We need more donors, a plan to sustain ourselves, get more people involved, brand ourselves, win people over and yadayadayada….When arts groups get together to discuss their ills, lack of support, the community paying no attention to them etc… the argument comes around to forming a plan to turn things around and focusing on what we are not receiving, rather than what we are not giving. A plan for sustainability should start with creating something that is worth sustaining……
Like many communities I’m sure, Springfield has arts groups that run the gamut from the struggling to the strong, with different boards from passive to active, many missions and goals, but then it boils down to a not very large group of combined patrons and supporters. The arts are not-for-profits but are seen in a very different light to charities such as the Boys and Club, Make a Wish etc….Sustainability is the big issue for our arts community right now and we have been challenged to come together to address it. The bigger issue though is how can we as an arts community become part of the conversation about building a community helping to solve its problems. In building terminology, how do we become cornerstones or part of a foundation instead of the window treatments on the 15th floor that are seen as expendable?
Collaboration is obvious but with programming it can be problematic. To use a train as an analogy, we don’t need to be squeezing our cars into one another, we have different disciplines and programs so linking the cars together on the same track going in the same direction is more important and actually true collaboration. Thinking the same way is the key, as opposed to collaborating at all times artistically that could potentially dilute what we are all capable of producing individually.
We have a cultural plan adopted by the city and an Arts Council as part of a program called Vision 20/20, but with the pressures of time and priorities it has been a challenge to implement. The Symphony staff for instance racked up an average of 80 comp hours each last season and the other groups in town don’t have staff sitting around waiting for yet another huge project to come in! Yet we have been collectively been given this challenge so I’m stepping out here to give my take on it….
Coordination is what is needed, so that we are all having the same conversation. It’s not what we are actually saying, but the purpose behind what we are saying that needs to line up…again the train. We all are doing educational programming, going to schools, bringing children to us. There are actually countless programs being implemented, but if you ask anyone to talk about them, they can’t. I know what the Symphony is doing, but I couldn’t tell you what the Ballet or Opera are doing or where they are going and vice versa. I learned that the universities in town are doing programs for children, I had no idea, and if me who is actually in the arts has no idea, then the average citizen in the community wont know about it for sure (those who’s children are not involved). The power of each program could be magnified if somehow they were part of a big picture, an initiative under an umbrella.
We all have various forms of education co-ordinators (only one group in town has someone dedicated full time), so I believe in creating an arts education and outreach co-ordinator position. One that works independently of each of the groups but is responsible to gather all the programming information and put it under one umbrella with a title and a logo. We initially don’t do any additional programming because we wont need to. I am confident that once it is seen as one overall program it will look mightily powerful and more importantly, it can deal with the issue of overlap, particularly if some schools are getting numerous programs and others are not getting any. Once each organization is seen to be a cog in a giant wheel, that is when I believe programs will become important the community, because it will be something tangible that can be seen as a whole rather than a bunch of separate parts. Grant applications and solicitations will be very solid when we are all on every one for every group. Before sustainability can be achieved, we need to build something worth sustaining and in this case, we already have it, it just needs to be put together in a way everyone can see it and learn to need it!
Let me know if your community has this kind of co-ordiantor position that works independently. Part 2: How we as the arts can actually raise money to feed children building bigger audiences in the process!