Clarifying STEAM as Complementary to STEM

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on...................."

In the Washington Post, an article by Cathy N. Davidson, founding director of the Futures Initiative and a professor in the doctoral program in English at the Graduate Center, CUNY sets forth a new study by Google that suggests STEM skills are not necessarily the keys to success at the company.

"All across America, students are anxiously finishing their “What I Want To Be …” college application essays, advised to focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) by pundits and parents who insist that’s the only way to become workforce ready.  But two recent studies of workplace success contradict the conventional wisdom about “hard skills.” Surprisingly, this research comes from the company most identified with the STEM-only approach: Google.

In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas."

Ms. Davidson goes on to cite another Google study, Project Aristotle, suggesting that the most successful teams at Google:

"exhibit a range of soft skills: equality, generosity, curiosity toward the ideas of your teammates, empathy, and emotional intelligence. And topping the list: emotional safety. No bullying. To succeed, each and every team member must feel confident speaking up and making mistakes. They must know they are being heard."

Does this mean STEM skills aren't necessary, or that tech companies will now look to liberal arts majors in their hiring?  Of course not.  STEM skills are the lifeblood of technology.  But it does open the door for consideration of skills other than STEM skills as also being important in the hiring and promotion process.  It is the beginning of the recognition that STEM skills are not the only skills that are critically important.

The comments to the article are as telling as the hypothesis that communications and soft people skills are critical.  Dispensing with the obvious politically motivated comments by those to whom even the term liberal arts education, is anathema and merely the ramblings of fuzzy thinking leftists -i.e. the Trumpets - two or three valid points are made.  First, STEM skills, while technical at heart, are not completely devoid of the soft skills of empathy, team problem solving, effective communications and thinking in the larger context or outside-the-box.   Indeed, development of STEM skills involves team problem solving, empathy, communication and the generation of new ideas.  While we may argue that the arts and humanities bring an additional value to education and training, we ought not to adopt the false narrative that only the arts and humanities can do that.

Second, there is a difference between coders and technicians and those who manage the efforts of that category of workers.  The workplace needs all kinds of skills.  Steve Jobs was an innovator.  He was a designer, not a coder.  Apple would not be the company it is if he had not had those skills.  For technology companies, coders are essential. But so are managers, marketers, sales people, designers, innovators and thinkers of all stripes.  The greater development of all skills in every employee, the greater the chance the company will thrive.

But the most rational point in the comments is made by both STEM trained coders, scientists and mathematicians and those who rely on soft skills emphasized in the Oxygen study, and that is that the balance of skills is what is most desirable.  Even for those who labor almost exclusively on technical projects relying on STEM skills, having additional grounding in critical thinking, people skills and the ability to effectively communicate is of great value -- even for a company like Google which prides itself on the high level attainment of its technical people, hiring only the very top percent of those graduates who performed well in STEM courses.

While those of us who argue for STEAM would apply its value to a university education, if we just limit the discussion to inclusion of the arts and humanities in the K-12 curriculum, the idea of giving students exposure to, and development of,  knowledge in the arts and humanities, is to improve their performance of their STEM skills, and increase the likelihood that they will succeed as STEM majors in college and on the job, allowing companies like Google to reap the benefits.

This has never been an either / or choice.  The question isn't whether STEAM is better at teaching the soft skills, nor whether or not STEM teaches those skills too.  The question is how to maximize all the skills that are advantageous in the workplace for all workers.  And so the comments that suggest liberal arts majors would benefit from exposure to, and development of knowledge of, STEM skills, is valid, as is the converse, that STEM students benefit from a STEAM approach.  Indeed, STEM skills are often used by artists - ranging from painters, to the theater, to dance, to musicians, composers, choreographers, film makers and more.  The notion that STEM and the "A" in STEAM are mutually exclusive has no basis in fact, and is harmful to all the people involved - students of all stripes, technicians, managers and all employees, companies and to society in general.  Somehow we have got to figure out how to get past that bias and prejudice.

It may well be that only a STEM background is necessary for the purest technical applications, but work today isn't now, and will be even less so in the future, about only those kinds of skills.  Creativity, imagination, design, and new ideas are the life blood of enterprise and that requires multiple skills.  Eventually Artificial Intelligence will reach the point where pure coders can be replaced by robots, and then coders will have effectively coded their way out of employment.  But it will be a longer stretch before AI reaches the point where human ingenuity and thought involved in the generation of new ideas will happen.  Eventually perhaps, but not yet.

Clearly, Google has prospered by consciously recruiting the elite of STEM employees.  It has also prospered, perhaps unconsciously, by the evolution and growth of STEAM employees.

We need a country that has vision, and can equip students who will eventually populate our companies and our society with multiple skill sets and, at the least, develop an understanding of different kinds of skills and how they are integrated with each other.  Decrying STEM or STEAM is shortsighted. Making the argument that one, or the other, is unnecessary is counter intuitive and counter productive.

STEAM embodies the bigger picture.  A vivisectionist argument against STEAM illustrates a myopic approach.  There are many ways to give genesis to the big ideas that will help us both prosper and meet the challenges we face.  We need that bigger picture.  And so we need our people - all of them if possible - to be able to communicate, create, imagine, and collaborate.  STEM can do that - in part.  STEAM likely can do it across a wider, deeper spectrum.  Arrogance in insisting that STEM or STEAM is the only answer serves no one.

Very likely the resistance to STEAM comes from an irrational bias against anything that is not STEM.  That bias may have actually served a purpose for the tech industry in its infancy.  But it is no longer in its infancy, and that bias will ill serve it for the future.  I suspect that studies that show the value of skills other than STEM will not yet put the resistance to bed.  But its a start, and we need to push through that slightly open door to make the argument that STEAM enhances STEM.  It complements it, not weakens it.

We must adhere to the argument that STEAM improves STEM, not attacks it.  We must make it crystal clear that adding the "A" - the arts and humanities - is not a threat to the value of STEM, but a way to expand it and insure STEM works at an optimum level.  Perhaps we haven't emphasized enough the point that STEAM is an added, complementary value.

Increasing studies that show the value - not just to managers, but to all employees - that STEAM brings, will help us to break down the irrational barriers that once existed to keep us from making STEAM the standard.  First in K-12, but eventually on the university level as well.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit
Barry

Exit Interview with Janet Brown

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on.................."

Janet Brown Bio:
Janet Brown was an adjunct faculty member at Goucher College, Baltimore, MD teaching a graduate course in Arts and Public Policy. She is founder of the Prairie Arts Management Institute, a multi-state professional training program for arts administrators and served on the South Dakota Arts Council. Janet has a BFA in Theatre and a Masters in Public Administration.

Janet was Chair of the Performing and Visual Arts Department at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Executive Director of South Dakotans for the Arts. Prior to that position, she worked as Assistant to the General Manager of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City, was a fund-raiser for the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and assistant membership director of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts.

Janet received the national Selena Roberts Ottum Award from Americans for the Arts, and the Robert Gard Award from the University of Massachusetts Arts Extension Service (AES) for her work as an arts advocate.

She was appointed by Senator Tom Daschle to serve on the Library of Congress Folk Life Center Board of Trustees. A registered lobbyist for 15 years, Janet served on the Board of Directors of Americans for the Arts, and is a founding member of the National Community Arts Network (now the State Arts Advocacy Network.

She was appointed Executive Director of Grantmakers in the Arts in December of 2008 and retired from that post in December of last year.   Click here for the interview I did with her in 2009.

☛  Note:  For further insights into Janet's tenure at GIA, click here for an excellent conversation between Janet and Arts Journal's Doug McLennan done last fall.

Interview with Janet Brown:

Barry:  What’s different about arts philanthropy now compared to when you first started at GIA?

Janet:  I think with Grantmakers in the Arts members, at least, there is a greater sense of the need to think collectively rather than just about one organization’s impact.  Cities like LA and NYC and San Francisco have demonstrated the value of regular meetings of arts funders to develop relationships, learn together and be able to understand the eco-system of philanthropy in their region. National funders also have more communication with local funders in order to better determine how their funding impacts the local community. In addition, I think GIA’s capitalization work has changed many funders viewpoint on cash reserves, funding administrative overhead, permanently restricted endowments and general operating support. There is also a new dialogue about the need for more racial equity in arts philanthropy.  


Barry:  You made equity and racial relations a priority at GIA, and thus for the arts public and private philanthropic community.  Assess the progress the initiative has made, and the biggest challenges the sector still faces in light of the Helicon follow up report indicating that there is actually less money going to the smaller, communities of color, LGBTQ and people with disabilities?  How do we address those challenges and change that reality?

Janet:  Our racial equity work is an on-going educational initiative. The systemic issues of inequities in arts funding will not be changed in a few years, just like racism won’t be solved in American society in the near future. But there is hope because the dialogue is different. GIA has taken a large step in using direct language and serving as a role model for our members regarding the systemic practices facing arts funding. The GIA website lists our statement of purpose and recommendations for action. We also make a distinction between equity, diversity and inclusion and address why GIA is focused on racial equity and not other inequities.

What I discovered is that most of our members are very interested in making some change and addressing this issue, but that change will take time, courage and often times, people will put their jobs on the line. This is a complicated issue for the arts, as the Helicon studies reflect.  Arts philanthropy has traditionally, at least in major cities, provided sizeable funding over decades for major institutions, many founded by the individuals over a hundred years ago whose foundations continue that support today. Unlike other goal areas of philanthropy, like poverty, housing, social justice issues, arts philanthropy does not focus on those with the greatest need. There are political challenges that make changing this pattern very difficult.

Fifty years ago, arts patrons and advocates set out to develop major arts institutions in cities that could compete with the great institutions of Europe. I believe in our major cities that we have accomplished that. The western canon based on European art forms is well established. This initial “arts grants” began with the Ford Foundation’s work in the 50s and 60s, which required matching local dollars. The matching grant became the model for National Endowment for the Arts grantmaking practices begun in the late 60s and that trickled down to states and local arts agencies.  Consequently, over the past 50 years, arts organizations that did not have access to wealth, to match grants, build capacity, etc., have been neglected and relegated to small incremental funding. Art forms outside of the western canon and communities without access to wealth, primarily Asian, Latinx, African, Arab and Native American (ALAANA) have never been able to build the foundations needed to adequately compete for funding. These organizations and artists were relegated to the “other,” supported by under-funded programs like the NEA’s Local Arts Agency and Intermediate Arts.

Intentional programs to make up for past neglect need to be created. I’m not sure this is possible in the arts world, based on the white power systems today that govern both foundations and government agencies. But I know it’s the right thing to do and I know there are brave people making it happen. Institutional philanthropy and governments should be, as in other sectors, supporting the organizations and artists with the most need to help stabilize them so that one day, they can be successful enough to not need institutional dollars. This is where we are with major arts institutions today, but changing continual institutional funding based on legacy and political pressure is not simple and will take time.

There are disclaimers in this conversation, particularly in rural states and small and mid-sized communities that also don’t have access to a great deal of wealth or institutional funders.


Barry:  You also made capitalization (or should I say undercapitalization) of arts organizations an issue. How far along are we on that front?  Is the reality always going to be basically one of “haves” and “have-nots”?

Janet:  Good capitalization principles don’t have to do with “haves” and “have-nots” but rather on how nonprofit organizations are managing the money they have and how funders need to change their behaviors to encourage healthier financial practices. Practices like funding on a twelve month basis and forcing organizations to zero-base budget have kept the nonprofit sector undercapitalized with the exception of organizations that have worked around these issues. We are an industry that is cash poor. Even the largest organizations have little or no cash reserves even though many have large endowments. This became an emergency during the great recession.

For the past seven years, we preached better understanding of capitalization principles to funders and their grantees through our workshops around the country through webinars, articles, and our annual conference. Both funders and organizations need to encourage budgets that include surpluses, which build cash reserves, encourage board controlled endowments instead of permanently restricted endowments, (except for the larges of organizations, mostly museums), support administrative and overhead costs for projects and provide on-going financial training for grantees. Even the smallest of organizations can build a cash reserve, which takes courage and some tough decision-making. It also means grantees need to be realistic about their business model, based on the economy and resources of their own communities.


Barry:  Increasingly, arts organization Executive Directors spend more and more time in fundraising and less time leading their organizations in other ways?  What is the impact of that reality?

Janet:  Maybe I’m old school, but I believe it’s through the fundraising process that an executive director truly understands how programs are functioning and how the community perceives the relevancy of the organization. In fact, I believe that the successful executive director is able to integrate the business model (fundraising is a part of that), mission and programs. When executive directors don’t focus on the money, where it comes from and how it’s earned, organizations can potentially be in trouble.


Barry:  What does the average grantee not know about the average grantor that they should?

Janet:  Maybe people do know this, but I was continually struck, during my time at GIA, at the dedication and passion of folks working in the philanthropic and government grantmaking worlds. Most were artists and administrators working in the nonprofit art sector prior to entering the philanthropic or governmental sector. All are strong advocates for increased funding for arts groups and artists inside their organization and with the general public.


Barry:  What area are arts grantmakers not funding that you hope to see them fund?

Janet:  Obviously, funding ALAANA organizations and artists in ways that will help them develop sustainable management and artistic products. This means working with communities who have not been at the table, understanding them and giving them agency to be self-determining. It could also mean philanthropic affirmative action funding programs.  Again, tough stuff but that’s what we need.

Secondly, there is a need to fund more research in the arts. There is also a need to fund more infrastructure…something I’ve talked about for decades. Every state and major city should have a strong arts advocacy organization, which would also advocate for arts in schools and a nonprofit technical assistance provider focusing on best practices for financial and organizational stability. Most arts funders don’t or can’t look beyond individual organizations to support the collective needs of the sector.


Barry:  You and I have discussed Think Tanks before.  What role might arts grantmakers play in resurrecting the idea of an arts think tank that might influence national policy?

Janet:  Within the membership of Grantmakers in the Arts, we used forums to examine issues of racial equity, financial health, arts and healthcare, aging, education, environment, community service and social justice. These were small gatherings that informed GIA’s next steps and led to research, articles, conference sessions and collaborations between funders. The bigger ideas of where philanthropy is going, how can it change and what does the nonprofit art sector need for future decades is, unfortunately, not something that we focused on. Maybe that’s the next step for GIA. But think tanks alone don’t do much. They need to the seeds that feed practical implementation and change. Really, this is how our capitalization and racial equity work began…as think tanks of funders, moving to recommendations and then moving to action. To do this for the field, in terms of national policy, has potential but is pretty over whelming when one considers how it moves from talk to action. If this were to happen, I’d hope I could be a part of it.


Barry:  Assess the current status of the arts placemaking effort?  What do you see as the major milestones on that front in the next few years?

Janet:  This takes me back to my early days as a community arts developer. I’m not sure what arts placemaking means or is. I believe people make art where ever they live and arts advocates, community members and funders sustain that work if it is authentic and inspires the people who live in that place.  I know one can’t fabricate authenticity and if it doesn’t work for the community, without outside funding, it won’t be sustained.


Barry:  If you were back at the beginning of your arts career, what is the one skill you would absolutely want to have?

Janet:  I would have taken more classes in financial management, understanding balance sheets and audits. Took me way longer than it should have to truly understand financial information. Too many CEO’s leave this to their CFOs or accountants. That’s a mistake.


Barry:  A common complaint of grantees is that they have to jump through too many hoops and that the requirements of a grant are often so onerous as to make it not worth the effort.  Comment?

Janet:  This is one of my pet peeves that I didn’t address too much at GIA. As philanthropy and government grantmaking became more institutionalized so did the mechanisms developed for grant applications and reporting. Some of it is archaic and prohibitive, especially as we look to bring more under-funded organizations into the funding pipeline. We can’t expect organizations without development teams to be able to deliver the same kind of applications or reports as those who have been in the system for the past 40 years and have built up that institutional knowledge.  Small private funders are working on this in the best ways, I think. But all funders, especially large national funders and governmental funders, need to take a long look at how their processes are prohibitive.


Barry:  If you’ve learned one lesson in your entire arts career, what is it?

Janet:  I learned this as a lobbyist and arts advocate, running a statewide organization. No one wants to follow a leader who isn’t committed one hundred percent to principles and values. With membership organizations, there is always the temptation to sit on the fence, to be middle of the road, to not do something that might push some members away. That’s safe but it’s also not productive nor does it excite involvement by new people or make a difference in changing the world. By taking a strong stand on issues like supporting individual artists, improving philanthropic practice and making our world more equitable, you might lose a few folks along the way but more will join because of your clear conviction of purpose. Take a stand and others will stand with you.


Barry:  With your departure, the GIA transition to new leadership is a major change for the organization.  Transitions can be complex and tricky.  Can you comment on that transition?

Janet:  Transitions Take Planning, Foresight and Money
Someone asked me what the single most important issue was for a smooth transition and my immediate response was “a strong cash reserve.” GIA’s cash reserve enabled us to have a transition that has been extraordinary.

In the fall of 2015, I decided I would step down as CEO on December 31, 2017. I began by putting together three transition scenarios with budgets for each. In early 2016, I reached out to a “leadership circle” of my three past chairs and current chair and reviewed these scenarios with them as a group, in confidence. The scenarios ran from simple and inexpensive to less simple, moderately expensive, to complicated and most expensive. They suggested that I propose the first two only.  So I honed those two proposals.

In October, 2016 at the GIA conference in Saint Paul, current chair Bob Booker and I met with chair-designee, Angelique Power, to inform her of my decision and outlined the two scenarios and timelines. We also gave Angelique the opportunity to not continue as chair-designee since she didn’t sign up for a leadership transition when she accepted the position. Angelique is an amazing woman and although she was disappointed that we wouldn’t be working together for her full two-year term as chair, which would begin January 2017, she accepted the new responsibility to oversee GIA’s leadership transition and to be chair of the board.

She began by rejecting scenario one and moving to scenario two. Scenario two included a national search and hiring a professional search firm. In November, we announced my resignation date to the board of directors at their regular meeting. Angelique laid out a timeline for the process, which would begin in January 2017. In December 2016, I developed a request for proposals for search firms, improved on by Angelique, and we sent it to ten prominent search firms with experience in the arts. The one interesting emphasis in the proposal asked that firm tell us their experience in finding ALAANA (Asian, Latinx, African, Arab and Native American) candidates. Angelique and I asked eight current and past board member to serve as the GIA leadership selection committee, called the Alchemy Alliance (AA). The committee reviewed and interviewed search companies and selected a firm. At this point, I left the process, which was totally led by Angelique.

GIA made an announcement in January that I would be stepping down in December 2017 and the search firm began its work. There were monthly updates on the process given to the board and the staff by Angelique. The process of interview selection took longer than anticipated and were finalized in June. We were grateful we had started the process early without dallying by the chair, the committee or the board. Final candidates had two separate interviews with the Alchemy Alliance over a period of two-three months.  Our goal was to have a candidate selected by the committee for an announcement and discussion at the July board of directors meeting.

At the March board meeting, the executive committee led by chair Angelique Power presented a retirement package for me to the board of directors. It was approved at that meeting, which removed it from the decisions to be made about the new CEO. When that person was hired, the retirement agreement was in place. This avoided any awkward negotiations or discussions of financial commitments between the new CEO and me.

At the July board meeting, the Alchemy Alliance (search committee) announced that Eddie Torres was their top candidate. The GIA executive committee, which meets monthly, made a recommendation that the transition include moving the offices from Seattle to New York City. Prior to the meeting, the treasurer, with some support from me, had put together a budget for this transition and a comparison of salaries, rent and general administrative costs.  The board voted to move the office and to hire Eddie Torres as their new CEO. I agreed with this decision since there was no real strategic reason for the offices to be in Seattle except that GIA’s first CEO lived there.

Immediately after the board’s decisions, our priority became the current GIA staff and how best to assure the smooth implementation of the organization’s on-going programs through 2017 and, in particular, our annual conference to be held in October in Detroit. I put together relocation and extended retention offers for GIA’s seven staff members in early August. Because of GIA’s strong cash reserve, we were able to offer reasonable moving packages and retention packages. If the employee declined to move to New York, we asked them to sign the extended retention agreement which provided them with a bonus payment in January 2018 if they agreed to stay with the organization until December 31, 2017, write a scope of work for their successor and travel to New York City for a maximum of a week to train new staff in 2018. All employees chose to accept the retention agreement, which meant GIA would have continuity in services to members and a well-managed conference, our largest program, through the end of 2017. Ultimately, one employee will remain on staff working remotely from Seattle and one remains part-time as an advisor. Eddie also made arrangements with individual employees to work contractually or hourly in January as needed.

Eddie came to the Seattle office twice between August and October for a total of ten days. We worked together on the 2018 budget, current and future programs, organizational operations and the strategies and timeline for hiring new staff. We agreed that my job was to close out the year and the Seattle office and his was to open the NYC office and hire staff. He hired a deputy director in September who was able to attend the conference and the November board meeting. Eddie and I attended the annual conference in Detroit where he was introduced to the membership as the new CEO. We presented a united front for the membership and hopefully instilled in them confidence that the transition would be a smooth one and would enable the organization to continue to have impact for members with the minimum amount of downtime in programs and services.

We kept two staff members in Seattle working on important projects in January and February.  Our director of finance and operations is doing the 2017 audit with our Seattle auditors and the deputy director remained on contract to edit and publish the 2018 Winter Reader, a major publication for the arts philanthropy field. It was our intention to provide as much support for on-going communication programs with Seattle experienced staff while the New York office became fully staffed, and knowledge transfer among old and new staff began to flow. Great credit needs to be given to Seattle staff members who maintained their extraordinary commitment to the organization throughout a five-month period of knowing they would be losing their jobs. This also speaks to the culture of the office, where loyalty and teamwork were values held be the entire staff.

By January 1, 2018, six new staff members had been hired, an office was procured in the South Bronx, the office in Seattle was packed up and furniture, equipment and records shipped to NYC. At its November meeting, the board approved a 2018 budget which included use of cash reserves for transition costs including payment of retention and retirement agreements, the actual move, Seattle staff travel to train new staff and other costs.

When someone asked me the most important element to a smooth transition, my answer was “a strong cash reserve.”  Successful transitions are planned, thoughtful of all individual stakeholders and of the on-going mission of the organization. They can also be expensive, but having cash reserves designated for “leadership transition" make the difference between leaving an organization set up for success or leaving a board and new leadership wondering what the future will bring. In this transition, they have an idea about the future even though, in reality, it will be a new organization that will build on the past to shape a new, even more impactful association for the arts grantmaking community of practice.


Barry:  What’s next for you?

Janet:  I’ve moved back to South Dakota, my home state and where “everybody knows my name.”  It’s nice to be home. I’d like to consult with regional and national foundations, and state and local government agencies. I also want to write and teach - focusing on leadership, racial equity and organizational finances and management. I am anxious to work again with nonprofit arts groups.  I’m also looking forward to reading several books, going to lots of movies, watching lots of tennis, traveling to see kids and friends, and, of course, continuing to be a better boxer. Boxing life lessons: keep moving, hit hard and don’t forget to duck.


Thank you Janet.

Have a great week everybody.

Don't Quit
Barry

Quick Exit Interview with John McGuirk

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on......................"

Note on last week's post on the Boy Scouts Merit Badge program: I had fully intended to research the Girl Scouts comparative program, and to include a recommendation that any effort on the arts part to reach out to the Boy Scouts, be matched by a similar outreach to the Girl Scouts.  But I completely spaced it out and neglected to do either.  Oh dear. While the Girl Scouts badge program doesn't seem as comprehensive, rigorous and demanding as the Boy Scout program [and why is that?], there is included in their program opportunities to delve into the arts.  And, of course, they must be included in our efforts.  Thanks to Lisa Robb for reminding me of that oversight.  

John McGuirk Bio:
John E. McGuirk is the recently retired director of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program, where he also assisted the foundation president with local grantmaking projects and served as Hewlett’s liaison to the Community Leadership Project. Prior to Hewlett, John was director of the Arts Program of the James Irvine Foundation and director of grant programs for Arts Council Silicon Valley. He sat on the GIA Board of Directors.  Before that, he worked at the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, CA and held positions at both the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Opera. John earned his M.A. in public management, with a concentration in arts management, from Carnegie Mellon University.

Interview:

Barry:  You have been at the center of foundation arts philanthropy in Northern California for almost two decades as a performing arts program officer for the Hewlett Foundation, the arts program director of the Irvine Foundation, and then back as the director of the Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts program.  What has changed during that long tenure?  What’s different about arts philanthropy today from the past, and where is it headed?

John:  I believe the most significant change in arts philanthropy I’ve seen over the past two decades is the growing importance of cultural equity in grantmaking. This has its roots as far back as “multi-culturalism” in the 1980s when I first entered the field. Racial equity is a more recent priority at the national level as articulated by Grantmakers in the Arts.

As an example, we can look at cultural equity and the diversification of the Performing Arts Program’s grantee portfolio. Since its founding, Hewlett Foundation invested deeply in Western classical performing arts organizations (orchestras, theaters, operas, and dance companies) and these art forms merit continued support. But our region’s demographics have changed rapidly, and cultural tastes and consumer behaviors have also evolved. This meant that the art forms and aesthetics represented in the grantee portfolio needed to broaden and adapt to reflect the composition of our region. It has been my personal goal, no matter where you live in the greater Bay Area, that you have access to arts and cultural experiences that are both relevant and affordable. With an annual grants budget exceeding $20 million, the Performing Arts Program now directly funds more than 225 diverse organizations, and reaches another 600 organizations through our regranting partnerships with local arts councils, service organizations, and funding colleagues. Community-based organizations working in a wide variety of disciplines, aesthetics and cultural traditions are now an integral part of the grantee portfolio. One of my favorite projects during the past 18 months was working with author and consultant Laurie MacDougall to write A Fifty Year History of the Performing Arts Program . It documents the evolution of Hewlett’s philanthropic strategies in the arts over the past five decades, deeply rooted in multi-year general operating support and responsive to the ever-evolving cultural landscape.

Barry:  Given Helicon’s recent follow up report showing that in the past five years there has been an actual decrease in equity funding, what needs be done to change that reality?

John:  Helicon Collaborative’s report, Not Just Money: Equity Issues in Cultural Philanthropy.  found that since its initial study in 2011, “funding overall has gotten less equitable, not more.” However, San Francisco is singled out as an exception to this national trend, and the report notes that sustained and systemic efforts have “produced funding distribution patterns that more closely reflect the city’s demographic profile and the diversity of the local cultural sector.” The report specifically mentions the work of the Irvine, Haas, and Hewlett Foundations, as well as the Alliance for CA Traditional Arts, Theatre Bay Area CA$H, Dancers Group CA$H, and the Creative Work Fund. “As a result of this multi-faceted and sustained work,” the report states, “not only does San Francisco have more diverse nonprofit cultural groups per capita than other cities, those groups also receive a significantly larger share of arts foundation funding than their counterparts in the other urban areas studied.”

The Bay Area has long valued cultural equity. Diversification of grants portfolios takes sustained efforts to achieve, but it is producing results over time. Grantmakers need to be cognizant of historical funding patterns and structural racism that have led to current disparities in arts funding, and persistently address these as individuals, organizations, and communities. We need to continue to adapt our funding priorities, application processes and selection criteria to ensure a broad and diverse applicant pool and grantee portfolio.

Barry:  Foundations have territorial imperatives, legacy commitments, vastly different funding priorities and local concerns.  Yet there are national issues than impact arts organizations everywhere.  How do we promote more collaborations and working relationships between foundations across the country to address the big issues than affect everyone?

John:  This is a huge question without a simple answer. It requires grantmakers to incorporate their institutional and geographic priorities into larger movements to achieve greater collective impact. There are some instances of success in regional and national efforts around key issues, such as arts education advocacy and policy, data collection, leadership, and capitalization. Often these efforts are successful because many funders put a little discretionary money into a collective pot to achieve a stated goal that aligned with local priorities and concerns. Some funders have the capacity to do this based on their charters and missions; others do not. An interesting example of funders working together is the creation of DataArts -- trying to streamline processes through a standardized database that ultimately becomes a tool for arts managers, funders, researchers, advocates and policymakers.

Barry:  Data collection, research and evaluation have dramatically increased in the past decade.  How has that influenced arts philanthropy and what will be important in the future?  Is there any downside to relying (too much) on research and data in the decision-making process?

John:  Collection of arts data, research, and evaluation have dramatically increased and improved in the past decade. I sincerely hope these tools are benefiting artists, arts managers, and board members -- not just funders who use this information in their decision making. DataArts, Arts Education Data Project, Audience Research Collaborative, Sustain Arts, Bay Area Performing Arts Spaces, Guide Star and others now provide critical information and tools to enable arts organizations to be more effective and sustainable. It also provides funders with the ability to look at the arts system with a broad lens – understanding an individual organization’s role within the larger context, identifying gaps, informing priorities. The downside is that these databases are not comprehensive – they only can help to paint a fuzzy picture based on available information. Efforts to keep information accurate and timely are essential, even though time consuming and expensive.

Barry:  First, we had capacity building, and sustainability efforts.  Then we had operational support emphasis.  Now we have equity / diversity and capitalization focus.  What will the next major shift likely be?

John:  Hewlett has long been interested in the capacity and sustainability of arts organizations. It is part of the rationale for multi-year general operating support -- providing arts organizations the greatest flexibility to meet the needs of artists and audiences alike. This intersected with a body of work initiated by national service organization, Grantmakers in the Arts, during the time I served on the Board of Directors from 2010 to 2016. It resulted in more funders taking the strategic approach of multi-year general support, or in the case of project support, providing adequately for overhead expenses. Similarly, prudent grantees have taken advantage of the robust economy to build their balance sheets by developing assets and reducing debt. The resiliency and sustainability of the arts sector remains dependent on organizations’ strong financial health.

The next shift is difficult to predict. Recently I have seen more arts organizations collaborating across the non-profit sector on key issues, such as the environment and climate change, displacement and homelessness, education, and others. When the economy slows down and resources are more constricted, we usually see more collaboration and consolidation among arts organizations.

Barry:  Which programs or initiatives launched by Hewlett and / or Irvine during your tenures do you think have had the greatest impact on the field?  What is that impact in brief?

John:  Arts Education – recent policy gains at the federal, state, county, and local district levels are making arts programs integral to a well-rounded education. Now is the opportunity to close the disparity gap for those students who do not have access to arts and culture in their classrooms during the school day (and after school and out-of-school programs). I continue to believe arts education provides students with a “creative toolkit” that is essential for their success in the long term – engaging in self-expression; connecting to their cultural identity and to others; developing a creative and innovative workforce; nurturing the next generation of artists; and building audiences for the future.

Commissioning New Works – in celebration of the Foundation’s 50th anniversary, we launched an $8 million initiative, Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions. Over the next five years, it will commission fifty works of performing arts of exceptional quality and enduring value that will premiere in the Bay Area. I was thrilled with the exceptionally strong projects that were proposed. It was the most competitive set of proposals that I have reviewed in my two decades of grantmaking. The ideas were outstanding, and it was extremely difficult to choose from more than 125 submissions. This major commissioning initiative complements our ongoing financial support and commissioning partnerships with Creative Work Fund and Gerbode Special Awards in the Arts to create new works in the Bay Area.

Effective Leadership —Hewlett and Irvine invested significantly in leadership development. The recently completed $20 million initiative, Community Leadership Project  produced significant results for low income communities and people of color in three regions of California. Similarly, we invested in a suite of research and supports for networks of emerging arts leaders across the state. This work gives me great hope for the next generation of arts managers’ smooth transition to full organizational leadership, the potential for shared responsibility, and transfer of immense knowledge by the generation of leaders preparing to retire.

Barry:  What’s next for you?

John:  I got married last fall-- my husband, Richard, and I have a small beautiful farm near the Russian River in Sonoma County. We are so lucky that the wildfires did not harm our home and property last year. I am looking forward to a long sabbatical to relax on the farm this winter and spring and to recharge my creative practices – a self-administered “rehab for workaholics!” I’ll dust off my old piano music, dig out my parched watercolors, find that pottery wheel buried somewhere in the garage, fire up the glass kiln, and get my hands dirty in the gardens.

In addition, I am volunteering to raise funds for artists and arts organizations impacted by the North Bay wildfires -- to help our neighbors recover and our community rebuild. Please join me in supporting the Creative Sonoma Recovery Fund!

Finally, it is my intention to continue to cultivate creativity and propagate generosity – likely consulting on projects where I can add value, and returning to teaching arts administration and strategic planning at Claremont Graduate University next fall.

I will remain forever grateful to the team at Hewlett, to my funding colleagues across the nation, and to the amazing artists, creators and leaders in our vibrant cultural sector. I offer my sincerest thanks and deepest appreciation to you all for your ongoing work!


Thank you John.


Have a great week.

Don't Quit
Barry