Playing Chicken – For Arts Charities, Not a Game for the Faint of Heart, Because, Well, It’s Impossible and Doesn’t Make a Compelling Case
I read an article recently called A Day Without Art. Stephanie Milling suggests scenarios in which the arts hypothetically disappear for a day. But hypothetical threats are terrible tools of advocacy.
We can’t not have art. Look at your coffee cup, even if it’s paper. It has form, function, and looky there, art on it.
Here’s the ant at this particular picnic:
If art is ubiquitous, does it have value? Why pay for it?
Rather than forecasting the impossible – a day without art – could we better spend our energies measuring our specific organization’s specific outcomes and advocate by trumpeting those to the world?
No one responds well to this particular game of chicken. It’s akin to the idea of eating your kids – it may solve the messy bathroom problem, but it’s neither realistic nor sustainable.
The Creation of Art: Diamonds and Great Art Come from Tension and Pressure
Artists don’t work alone. They require collaborators.
A script isn’t a play. A score isn’t a symphony. A scene isn’t a painting. Choreography isn’t a dance. A libretto and score isn’t an opera.
And a vision isn’t an arts charity.
For any piece of art to be considered finished (and viable), a team is required. Playwrights, composers, choreographers, visual artists, and arts charities may be the ones who create artistic launching pads, but art, like space exploration, requires a slew of equal partners. Among those: directors, performers, designers, interpreters, tools and toolmakers, and audiences. All partners create tension. And that’s good.
No single artist deserves immunity from collaborative pressure. A piece of true art isn’t done until it’s done. Not before. Not after. The immutable pressure of the finish line makes the race exciting, meaningful, and artistic.
Have You Heard? I’m a “Bomb-Throwing Provocateur!” Who’d Have Thought an Artist Could be One of Those?
A few posts ago, we talked about the enmity brewing between the arts charities and the rest of the charity sector. That many US arts charities concentrate on the quality of their art while the rest of the sector concentrates on outcomes. That arts charities are pretty much the only part of the charity sector in which the donor also uses the charity, exacerbating the arts’ reputation as being elitist.
Responses were 50-50. Those that agreed tended to come from arts marketers and fundraisers while the rest came from artistic directors and producers. Break it up…nothing to infer here.
Funniest comment was from a 36-year arts veteran decrying elitism; it’s part of the title here. She could have said, “You’re an asshole.” Or “jerk.” Or just plain “wrong.”
I might be all those things. After all, I’m an artist.
Successful Trusteeship, or “Isn’t Writing a Big Honking Check Enough?”
Good board members:
- aren’t ambassadors. Ambassadors wait for people to come to them. They’re zealots. They zealously get donations and zealously get new board members.
- don’t try to get. They work together and with staff and they get.
- personally donate among their three largest monetary donations that year. Not from their company…from them.
- are forensic analysts, (not governors). Remember, the bottom line is “Are we living our mission? Is the mission working?” They see to it that it does, regardless of the financials.
- insist that board meetings are too important to be reporting vehicles. Productive monthly board meetings can be like having twelve mini-retreats.
Think of it this way: if each board member’s consulting rate is $100/hour and your charity has 20 board members, do you want to spend $2,000/hour talking about the past or the future?
Nonprofit Strategy: Managing Change is Hard; Managing Stasis is Impossible
I had breakfast with a trustee for an educational organization in a wealthy community within the last five years.
He bemoaned the fact that an über-wealthy benefactor was annually bailing them out with huge sums of money, but the organization was still always crying for cash. And the company refused to upgrade its business practices.
“Why is she bailing them out?” I paraphrased.
“Because it’s her legacy to her kid,” he paraphrased. “And let’s face it, for vanity.”
“And if it folds?”
“She won’t let it.”
“Are they always in a cash crisis?”
“Yes – and not only that, it’s just not serving all that many children.”
“And they can’t change the way they do business?”
“She won’t let them.”
Can’t change. Can’t succeed. Can’t close.
Bad for the organization? Bad for the industry? Bad for the community?
For Arts Charities, Everything Powerful Stems from a Great Mission…Including a Great Mission Statement
Many arts organizations craft mission statements that promote activities, art, and excellence. Unfortunately, those things are irrelevant.
“[Theater] presents engaging dramatic work that celebrates the intimate relationship among artist, audience and language.”
That’s not a mission statement. No surprise: that theater died.
A mission is the unspeakable acme of a societal obligation. A mission statement expresses that mission, the product of an organizational manifesto, as best it can.
“[Company’s] mission is to create theatre so strikingly original in form, content or both, that it instills in young people an enduring awe, love and respect for the medium, thus preserving imagination and wonder, those hallmarks of childhood which are the keys to the future.”
See the difference? This mission statement discusses the mission’s impact – “preserving imagination and wonder” – as a crucial need. That’s a supportable argument.
Dream Job…and My Title Would Be Chief Dream Merchant
What I want:
An arts charity that makes my community better.
Value to the community:
Safety. Knowledge. Personal Power. Issue solutions.
Artistic Tools:
Provocation. Entertainment. Populism. Progressiveness. Mischief.
Other Tools:
Educational residencies in both art and topic.
Partners:
Every other charity, educational institution, or NGO with similar values.
Differentiation:
50-50 split on revenues with partners. Partners open their mailing lists to help themselves financially through ticket sales.
Quantifiable outcomes:
The measured outcomes of the partners. Quantity of classes, students, and schools participating.
Non-quantifiable outcomes:
Populist results defeat the arts’ elitist reputation. The needs of the charities are filled.
Initial budget:
Enough so that all artists receive at least $15/hour (in 2014 dollars) and no full-time hourly rate is more than 4x anyone else’s.
Impact:
Arts moves people to action. Thorny issues seen can never be unseen. Life is better.
Sustainability is Neither Reaching for Relevance nor Selling Out. It’s More Important than That.
The art of sustainability in arts charities is akin to performing a balance beam routine on a Ginsu knife. You can sacrifice mission for dollars or dollars for mission, but even if you maintain a perfect balance, there will still be substantial blood on both sides.
We talk way too much about relevance in the arts. The tag in the back of the shirt is relevant for a description of content and washing instructions, but the design of the shirt can reveal personal characteristics of the wearer. Let’s aim higher. How about “integral”?
Integral arts charities are those that are so entwined with other charities that they become essential to the health of the community. “Integral” obviates this useless discussion of relevance and moves us to the more useful question:
How do the arts make communities thrive?
A Version Aversion (or: Why It’s More Important That The Whole Thing Works And Not Just The Elements)
Saw a play recently. The story was appropriately troubling and deftly told. But great art is not about literary proficiency or good acting.
Often in any of the artistic ventures, we render our version of a piece, and are judged by some version of accolade. Our study becomes about acting excellence or mind-blowing special effect or the brilliant manipulation of color and light. And critics judge on those foundations. Even in a new work, we cling to “our version.”
Fans don’t care. Fans are, fittingly, binary. Either the art makes one transform or it doesn’t. When we seek outcomes that make it jarring to return to reality, we do well. If fans only enjoy the elements created to produce the art’s reality, then “our version of art” is to “great art” as “Matchbox Cars” are to “Lamborghinis.”
Stepping in Moral Quicksand: When a Horrible Person/Company Gives to Your Nonprofit
I was going to write about all the charities to which Donald Sterling donated.
I was going to ask if the standards of the organization should stand up against the horror of the donor.
After all, UCLA gave back $3 million of Sterling’s money.
Then I was going to ask about donations from companies that peddle “evil” – tobacco, liquor, oil, etc.
But then I thought about individual donors’ morals. Not just unethical oligarchs like Henry Ford, Rupert Murdoch, John D. MacArthur, or even Sterling. What about all the philanthropists whose fortunes were built on a million broken backs? Or a few? Or one? And I thought about my experiences with morally corrupt donors.
I’m sinking.
Help.
You Gotta Live in the House You Live in
Hypothetical: Strategically speaking, what would your charity do if money were not an issue at all?
The answer to this question is significant. Because if it begins with anything but “we’d do exactly what we’re doing now,” then it’s likely that either you or your mission have to go.
I live in a 1950s house. Typical low ceilings. Small, utilitarian rooms. If I had all the money in the world to renovate it, I’d enhance its 1950s nature, not build 4 additional stories to get a Puget Sound view and in doing so, ruin the house’s charm.
Same with charities, arts or otherwise. You created a mission for a reason…there was a need. A societal wrong to be righted. If you want to accomplish something other than your organization’s mission, go do it.
Just do it somewhere else.
Jack and Jill: Why Smart Nonprofits Search for Interim Leadership
Executive Director Jack resigns.
Jack leads the committee to replace himself. The committee selects Jill.
Jill is not Jack.
Jill discovers too late that she been enlisted to follow Jack’s path rather than set her own.
After a year, not only is Jill unhappy, but trustees and employees resign.
After a second year, Jill resigns. Or is fired.
The reeling company hires Fred – who is neither Jack nor Jill.
Uneasy lies the head that breaks a crown.
Succession planning needn’t require permanence. It might be best to hire an interim leader from outside the organization (not a board member) while the permanent search is carefully executed.
Every organizational leader’s legacy ends the day the leader leaves. Which means it is never a good idea to have the outgoing director have a say on a permanent successor.
Like licking honey off a thorn – Art, why we do it, who it’s for, and why it has power
Painters sing.
Actors play.
Writers choreograph.
Singers paint.
Dancers conduct.
Choreographers sculpt.
Sculptors act.
Musicians paint.
Directors sing.
Conductors write.
And in doing so, no issue, thought, or attitude can be unseen, unfelt, or unheard. It is not for the singing, the painting, etc., that art is produced. The glory of art is in its scope of power. To inspire peace or revolution. To cause great comfort or great discomfort. To provide joy or desolation.
As a populist, I believe that visual and performing arts serve great groups of people. I fear that many in power judge art as dangerous. Their battle plan continues to manipulate those same great groups of people into despising it, to consider it as foreign. As the other.
And I fear that they’ve won that battle. But not the war. Not yet.
“I Wanna!” The Fatal Game of Power About Nonprofit Arts. Ages infantile and up.
How to play:
Players select their tokens to start play. Each token designates their role in nonprofit art.
Marionette: Performing Artists/Designers
Blob of Clay: Writers/Composers/Visual Artists
Pawn: All technical/administrative/volunteer personnel (one token represents all)
Change Purse: Audience
Louis Vuitton Pocketbook: Donor/Funder
Fake Louis Vuitton Pocketbook: Development Director
Hammer: Trustee
Bent nail: Managing/Executive Director
Telescope looking up: Artistic Director/Curator
Microscope looking down: General Manager/CFO
Bloody leech: Critic/Journalist
Sorry: designated tokens for marketing/pr directors were deleted in the last budget cycle.
All players spin the Great Glass Wheel Of Art simultaneously in all directions and yell, “I Wanna!” The Wheel comes off its bearings; breaks into millions of pieces. Players move tokens anyplace in the room that feels most advantageous, regardless of the playing board or other players.
End of game:
Chaos. All players proclaim victory. None actually win.
Nag, nag, nag. So, Mr. Big Shot, how do you make a perfect nonprofit arts organization?
There is no perfect nonprofit organization of any kind. All nonprofits are experiments in righting some crucial societal wrong.
For the arts, that wrong is ignorance. It is complacence. It is the invisibility of the big picture. The visual and performing arts bring us beauty, power, and intellect. The opposite of all those words, of course, is nothingness.
Art is never for art’s sake because it is condescending to anthropomorphize it.
When great nonprofit arts organizations look at their core ambitions and value, they view their work as an innovative tool toward the betterment of society.
Commercial arts organizations’ goals begin and end with profits. Mediocre arts nonprofits goals are measured by their art. Great arts organizations’ goals involve righting the crucial societal wrong.
Final note: Great nonprofits don’t consider self-survival a worthy mission. Mediocre ones do.
Isn’t Great Art Enough?
Doesn’t the artwork of a Van Gogh or Diego Rivera exhibit at a nonprofit museum make one seek insight into the meaning of life?
Doesn’t the performance of a nonprofit dance company’s production of Copland/DeMille’s “Rodeo” or Ailey’s “Revelations” make one try to restore the American dream?
Doesn’t the experience of a nonprofit theater’s production of “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Romeo and Juliet,” or “Angels in America” make one try to become more tolerant?
Do nonprofit arts organizations need more than those responses to justify charitable funding?
While many nonprofit arts organizations choose “art for art’s sake,” populist sentiment seeks quantifiable results to validate contributions to any portion of the nonprofit sector (social service, education, etc.).
So: shouldn’t great art be enough? Absolutely. Art can be produced for its own sake when no donations are requested.
Nonprofit Arts Organizations – Are you aware that the other parts of the sector believe that you’re stealing money?
In most nonprofits, a donor gives and someone else benefits. Food banks solve hunger, which promotes family stability, which stimulates re-entry into society for the impoverished. Environmental nonprofits encourage clean air and water, which promotes health, which supports longer, happier lives for everyone. Many religious organizations sponsor high morals (“Do unto others…”), which provides a sense of community, which fosters a safety net.
In the arts, the donor and the recipient are often the same person. The donor gives to a company, the company produces a performance or exhibit, and the donor/recipient enjoys the event. The arts are seen by many as elitist and unworthy of support.
We in the arts have to recognize that there is an enmity-laden relationship between arts nonprofits and all the other charities.
And then we have to do something about it.
“That Happened to Me!” – Can nonprofit arts organizations figure out a way to quantify personal meaning?
I wrote a strange and pretty bad play.
One scene took place at the World Trade Center in the wee hours of September 11, 2001. A financial analyst for Cantor Fitzgerald berates a brown-skinned file clerk. The scene was meant to be darkly humorous and uncomfortable.
After one public reading, a woman screamed about that scene.
Tearfully, she raged, “That happened to me! The World Trade Center happened to me!”
I asked, “Oh, were you in New York?”
“No. Baltimore.”
While social impact nonprofits exhibit myriad ways to show purpose beyond basic human needs, arts organizations struggle to show any measurable societal value. However, if we can quantify personal meaning with specific results and stories of value, then we can become successful charitable organizations.
For in every “That happened to me,” the impact is genuinely meaningful.
Where’s a good Medici when you need one? Oh, right. They’re still here.
Art for art’s sake? Not so much. Want to be paid? Then there had better be a good story behind it. Or you’re famous. Or you’re dead.
Artistry is everywhere we look… in everything we touch. Look at your desk right now. Find something with no art.
You can’t. Even paper clips have shape, color, and light.
But is a paper clip for its own sake? No. It clips paper. But it is no less artistic.
In 2014, art for art’s sake is aesthetic dogma meant to encourage artists to focus on their own thoughts, as though purity of thought is equivalent to purity of meaning – and, therefore, audiences are irrelevant to art.
Quasi-utopian Codswallop.
Whether commissions are contracted or in the open market, successful art requires patronage in the form of a sponsor, buyer, or audience.
