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Info You Can Use: Getting Meaningful Feedback From Your Community

January 11, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

Last month, I wrote about attending a session at creative industry conference where Marc Folk, Executive Director of The Arts Commission in Toledo, spoke about learning that one needs to go out to the community as a guest, asking to be hosted at meetings, gatherings, etc.

At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly how that idea translated into practice. Initially I envisioned something akin to the electoral process in NH where people host intimate meetings with political candidates in their homes or perhaps being invited to speak at a community or church meeting.

I also thought that he might have meant participating as a true guest at first where you weren’t necessarily the focus of attention as a speaker, etc, but just invited to sit quietly and observe the first time out.

Marc had mentioned sometimes there was a tendency to view yourself as “riding in on a white horse” to save a community so I thought being the guest of honor at a meeting might reinforce that conceit.

Just last week, Margy Waller addressed the same issue in an Americans for the Arts blog post, “We Are From the Arts and We’re Here to Help.”

“In one of the sessions, a group of participants had a passionate discussion on using the word “help.” They noted that it really isn’t possible to have a conversation about an equitable community if one party is offering to help the other. The word help itself implies that one group has more than the other—more to offer, more knowledge, more resources, more capacity, and so on. Using the word help shifts the perceived balance of power—in a way likely to shut down true collaboration and partnership efforts.

The solution? If you find yourself using the word help when talking about the role of arts in community, stop. Listen carefully and ask whether this is really the way toward an equitable community.”

Curious about the process he and his staff used, I reached out to Marc just prior to the holidays to learn more, summarizing my impressions and assumptions noted above. With his permission, I am reprinting a portion of his response:

Our approach utilized a combination of techniques, including what you listed above.

As far as process we first identified a local community partner. If possible, it was a community center or arts center in the neighborhood. We then reached out to the leadership of the center or another community group if the center did not have leadership, or there was no center and asked for a meeting. We then met with them and/or their board leadership to ask for their help in organizing a community meeting.

Once a meeting was called, we went back into the community centers/host venues and held “a listening tour” if you will. An important technique was that we hired a facilitator/consultant that facilitated these sessions. This created a degree of separation between the Arts Commission staff and the community issue and allowed for a more open and candid dialog from the community.

Out of this, we became more connected with “culture” or activities in these neighborhoods which has led to the building of genuine relationships.

A copy of the plan can be found here.

The reports from the neighborhood conversations can be found at the back of the plan.

I think the most important lesson is about language syntax/communication and authentic relationship development. My point at the conference about the white horse or “going into these neighborhoods” revealed much about our perspectives and gave great clue to where we needed to start our work.

For those that are interested, the neighborhood reports start around page 50 of the strategic plan.

I greatly appreciate Marc taking the time to outline the process for me. The importance of involving a facilitator was something I suspected in the back of my mind that he confirmed.

Based on his response, I have already started a conversation with my board president about how we might adapt this in our own community. I have mentioned to colleagues at other arts organizations I had some ideas I wanted to run past them in the hopes of establishing a cooperative listening tour.

Advocacy, Audience Relations, Info You Can Use, New Initiatives, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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What Is On Your Customer Relationship Management Wishlist?

January 6, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

At my day job, we have been looking into the possibility of getting a new ticketing system. We have passed the RFP (request for proposal) deadline and are evaluating the submissions. One of the areas we are really focusing on is customer relationship management (CRM) features because keeping track of all the ways a person interacts with us is increasingly important…and increasingly difficult.

This whole process reminded me of an article that caught my eye last summer, Why Nonprofits Deserve CRM Innovation. Author Gabe Cooper’s central thesis is that there is nearly $340 billion in donations being directed toward non-profits annually, yet the available CRM tools are oriented toward business sales rather than building relationships that connect with a donor’s passions.

“Charities and social enterprises face growing pressure to cut through marketing clutter and connect personally with younger Millennial donors. Their software can no longer afford to see donors as “leads” or “transactions”; instead, they must focus on the personal passions of each giver.”

He identifies five areas in which improvements to CRM will benefit non-profits.

Generosity-specific predictive data analytics. Nonprofit CRMs must predict and customize each donor’s experience. Successful systems will combine tried-and-true fund-raising data analytics with social media signals and even current events to create a holistic, personalized relationship with each giver.

Giver-managed relationships. Nonprofit CRMs must enable two-way communication and create open conversations with givers about the success of individual projects. Nonprofits can no longer report on cold institutional metrics.

Completely removing the “sales” paradigm. Nonprofit CRMs shouldn’t be modeled on sales/transactions. Instead, they should focus on long-term relationships around generosity, social engagement, advocacy, etc.

Open APIs and integrations. The days of monolithic donor management systems are over. Nonprofits want to use best-in-breed tools for email marketing, donation processing, etc. The new CRMs should embrace these choices and provide easy integration.

Increase efficiency and decrease overhead. Nonprofit CRMs must help reduce the unnecessary costs common to charities. Back-office tasks like donation importing, gift receipting, and foundation giving management can suck up hours of staff time and create massive overhead. The new CRM needs to understand the very specific needs of nonprofits and provide efficiency tools that allow charities to go about the work of accomplishing their mission.

I am sure there would be a lot of people cheering if the activities listed in his last point became much easier. Given that donor acknowledgment letters need to go out this month, it would probably move to the top of everyone’s wish list.

I had also been thinking that it might be useful to be able to record notes from every interaction whether it be phone call, face to face interactions, emails and social media. These things may already be possible in a way that doesn’t treat them as sales calls.

I wondered if any existing tool allowed you to record indirect signs of investment in your organization like people mentioning or tagging you on social media. Can you take screenshots of positive comments and electronically file them away?

I was a little leery at the mention of combining “fund-raising data analytics with social media signals.” That phrase made me wonder if he envisioned a system that tracked the social media activity of anyone who engaged with you and sent you tips noting what a person was passionate about. I could see that getting really stalker creepy fast.

On the other hand, if you have entered keywords into someone’s file regarding what they were passionate about and the system alerted you when a related topic was trending on social media, that might be okay. Or if the system collected keywords from the social media profiles of people who engaged with you and then spit out a report letting you know 58% of those people are passionate about animal rescue, Indian food and bluegrass music, that could also be help inform strategy development without feeling overly intrusive.

Are there any features on your wishlist you would love to see as part of a CRM package?

Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Fundraising

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What To Unlearn To Be More Creative

January 5, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

Dan Pink tweeted a story by Art Markman on the Inc magazine site, “4 Things You Learned in School That Make You Less Creative.”

I often talk about how artists and arts organizations can exhibit their value to the business community by providing training in various areas like conflict resolution and creativity. As I was reading this article, I recognized that it provided a good basis for conducting a training session. The content can be useful to either to overtly say, these things you learned as a kid run counter to what we are trying to achieve or just to help a trainer understand some of the socialization and training people have received which makes it difficult to embrace the creative process.

One of the things that really ought to be acknowledged is that there is a degree of “do as I say, not as I do” when it comes to arts classes. The assessment structure in most school classrooms (versus classes you might take at the local arts center) impose expectations that actually run counter to, and may impede, the creative process. Students are told creativity is a gradual process by which you learn from your mistakes–so hurry up and make sure it happens by the time grades are due.

Even people with formal arts degrees need to keep some of these points in mind so they don’t pressure themselves with unrealistic expectations.

The first lesson Markman lists is, There is an answer. Find it and move on. He makes the point that creativity is about finding answers to questions no one has thought to ask and that there are many potential solutions to a problem.

This is probably the one lesson that runs entirely counter to life experience. There is rarely a single answer to a problem in life. Even if there appears to be, you can’t discard it the moment you have used it. At the very least, you have to have a sense of what to do when your go-to solution fails.

Markham notes that schools teach us to be risk/mistake averse. Basically, the fewer mistakes you make on a test, the more successful you are regarded as being. Risk taking is frequently mentioned these days as an crucial element of the creative process so it may not come as news that this important for people to embrace.

Markham also mentions the class room lessons of Study what is going to be on the exam and Make steady progress. Both are intertwined with the previous two lessons. Schools value being able to perform with few mistakes on demand, but don’t emphasize retention of information and skills as strongly. Not only is retention not highly valued, but applying knowledge in a novel manner is barely encouraged at all. Yet that is considered the very definition of creativity.

Accepting mistakes requires that you accept that your progress won’t be steady. Even when you aren’t making perceptible mistakes or experiencing setbacks, creativity requires patience with status quo long enough for your mind to make the leap to another of the many potential solutions.

When I write about creativity, I often emphasize this last point about creativity requiring time and patience. The tools we may use like brain storming sessions, free play, improv, change of venue, etc are merely ways to carve out time and brain processing power for creative endeavors. They don’t guarantee a creative outcome of themselves.

Being open to making mistakes and accepting slow progress may be the most difficult elements of creative practice to teach because minimize mistakes and making steady progress are two lessons that are rewarded in life. If you produce work quickly without many mistakes at your job, you can set yourself up to receive a promotion and more challenging projects.

Art(ist) Education, creativity, State of the Arts

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When Honesty Is Better Than Doing Your Best

January 4, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

Back in September, Seth Godin wrote a short post on the idea of doing one’s best.

It’s a pretty easy way to let ourselves (or someone else) off the hook. “Hey, you did your best.”

[…]

By defining “our best” as the thing we did when we merely put a lot of effort into a task, I fear we’re letting ourselves off the hook.

[…]

It’s entirely possible that it’s not worth the commitment or the risk or the fear to go that far along in creating something that’s actually our best. But when we make that compromise, we should own it. “It’s not worth doing my best” is actually more honest and powerful than failing while being sort of focused.

Since it is the beginning of the new year, a time of making resolutions to do better, I thought it was an appropriate time to call attention to this idea.

(By the way, what does it say that I took a short post about doing your best and abridged it further, thereby lowering expectations of the reader’s attention span?)

I chose this post of Godin’s and edited it as I did because I wanted to focus on the sincerity inherent in being realistic rather than being idealistically aspirational.

There is already a lot of idealism in the non-profit arts, especially when it comes to creation, and there is nothing wrong with that. If there is, I am among the chief offenders.

There is also a lot of idealism in non-profit arts organization mission statements that promise to offer the “highest quality, best-in-class, world-class, superior” etc., product or experience.

In the face of declining donations and revenue generating attendance, groups often don’t have the resources to provide the highest quality product and experience. Instead of making a resolution for the new year to strive for some nebulous standard of excellence†, I think it is worth engaging in a little self-examination along the lines Godin suggests and acknowledge where you are not providing the best.

For example, are you offering the very best events your budget will allow, even though that means there will only be four events a year? Or are you making compromises so that you can offer a wider variety of experiences over the course of 8 events?

Is your staff trying to do more with less or have you scaled back services due to budget constraints?

An honest assessment of this situation rather than continuing to mouth platitudes about offering the highest quality interactions may help you better understand the implications of these trade offs. If you can say, yes we decided it wasn’t worth keeping the office open as many hours six days a week, you take responsibility for choosing not to serve a segment of your community or at least choosing a course that makes it difficult for some to receive service.

While it can be disappointing to face the areas in which you are falling short, it is a more constructive approach than claiming you are at a loss to know why attendance is falling or a demographic of the community is failing to engage with you. You can better address these issues if you have a good sense of the causes behind them.

†If you have a well-defined plan for achieving excellence with criteria, milestones and resources dedicated to achieving it, by all means go for it!

Advocacy, Audience Relations, Leadership, Management Philosophy, State of the Arts

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