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A Play About A Book About A Guard In A Museum

May 19, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Patrick Bringley, who wrote a memoir about his time as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an off-Broadway show based on his book.

He now stars as a version of himself in a one-man Off-Broadway show of the same name, dressed as a Met guard and regaling audiences in his soft, calming voice with meditative tales of unscrupulous visitors, the colourful backstories of his colleagues and, of course, about some of his favourite works of art.

Source

Some of the most interesting stories related in The Art Newspaper articles were about the wide range of occupations and backgrounds of the over 500 people who work as guards at the Met Museum. One of them intersected with the impact of being surrounded by all these artworks.

Bringley says one of his colleagues was a banker in Togo who fled the country after avoiding an assassination attempt. He and Bringley worked together at the Astor Chinese Garden Court, a Ming Dynasty scholar’s garden with an iconic, round Moon Gate as its entrance. When the colleague retired, he showed Bringley a picture of a house he was building in Ghana which had a replicae of the moon gate.

What caught my attention initially about the article is that I have seen a number of articles and comments from museum professionals who have recognized that their guards are often among the most popular and knowledgeable sources of information for visitors in their organizations. A couple mentioned centering programming around some of their guards.

So it isn’t terribly surprising to learn Bringley’s book about his experiences was a best seller.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Working In The Arts

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Doubling The Yield Vs. Doubling The Land You Have

May 14, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin made a post last week that aligns with the idea that it is easier and cheaper to retain a following rather than constantly trying to acquire new customers. Aubrey Bergauer will often post on social media about the issue of audience churn in the arts along these same lines.

Godin uses a slightly different, though very applicable, framing to illustrate his point

A farmer might yearn for twice as much land. But it’s far more efficient to double the yield on the land he already has.

Marketers often hustle to get the word out. To reach more people. And yet, activating the fans you already have–the ones who trust you, who get the joke, who want to go where you’re going–is far more reliable.

[…]

This is the overlooked secret of my book streak. I write books for my readers instead of trying to find readers for my books.

Source

Obviously this doesn’t mean one should abandon efforts to better connect with a broader segment of ones community which are core to the purpose of arts and culture non-profits. Since the long time base of arts audiences are dwindling there is a need to add new people.

Godin notes in part of his post I didn’t quote that it is better to double down on those that agree with you and encourage them to bring their friends than to spend a lot of effort convincing those who oppose you.

There are often segments of the community who are inclined to attend, but haven’t yet. Activation efforts focused on existing fans can envelop them as well. I had someone stop me on the street a week or so ago to tell me how interesting an event promoted on a marquee poster looked and assured me he would bring his family to see it. They didn’t attend the event. However the fact that he was engaged enough to stop me on the street and tell me he viewed one of our programs as something he and his family would enjoy was an encouraging sign. I suspect we will see him and his family in our space before the summer is over.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Marketing/PR

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Reading To Your Kids Is Never A Bad Thing

May 13, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Last month an article in The Guardian reported that the number of parent reporting that they enjoy reading aloud to their kids 0-4 has dropped from 64% in 2012 to 41% for the same age group in December 2024.

Among the things I found most concerning is that there appears to be a degree of gender discrimination in terms of who gets read to as well as a difference in how different generations perceive reading aloud as enjoyable.

A significant gender disparity was identified, with 29% of 0- to two-year-old boys being read to every day or nearly every day compared with 44% of girls of the same age.

[…]

Gen Z parents are more likely than millennial or Gen X parents to say that children’s reading is “more a subject to learn than a fun thing to do”. HarperCollins said that parents in this age group grew up with technology themselves, so may think “fun comes more from digital entertainment than from books”.

Source

The survey was conducted by publisher HarperCollins and book data company Neilsen so there may be a degree of biased self-interest involved. However, I don’t think they are off-base in their concern that children may grow up seeing reading as an academic subject you are tested on and can either succeed or fail at rather than a pleasurable pursuit.

The survey findings suggest that though it is less than a majority, many adults still do find reading with their kids to be enjoyable. Research has shown that reading with and to children increases the likelihood they will find reading an enjoyable lifetime pursuit. HarperCollins and Neilsen encourage parents to continue reading with their children even after they appear to have mastered the skill.

Some parents stop reading to their children once they can read by themselves, assuming that their children will choose to continue reading, or that if they continue to read to their child who can already read, “it will make them lazy and less likely to read independently”, reads a report accompanying the survey. “None of these beliefs are true.”

Source

I would have liked to know more about why those beliefs about negative impact of reading to children after they mastered the skill were incorrect but I didn’t see a link to the study in the article.

Audience Relations, creativity, General Musings

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DAFs May Not Be Distributing Funds As Much As Juggling Them

May 12, 2025

by:

Joe Patti

Last week, Philip Cubeta had linked to a story on Inside Philanthropy analyzing the collection and distribution practices of donor advised funds (DAF).

I have previously written about problems with donor advised funds, one of the biggest being that people are able to receive tax benefits for placing money there, but unlike foundations there is no obligation to distribute the funds.

The Inside Philanthropy piece largely focuses on a recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies Independent Report on DAFs.

One of the issues the report raises is that while DAF industry reports a higher distribution rate (9.7% median rate in 2023) than the 5% required of foundations, there is a high degree of murkiness in the reporting. For example, since DAFs don’t have to make an annual distribution, the payout for 2023 might have been much higher than usual since there was a great need coming out of the pandemic.

Also, the methodology used to arrive this number tends to be a little unclear:

….the report notes that “DAF experts have estimated that the calculations used in DAF industry reports may overstate payout rates by more than 50%.” Acknowledging that payout rate is “a slippery concept to quantify,” IPS’s report uses the IRS calculation — outgoing DAF grants divided by the sum of year-end DAF assets plus outgoing DAF grants.

Source

What is defined as donor advised giving tends to be a little broad mixing the funds held by large financial institutions with workplace giving programs and funds passing through donation processors like Network For Good.

Perhaps most problematic is funds passing between different Donor Advised Funds rather then being distributed to non-profits.

“We don’t know why DAF-to-DAF transfers happen,” Collins said. “Maybe a donor changed their financial advisors or wanted to consolidate their DAFs in one place.”

Regardless of why the transfer occurred, if a report says that DAFs distributed a certain amount of money but fails to specify that some of that amount was transferred to another DAF sponsor, it can create the false impression that all of the money flowed to a working charity.

Source

There is a fair bit of public will for that money to be distributed. An Ipsos poll commissioned in 2024 found that 79% of respondents felt DAFs should be forced to distribute funds within 5 years. (It is not clear to me if that is all the funds within 5 years or start distributing within 5 years of the fund’s creation.) The article notes that the financial services industry managing these funds have a lot of incentive to lobby against such legislation and to discourage distribution by fund owners.

Finance, Fundraising

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