Monday, April 27, 2009
First Music, then Newspapers, then the Arts?
here's a fascinating little provocation from Douglas McLennan at ArtsJournal associating trends in the music and newspaper industries with large arts organizations
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dashboards
Just in case you're wondering what the heck everyone was talking about back in 2007, when we all were talking about dashboards... a post from nTen about Dashboards!
PS: Here's my favorite dashboard of the moment, from the Indianapolis Museum of Art
PS: Here's my favorite dashboard of the moment, from the Indianapolis Museum of Art
We're 96th!
Yesterday the Philadephia Workforce Investment Board published a report called "A Tale of Two Cities," (pdf) which describes in compelling and straightforward language the state of this city's economy. And no surprise, there is one city-within-a-city that is on the rise, and another that is still in a steep decline. This is probably true of every major urban center in this country.
I was struck by the numbers, though. According to the report, 45% of working-age adults are not working or looking for work, and the city's labor participation rate is ranked 96th out of the nation's 100 largest cities. We're ranked 92 in the percentage of college graduates living in the city (20%).
So... what does this mean for the arts? And what does this mean for arts management? On one level, one could say that the arts are an essential asset that helps the city to attract and retain educated workers and new businesses. And we're working on ways to more efficiently leverage the city's powerful and prominent arts assets for the benefit of the education system, most notably through the new Arts for Youth Initiative. But do the arts have a role in improving the city's educational opportunities for adults? Perhaps more promising, can the arts help to drive innovation by coming up with new markets, new businesses, new business structures that can help generate new jobs?
Our current economic downturn is a signal that an old economic order has passed, and a new one is in the process of being born. The arts can play a role in shaping that new order...
I was struck by the numbers, though. According to the report, 45% of working-age adults are not working or looking for work, and the city's labor participation rate is ranked 96th out of the nation's 100 largest cities. We're ranked 92 in the percentage of college graduates living in the city (20%).
So... what does this mean for the arts? And what does this mean for arts management? On one level, one could say that the arts are an essential asset that helps the city to attract and retain educated workers and new businesses. And we're working on ways to more efficiently leverage the city's powerful and prominent arts assets for the benefit of the education system, most notably through the new Arts for Youth Initiative. But do the arts have a role in improving the city's educational opportunities for adults? Perhaps more promising, can the arts help to drive innovation by coming up with new markets, new businesses, new business structures that can help generate new jobs?
Our current economic downturn is a signal that an old economic order has passed, and a new one is in the process of being born. The arts can play a role in shaping that new order...
Thursday, April 16, 2009
More on Business Models
This, from the Stanford Social Innovation Review a list of business models for nonprofits: Most arts nonprofits seem to fall into the "Member Motivator" model, but it's a great exercise to see what other possibilities are out there...
Secrets of Survival
...we recently came back from a really great meeting in Hartford, CT with a small group of other capacity-building funders, where the subject was how to assess and communicate the impact of this mode of grantmaking. [It was a GEO "action learning" group, if you must know.] It has me thinking that I should spend some time here talking about just what exactly capacity-building is and isn't, what it can and can't do for organizations, particularly arts organizations.
At the end of the two-day session, the facilitator asked "What do you think are the key characteristics of organizations that will survive (and thrive) in the current downturn?"
Here's the list we came up with, in no particular order:
1. Thoughtful, visionary leadership with a strong sense of mission and the core program.
2. Strong decision-making systems and planning frameworks.
3. The ability to express the value of the organization internally and externally.
4. Strong advocacy and creative support from board members.
5. A diversified funding base
6. Capacity for bold, even audacious decisions. Also, the ability to make tough decisions informed by the core principles of the organization.
7. The ability to evangelize and build public support.
8. The ability to identify and take advantage of collaborative opportunities.
No surprise, a lot of these things are interconnected--be thoughtful and externally-informed enough to know your core value proposition, be bold about using the opportunities of the current crisis to reorganize your operation around that core value, etc. And yes, all easier said than done, but I think we were all surprised by the level of consensus on these points from funders working in very different sectors.
At the end of the two-day session, the facilitator asked "What do you think are the key characteristics of organizations that will survive (and thrive) in the current downturn?"
Here's the list we came up with, in no particular order:
1. Thoughtful, visionary leadership with a strong sense of mission and the core program.
2. Strong decision-making systems and planning frameworks.
3. The ability to express the value of the organization internally and externally.
4. Strong advocacy and creative support from board members.
5. A diversified funding base
6. Capacity for bold, even audacious decisions. Also, the ability to make tough decisions informed by the core principles of the organization.
7. The ability to evangelize and build public support.
8. The ability to identify and take advantage of collaborative opportunities.
No surprise, a lot of these things are interconnected--be thoughtful and externally-informed enough to know your core value proposition, be bold about using the opportunities of the current crisis to reorganize your operation around that core value, etc. And yes, all easier said than done, but I think we were all surprised by the level of consensus on these points from funders working in very different sectors.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Fund For Action awards, 2009
Here's the list of our 2008-2009 Fund For Action grant awards! And here's the accompanying press release.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Culture Wonk in Love
This NYT article on MoMA's new web site led me to the site of the Indianapolis Museum of Modern Art and its iPhone-styled dashboard. Sigh. I wonder if their constituents use this?
Friday, February 13, 2009
Plan B, Part 3: Who Owns You?
Interesting discussion here about how an organization's board members need to decide who "owns" them. "Who are we really acting on behalf of?" This is not necessarily your audience, definitely not your staff... but who? Technically, perhaps, it's the people of the state where your organization is registered. But when you vote as a board member, whose face is before you?
Plan B materials
If you want to see the Powerpoint or the worksheets for this presentation, go to this page on our website: http://www.artshelp.org/knowledge/kb.html .
Look on the right side of the page...
Look on the right side of the page...
Plan B Highlights
I'm sitting in our "What's Plan B" program, which has been designed to help organizations respond to crisis by thinking through scenarios. It's being led by Emil Angelica of the Community Consulting Group of Minneapolis. We've had a huge response to this program. Originally intended for 10 organizational teams of 3, we were oversubscribed for the session within 45 minutes of advertising it. Today, Friday, is the second session we added to accomodate the overflow.
The first part of the program has been largely about effecting change in organizations, & Emil presented an indelible model of group dynamics when attempting change. It's called the "100 Acre Wood" theory, and it basically says that in any group...
10 - 15% are Tiggers
30 -35% are Winnies
30 -35% are Piglets, and
10 -15% are Eeyores.
Tiggers are impulsive and enthusiastic, and are immediately on board with change. Problem is, they will go out ahead of the rest of the group before the group is ready to move. Winnies are receptive to change as long as the honey, which is to say the vision, is clearly in view. They need to see the steps and be assured that there is honey all along the way, and especially at the end. Piglets are anxious, and need to be assured that the cost of doing nothing is greater than the cost of change. They need to be shown all the steps and led slowly. If the tiggers get too far ahead, the piglets get scared. Finally, the Eeyores say no. They always say no. One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is to focus their energies on the Eeyores, to try to convert them-- and then on the Tiggers, to get their energies restored. The people to focus on, however, are the Winnies and the Poohs...
Another of my favorite concepts of the day is that when times get tough, people tend to focus on the organization, when what you need is to be focusing on the mission. You also need to be able to articulate what difference you make to the community. This can be incredibly difficult for arts organizations because they are focused on the quality of their work. They make great art, and of course great art changes the world. But this is hard to prove (worth trying, but hard), and it also doesn't necessarily set you apart.
...much more to say here, but for the moment, my placeholder is "problem of knowledge", but also the conflation of artists and art organization, two of my favorite hobbyhorses.
The first part of the program has been largely about effecting change in organizations, & Emil presented an indelible model of group dynamics when attempting change. It's called the "100 Acre Wood" theory, and it basically says that in any group...
10 - 15% are Tiggers
30 -35% are Winnies
30 -35% are Piglets, and
10 -15% are Eeyores.
Tiggers are impulsive and enthusiastic, and are immediately on board with change. Problem is, they will go out ahead of the rest of the group before the group is ready to move. Winnies are receptive to change as long as the honey, which is to say the vision, is clearly in view. They need to see the steps and be assured that there is honey all along the way, and especially at the end. Piglets are anxious, and need to be assured that the cost of doing nothing is greater than the cost of change. They need to be shown all the steps and led slowly. If the tiggers get too far ahead, the piglets get scared. Finally, the Eeyores say no. They always say no. One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is to focus their energies on the Eeyores, to try to convert them-- and then on the Tiggers, to get their energies restored. The people to focus on, however, are the Winnies and the Poohs...
Another of my favorite concepts of the day is that when times get tough, people tend to focus on the organization, when what you need is to be focusing on the mission. You also need to be able to articulate what difference you make to the community. This can be incredibly difficult for arts organizations because they are focused on the quality of their work. They make great art, and of course great art changes the world. But this is hard to prove (worth trying, but hard), and it also doesn't necessarily set you apart.
...much more to say here, but for the moment, my placeholder is "problem of knowledge", but also the conflation of artists and art organization, two of my favorite hobbyhorses.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Arts Jobs
Here's a great post from the always-edifying Andrew Taylor: "Do Arts Jobs Count As Jobs?"
...one of the sub-stories percolating around about the Big Stimulus Packages is the role, or rather, the lack of a role, for the arts in it. There's the infamous Coburn Amendment to the Senate version of the package, for instance, which explicitly bars museum and other cultual institutions from seeing any stimulus money. [by the way, if you live in the Philadelphia area and this gets your dander up, {and why shouldn't it}, you should sign up for the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance's Advocacy Action Center . It's like a moveon.org for Philadelphia Arts.]
And one more plug for GPCA--they've been able to fight against the trend that Taylor points out in his blog post by giving real numbers for exactly how many jobs culture provides to this area. And the answer is 40,000, as of the 2007 "Arts Culture & Economic Prosperity" report.
There's an interesting question here about who's to blame for the fact the general public and its government don't think of the arts sector as providing jobs (at a very efficient rate, might I add)... I wonder if it's an unintended consequence of our putting the counter-cultural, cathartic, iconoclastic, face of the arts at the front of the parade, or rather, being ashamed of talking about the arts as an Industry.
...one of the sub-stories percolating around about the Big Stimulus Packages is the role, or rather, the lack of a role, for the arts in it. There's the infamous Coburn Amendment to the Senate version of the package, for instance, which explicitly bars museum and other cultual institutions from seeing any stimulus money. [by the way, if you live in the Philadelphia area and this gets your dander up, {and why shouldn't it}, you should sign up for the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance's Advocacy Action Center . It's like a moveon.org for Philadelphia Arts.]
And one more plug for GPCA--they've been able to fight against the trend that Taylor points out in his blog post by giving real numbers for exactly how many jobs culture provides to this area. And the answer is 40,000, as of the 2007 "Arts Culture & Economic Prosperity" report.
There's an interesting question here about who's to blame for the fact the general public and its government don't think of the arts sector as providing jobs (at a very efficient rate, might I add)... I wonder if it's an unintended consequence of our putting the counter-cultural, cathartic, iconoclastic, face of the arts at the front of the parade, or rather, being ashamed of talking about the arts as an Industry.
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