience of attending the arts for someone who has never really done so to going to the gym. “You have to go on a regular basis before going feels better than not going.”

During her talk she references the fact that large churches often make sure newcomers are greeted and are integrated into a small group that becomes something of a social network for them so they don’t feel like a small fish in a really big pond. I made a similar observation in just the last month.

She also talked about attending performances and then wanting the arts organization to have posted some sort of downloadable material the next day that she could share with her friends. Perhaps she acknowledged the problem and I missed it, but the biggest difficulty with that is arranging for all the intellectual property clearances to pull that off. Doing what she suggests will either take a major shift in how protective IP holders are with their material..or the rise to prominence of people who don’t care to have it tightly guarded. Something that may just happen if people flock to them because they enable audiences to share clips the next day.

Ragsdale speaks on a number of topics over 45 minutes and there is a lot that is likely to interest you, so watch it below. The last thing that grabbed my attention was when she talked about saying you don’t have time to be involved with the arts is just an easy default answer. She points out that people devoted to the slow food movement/sustainable agriculture invest a great deal of time and money hunting down organic ingredients, learning to prepare meals and then engaging in the time consuming cooking process. There is a sense of satisfaction they get from this activity. Part of the trick then is to provide an opportunity to acquire a similar sense of satisfaction in the arts.

N.B. – For a shorter version of Diane’s comments and the text of the prepared remarks, see the links in Scarlett Swerdlow’s comments below. Thanks for the tip, Scarlett!

Diane Ragsdale on Surviving the Culture Change (Full Remarks) from Arts Alliance Illinois on Vimeo.

On Refunds and Exchanges

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So I made a big mistake this week with a reception invite. There was actually a letter missing from the title of the show on the cover of the invite. Now in my defense, about five other people missed it to. I had originally assumed that I messed it up by accidentally brushing the space bar when I was reviewing the work on my computer yesterday. Then I went back and looked at the versions I emailed out to the various parties involved, including the show creator, over the course of two weeks. It was missing all that time and no one caught it. I suspect part of the reason is that the cover of the invite was inverted so that it would fold into the correct orientation on the finished product. (Also, I think the show might be cursed. The show creator made a mistake on his first run of invitations a year ago when he was inviting his donors to a preview of part of the work.)

In any case, I sent the corrected version back to the printer and told them if they were having a sense of deja vu, it was because I had made a mistake on the first run. I got a call from the print shop and they said if I brought all the flawed pieces back, they would only charge me 50% of the original cost on the reprint. This was happy news to me since I resigned myself to putting the reprint on my credit card as it was my fault. I think it is a great policy on the part of the shop because they earn good will from the customer and they can be sure the paper is recycled rather than tossed in a dumpster.

As I usually do when I encounter an example of good customer service, I wondered how this policy might be applied to the arts. My first thought was in regard to exchange fees for tickets. Many organizations either do not exchange, have a $2-$5 fee for exchanges or only allow subscribers to exchange. I don’t have any data on how well any of these policies are received by audience members who want to change the performances. I suspect it is largely a function of the communities and the dynamics of the relationship each organization has with its audience base. While I think no exchanges or a fee provides an incentive to make a firm decision, it can be difficult to discern if the ticket office made a mistake or to demand people pay it when an accident/emergency is going to prevent their attendance. Deciding to do an exchange or refund is so often a subjective judgment call that having a fee can exacerbate the frustration of those who feel they were unjustly denied.

Part of the problem is an empty seat is not a ream of paper. Yes, an empty seat is lost revenue once the show has started but that is a more abstract concept for people than the ream of paper now spoiled by a mistake the consumer has made. The whole concept of a performance as a perishable commodity which you are exchanging money for can be tough to grasp if there are many opportunities. My dentist can fine me for breaking my appointment because he knows I will have to come back sooner or later when my teeth start to hurt. (Just for the record, I am faithful to my 6 month appointments.) Occupying his chair is something I feel I need to do. Not always the case with some performances.

In these days when people are making and changing their plans at the last minute, do no refund/exchange policies or fees make sense? Do they provide a disincentive to attendance in the first place? There are a number of organizations who experiment with flex passes, some of which allow you a set number of tickets to any performance you want to see. You can come once with 6 friends, come 6 times to the same show yourself or go to 6 different shows yourself. Seattle Rep has a package like this called Player Pass. They even have a Today’s Pass where you call the day of the show to get the best seats. Of course, if the show is sold out, you can’t get in.

If you only have one night performances and many of these shows don’t have similar ticket prices, then it can be difficult to institute a program like this. What I like about these flexible programs is that it puts a little more of the responsibility back on the ticket buyer. I am good at my job because I excel at advance planning. In the face of indecision and vacillation over weekend plans, I want to grumble, “geez, make a decision already!” With these flexible passes, if a person waits too long and the show they want to see is sold out and they don’t value the remaining shows in the season as much, then their subscriptions have lost a little of that intangible value I spoke of earlier.

Of course, the annoyance factor for me would be about the same whether they were wheedling and begging to get into a sold out show or vacillating about going to a show in advance. I may feel a little smug about having a sold out show, but I always hate having to turn people away from great shows for reasons that have nothing to do with ticket revenue. Flex passes don’t alleviate your worry on Wednesday about whether people will come to see the show on Friday because few have committed to any weekend plans yet. Well sure, with the flex passes you have already collected some money, and that is comforting. But performances were meant to be seen, the more the better.

Will Taxes Be Known As Manadatory Donations?

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While non-profit arts organizations are looking into alternative structures under which to organize themselves like the L3C, it seems at least one municipality is looking to the non-profit model for their government structure.

Back in July, I came across an article about how Hopewell Borough in NJ is considering the non-profit model as a way to avoid state mandates. Mayor Paul Anzano posted a letter on the borough website in December:

“This would not be about seceding from the state, abandoning our responsibilities or failing to maintain the highest goals,” he wrote. “But it would most certainly involve exploring new options for delivering services based on the unique character of our borough. … Let the discussion begin.”

He was motivated by frustration he felt when the state mandated services but forbade raising taxes.

According to the newspaper article, “Under Mayor Anzano’s plan, the community would be run on a corporate model, and a board of directors, rather than a borough council, would hold residents responsible for municipal fees much like those in a co-op.”

The government wouldn’t be organized under 501 c 3 like arts organizations are so there wouldn’t be an opportunity to write off your property taxes as a deductible donation. There are a few non-profit categories under which you can organize which supporting would not be tax deductible (neighborhood associations or condo co-opts, for example).

The mention of co-opt association raised a momentary red flag for me as I recalled a recent story about how Texas Homeowner Associations can foreclose on your property without a judicial proceeding. This is the case in 33 states. I wondered if NJ were one and if Hopewell Borough might end up structured in such a way that they were exempt from any eminent domain prohibitions that usually face governments.

I was waiting to see if there might be any more development on the story, but other than the borough meeting a few days later to discuss this, I haven’t been able to find much more news on the matter.

So at this point, there is no sign that this will ever come to fruition. But if a borough of 2000 people can get a discussion started on the topic among various state government units and the associations to which they belong, maybe the charitable non-profits should get together, the hospitals, social service agencies, arts organizations, etc, and push for an alternative structure–either a new one or a new hybrid non-profit category that provides more options for operation.

Be A Broadway Producer!

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Broadway Producer Ken Davenport is offering the first crowd funded investment opportunity in a Broadway show. For $100/unit, ten unit minimum, you can invest in Davenport’s Broadway revival of Godspell.

Davenport had to pass an exam to become a securities agent in order to offer this opportunity.

From Davenport’s blog-

“Each investor in Godspell shall receive a limited liability company interest in The Godspell, LLC, per our Offering Circular as qualified with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States.*

In addition, every single investor, no matter how much he or she invests, will have his or her name listed on a poster outside of our Broadway theater.

Yep, you’re going to get billing.

And every single investor will also have their name listed on a new website created exclusively for this community, PeopleofGodspell.com, as well as his or her photo, hometown, a quote, and links to their Facebook and Twitter profiles.

What do you think? Fun, right?

There may even be opportunities for opening night performance and gala tickets, complimentary tickets to previews, invitations to private cast functions and more.”

Bad news for many of you, including me, you have to live in one of the following states to directly invest – CA, CT, GA, IL, MA, MI, MN, NJ and NY. If you really want to participate, maybe you can have friends/relatives who live there and are interested in investing themselves pool your money with theirs. Not sure if you can get credit on the poster though.

1099s For Everybody!

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I was idly skimming around Inc.com today when I came across a story which raised some concern for all the already overburdened arts organizations out there.

Apparently, a provision of the new health care law will require that any company making a purchase of more than $600 issue a 1099 form to the seller. Even for arts organizations who don’t generally have a lot of money, it is pretty easy to spend $600 with a single company in the course of a year. I can see a lot of arts organizations being driven to distraction trying to comply with this. Especially since arts organizations may also end up receiving as well as giving because of rentals or blocks of tickets people may have purchased for their business.

This law actually may provide a disincentive to shop around for the cheapest price. If it is easier to keep track of everything you spent on hardware at one store, you may avoid the other stores even though they often have good prices on certain items.

Non profits may be exempted for all I know, but there was no mention of that in the six different articles I read trying to get more information on the subject. There are a few amendments that have been proposed. One was voted down today because it tried to dismantle a couple other elements of the bill along the way.

This is supposed to go into effect in 2012 so more information may emerge as Congress tries to sort all the intended and unintended consequences out.

Gumbo With Your Show

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I have only written about performances we have presented that transcended my expectations artistically (or things that we self-produced). The performance we presented this past weekend was just as excellent as I expected so it doesn’t necessarily fall into that category. However, the ancillary activities we conducted garnered us a lot of audience goodwill.

We were having a Louisiana group, Red Stick Ramblers, perform for us and noticed they did cooking demonstrations. Since their performance would be the first event of the season, it seemed like a good opening event to have the group cook for a small number of people. Theatres often offer the opportunity to have dinner with performers, but having the performers cook the dinner is a little more novel. They would be performing the same night so we didn’t want them to keel over in exhaustion. The chef/fiddler confirmed that cooking for nearly 200 people and doing a show nearly wiped him out once so I was pleased we limited the tickets to 50 people. We still have nice weather so we held it outside and billed it as a picnic. In addition to cooking, the band jammed a little off to the side while the meal was being prepared.

The people who attended were quite verbal with their appreciation for hosting the dinner and concert. They kept telling my boss how wonderful I was and what a great job I was doing at the theatre. (I should add, we weren’t serving any alcohol.) People got to listen and chat with the musicians. Others crowded around the pot and helped stir. If you have ever made a brown roux, for gumbo you know there is a lot of stirring to be done. A good number who attended the picnic knew each other from attending various music festivals in Louisiana so I was pleased there was some word of mouth in operation. I know the event added a couple people to our mailing list.

Of course, we had to expend quite a bit of effort to make a picnic happen in addition to a concert. There was a lot of food to be purchased and prepped prior to their arrival. Potatoes don’t peel themselves, nor do shrimp de-vein and lose their tails on command. Tables and chairs to be set up and broken down. Dishes had to be washed. By the end of the night, you begin to see the wisdom of having things catered.

But as people poured out of the theatre at intermission and the end of the show, still heaping praise on the experience, I realized we had earned a lot of good will with a number of people that evening. Caterers may have done all the clean up, but sometimes that can’t compare to a good home cooked meal. (Letting them in to the seating area earlier than everyone else probably didn’t hurt either.) By the time I got to the pot, everyone had fished all the big pieces of shrimp and other seafood out, but the liquid itself was pretty great tasting.

I am not particularly pushing these guys, though they are pretty easy going and fun. I think there are a few Louisiana/Southern US groups that do this sort of thing. A guy calling himself the Sauce Boss makes gumbo on stage while he performs and then gives a little to the audience. This can be a fun activity for a performing arts center. One of our partner venues in the state is having their cooking demo on a separate day from the concert so they can serve a larger group than we did. I think their dinner event was more fund raising focused.

Cherry Orchard? Check The Freezer Section

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Given my brief foray into site specific theatre last Spring, I have been keeping my eyes open for other projects. Via the Fast Company website is a The Cherry Orchard inspired piece set in an empty department store in Brighton, England.

The Fast Company site has some images, but architectural photographer Jim Stephenson has an entire walk through of the building on his blog, talking about what an attendee experienced.

A lot of it sounds like fun–entering the freezer and finding yourself looking at a winter snowscape with a model of the Cherry Orchard house. You move to the next room and you find yourself in the house modeled in the snowscape. At other times you move from the 19th century Russian house to a more contemporary Russian department store.

Take a look. See if you are inspired.

Duelling Boards

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A nod to Non-Profit Law Blog for their link to a very extreme situation addressing the question of who owns a non-profit. In a story that appeared in the Star-Tribune (MN) and Non-Profit Quarterly. The founder of a non-profit that works with former inmates was frustrated with what he saw as a lack of responsiveness from his board. He formed a second board with a former member of the first board. This second board voted to dissolve the first board and install themselves as the governing body. According to both articles, the founder ended up fired and being lead away by police in the presence of both board presidents, each claiming they were in charge.

The short answer about who is in charge is always the board. They bear the responsibility of the governance of the organization. But given that organizational founders are generally the ones who institute the formation of a board asking the initial members to serve, does a founder have an ability to choose his/her own board? There is a point where the ability to select board members passes from the founder’s hands. My suspicion is that absent a provision giving the founder or executive director the power to make appointments, this occurs once bylaws have been completed and properly filed.

The next logical question is, when a board is not living up to its responsibilities, what recourse do people have in replacing them? Presumably the board can be sued for not meeting their responsibilities and a court could dissolve the board and order the formation of a new one. I have never heard of this happening, though I am sure it has, so I can’t be certain. It may not be the board as a whole which is dissolved and only those whom have been proven to be remiss in their duties who are removed from the board. But basis of this would be whether members attended the required meetings and were diligent in their review and handling of organizational matters. If it were not essential or required that the members return calls or attend the organizational events, it might be difficult to have the board dismissed. If they were moving forward with the strategic plan and operating budget at a rate a court found reasonable, again it could be difficult to unseat them.

If the allegations of mismanagement originate from within the organization, as it did in this case, then there is also the stress of having the board and staff in a confrontational stance complicating the situation as well. As I mentioned, I am sure there have been times when boards have been dissolved because they failed in their duties, but I wonder how many of those instigated by staff. If anyone on staff is going to do it, it would be the founder given how much they have invested in the organization. Staff members may have provided materials to support the case against the board, but it has to take a lot of moxie for a staff to declare a company is ill-served by its board and initiate legal proceedings.

Yes, We Get Snow Here

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In about five weeks we will be producing a show about the Hawaiian snow goddess, Poli‘ahu. Yes, Hawaii has snow every winter on Haleakala and Mauna Kea. It is upon Mauna Kea that Poli‘ahu and her sisters are said to reside. There are actually a lot of very interesting tales about the goddess and her sister, including a sled race against a disguised Pele, the volcano goddess.

We are working with the same company who created a Hawaiian opera based on the myth of the Naupaka flower back in 2006. One of the things that excited me about doing the 2006 show was that the artistic director was taking an approach to storytelling that was ambitious of itself, but fairly new in relation to Hawaiian culture. I thought the show might provide a good model and inspiration for other groups since Hawaii is undergoing something of a cultural renaissance. Since then we have presented a show produced by a partner organization about Kahekili who essentially played Uther to Kamehameha’s Arthur in the unification of the islands.

I had been pleased to learn that the artistic staff creating Kahekili had looked at the Naupaka performance when they were planning to remount their work created a decade earlier. In our early discussions about the Poli‘ahu, the artistic director talked about the lessons and ideas he took from the staging of Kahekili. The idea that there was an artistic conversation of sorts driving the evolution and development of works happening before my eyes really excites me.

This may not seem like big deal in most places where everyone seems to give homage/steal the best of what they see other people doing. There are strict lines of tradition and orthodoxy in hula so even if you explicitly say you aren’t doing hula, but only hula inspired work, your product must still be respectful. Likewise, anything dealing with royalty or divine entities must exhibit suitable reverence. The production of Poli‘ahu is also integrating Siberian and Yupik Eskimo chant and dance so even more attention must be paid to avoid offending someone.

Of course, we also face the challenge of trying to convince people who are familiar with the traditional performance to take a chance on the unorthodox. We have sold out these performances before so we are leaving the door open to add additional shows. But four years ago, the people who seemed to understand what we were trying to do were those least steeped in the traditional arts. In fact, one of the arts reporters who is familiar with the company’s work asked how this production would be any different from their previous work. I almost blessed the opportunity to speak to someone who was a little jaded about it all because I didn’t have to work overcome the inertia of unfamiliarity before even explaining the concept.

I can tell by the way the ticket sales are going that this show is going to be sold by word of mouth and trusted sources rather than print and broadcast media. There are shows six months down the road that are selling about as well on the strength of the brochure alone. They will probably be 1/3 sold before I even revisit my plan to promote them.

Fortunately, we have been working together this summer to line up the interest and involvement of many of these trusted entities and that effort should bear fruit very soon. Once some of that becomes public and visible, we will start reaching out to individuals in the hopes of getting the phrases “I saw…, I heard…” entering conversations, tweets and Facebook postings.

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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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