Good morning.
"And the beat goes on…………."
Here We Go Again
For all intents and purposes, America is now in a never-ending election cycle. Tomorrow we will elect an entire Federal House of Representatives, 1/3 of the Senate and numerous city mayors, councils, Boards of Supervisors, state legislatures, and Governors. The day after tomorrow the 2016 cycle will start in earnest. And for the next two years we will be inundated with candidates vying for their party's nomination for President.
What will the results tomorrow mean for us? On the federal level, if the Democrats maintain control of the Senate, this election probably won't mean much for us at all. If, though, the Republicans capture the Senate, as is widely being predicted, then we are likely to once again face challenges to funding to the NEA and the NEH (and maybe PBS too), and quite possibly another round where proposed cuts are the best case scenario, and elimination may be on the table. One hopes not, but reality suggests otherwise. Gridlock may well be inevitable. The threat of a presidential veto will come into play, and the President may well use his power of executive order to move his agenda. That will bring cries of 'foul' from the Republicans and again we may have stalemated government.
Will the Senate change hands? Conventional wisdom suggests the party that occupies the White House invariably suffers some losses in mid-term elections. The current dissatisfaction of the electorate with foreign policy, their confusion over the best role for the US in the ISIS situation, fear over Ebola, and continuing lack of confidence in the economy (as the benefits accrue principally to the wealthy) don't bode well for the Democrat's chances. And, of course, the system has morphed into covert campaigns by obfuscation. Issues are trumped by image. Platitudes play to manipulated emotions, and almost nowhere to be found is any real interest in reasonable solutions to unreasonable problems. The whole crazy mess is so distorted that people don't even vote their own self-interest anymore. It makes almost no sense, and so is likely to be fodder for historians, sociologists and psychologists for a long time to come. I suspect that in the distant future, people will look back on this time with incredulity. Maybe artists will help make sense of it all.
The GOP is likely to pick up seats in the House to add to their majority, and five, seven or more seats in the Senate to give them a majority. If that happens, they are very likely to add seats in state legislatures and in Governorships too. Turnout will be key, and as far as trends go - watch the exit polls on how women, Latinos and Millennials voted and in what numbers they turned out.
And so once again we may have to respond by organizing a vocal and vociferous campaign to minimally keep the Endowments alive and their funding at the current level. The chances of our succeeding in that effort are, if history is any example, fairly decent. Of course, the effort will take time and energy we could better put to other endeavors, but we may have no choice. And it won't be any cake walk. If we find ourselves under attack we will have to work hard and start early to win.
It is ridiculous that we have to continually face this threat and respond to it. But we don't have much ongoing political juice, only a minimal lobbying effort, we don't organize in support of candidates, and we have few friends in any legislature or executive branch that will go the distance for us and draw lines in the sand in our favor at the outset. It's left to us to defend ourselves and make our case. We have a very good case to make. That's not the problem. The problem is having to constantly organize to make that case. If you're always treading water, it's difficult to finally get to shore.
No matter what the outcome tomorrow, here's what every single arts organization and all the individuals who comprise our universe ought to do:
1. Write a letter (ONE letter) congratulating the elected official on their victory (first time or re-election) stating that you (and / or your organization) reside in the elected official's district, and then outline the value of the arts in your district, including some data and study references (nothing that has to be too complicated - two or three bullet points ought to suffice), include a story about some real, live person positively impacted by the arts in your area, and finish by urging the elected official to meet with you so you can share with them why the arts are essential to his / her constituents.
Send that letter to your U.S. Congressman/woman and if your Senator was re-elected, or newly elected, to him or her. Send the same letter to your newly elected or re-elected state representatives and Governor. And to the local city council / Board of Supervisors and Mayor who were elected or re-elected.
So one letter, seven or eight copies. You just have to change the name and address on each. Not so hard.
Maybe you can include a signed Resolution from your Board of Directors.
Ask your friends and supporters to send a letter too. Soon.
And then follow up with a telephone call in about two weeks. If you want to really help, you will need to stay on them for several months as the budgetary process plods forward. Meet with them, invite them to your events, lobby them and their staffs. Relentlessly.
Finally, just like you change your smoke alarm batteries every Daylight Savings Time, or every New Year's, maybe you could send a $10 or $20 check to your local, state or national advocacy group every election day. It would help.
And maybe somebody out there can figure out a way we can avoid going through this every election cycle. Perhaps someday we can convince Congress that funding for the Endowments ought to be multi-year (say on a three year cycle). Then we would only have to defend our local and state funding budgets every year. And the Endowments every three years.
And one more thing: VOTE, and urge everyone else to vote too.
Maybe the outcome will be the election or re-election of solid arts supporters and we won't have to go through all the motions yet once again. Maybe not.
Have a great week.
Don't Quit
Barry
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Thoughts on Hiring Key Staff
Good morning.
"And the beat goes on………………."
I think we often prioritize the wrong things in our quest to search for the best leadership for our organizations.
There is a maxim carpenters use: 'Measure twice, cut once' - meaning that to be safe you need to measure any piece of wood you are going to cut two times before you make your cut. I can, based on personal experience, testify that this is good advice. Many times I did not follow that advice and had to re-cut to get it right. One learns over time to be cautious.
It occurs to me that we ought to follow the same line of reasoning when we conduct interviews for our most important senior staff hires. We need to conduct two interviews for those positions. But for the most part no one does that. We cull down the list of candidates and then we interview the finalists. Once. Both interviewees and interviewers can have off or on days, both of which may create an inaccurate impression. Making such an important decision on one single interview seems ill advised. It's possible to right candidate may be one that we dismiss and reject based on a single interview, when a second interview might give us a much better picture of their qualifications and whether or not they might be a good fit in our organization. And I think this makes sense even if we engage a Search Firm and they have already done one (or more) interviews. It might also make sense to have at least some different people doing the interview so as to get other impressions.
And on the flip side, a candidate might have a single brilliant interview, but might, in fact, turn out not be the best fit for us. I think it incumbent on us to do that second interview to validate whatever conclusions we came to based on an initial interview. And to get a better sense of whether or not the person we like is actually the person we think they are. Having been in the position to make critical hires over my career, I know that to a degree, a final decision is often a crap shoot - guess work - and sometimes it turns out right, and other times it turns out wrong - very wrong.
The higher up the staff rung, the more critical is the decision. Choosing a new Executive Director or comparable CEO is quite possibly the single most important decision a Board can ever make. Relying on a single interview is risky.
It also occurs to me that our whole approach to finding the best candidate for our leadership might benefit from re-thinking. I have come to the conclusion that turning the whole thing over to a Search Firm is NOT always the responsible thing to do - unless you do everything possible to help that firm help you. While Search Firms have a valuable role to play in the process - and can save us time and yield us good results due in part to their experience in that process, simply ceding the responsibility to an outside source - and expecting they will (or can) do it all for us - may just be an abrogation of our own responsibility to be more intimately involved at all stages of looking for someone to helm the ship. It may just be too easy to say: "let's get a good search firm and that will insure we do this thing right." And I think that happens far too often.
First of all, not all firms are equal. Some are good, some very good, many others are just so-so, and some are virtually worthless. A good firm ought to help with a situational analysis in painting an accurate picture of where the organization is on a host of fronts. Only with an accurate picture of the real challenges it faces, can you identify the skills and qualifications you need in a hire. How much time do we spend vetting those firms before we engage one? How often is the decision simply that someone recommends a firm, and we just then go out and hire them. That seems risky to me.
Second, there is no way a Search Firm can possibly know your organization from the inside, and without that perspective the search itself is quite possibly flawed from the outset. A good Search Firm will try to get background on the organization, but that effort will be constrained by time, cost and the fact that many organizations may be, for a variety of reasons, hesitant to share a full disclosure of their situation, particularly financial matters - and, let's face it, a lot of organizations don't themselves face directly all their problems and the causes thereof. That's assuming the organization even knows all the root causes of any problems it faces. A lot of organizations do not. If the organization is not painfully honest with itself, there is little the search firm can do to fully know what to look for in a candidate. Every decision we make in the process of finding our leaders is critical. We need to get more involved and we need to be more honest.
We might also more frequently consider both promotions from within, and searching in related fields, outside of the nonprofit arts.
Several years ago I wrote a satirical blog on the typical "job description" you see in the arts - which in our field is symbolic and representative of all our job descriptions -- unrealistic and often inaccurate portraits of the Messiah we all seem to be looking for. It's a joke. We need to paint a much more realistic description of the real challenges facing those we hire. And we need to much more realistically and accurately delineate the kinds of skills we are really in search of. The point at which a key position becomes vacant ought to signal to the organization that they need to take a long hard look at what is going right, and what is going (gone) wrong and assess very specifically what is needed in the replacement hire, but very often we don't do that either. We create an inaccurate picture in our own minds as to what we are looking for, gloss over the mistakes made, live in a somewhat fantasy world, and in being so cavalier about the challenge, we do a tremendous disservice to our own organization's future.
Back to the building trades analogy, professional house painters will tell you that painting the house is relatively easy and quick. The hard and time consuming work is in the preparation. And it is that preparation that is key to a satisfactory result - a professional result. The same is true in our candidate searches. Once the self-assessment is done so as to determine with specificity the kind of qualities, skills and experience you are really looking for (or should be), and by inference what is not necessarily needed in a candidate, the search and decision itself need not be nearly as time consuming as we make it. I know of numerous searches in our field that take a year or longer. That's unhealthy for the organization, puts undue pressure on the existing staff and interim leadership, puts the organization in an unfortunate limbo, and, quite frankly, is irresponsible.
Much of the due diligence in determining, before the process starts, of what you are looking for really ought to start before the key person leaves (whether voluntarily or involuntarily). And unless people are burying the head in the sand, more often than not, you know when a change looms on the horizon.
At the very least, I would urge everyone - at least for new Executive Director level hires - to spend a lot more time in preparation for the search.
So please consider that the essence of a good search is first and foremost in searching for the keys to where your organization is currently (and for the future) at, what you need, and how you might best find what you need. And the critical element is honest self-assessment. When you settle on a couple of potential candidates, don't make the final decision based on a single interview.
Have a great week.
Don't Quit
Barry
"And the beat goes on………………."
I think we often prioritize the wrong things in our quest to search for the best leadership for our organizations.
There is a maxim carpenters use: 'Measure twice, cut once' - meaning that to be safe you need to measure any piece of wood you are going to cut two times before you make your cut. I can, based on personal experience, testify that this is good advice. Many times I did not follow that advice and had to re-cut to get it right. One learns over time to be cautious.
It occurs to me that we ought to follow the same line of reasoning when we conduct interviews for our most important senior staff hires. We need to conduct two interviews for those positions. But for the most part no one does that. We cull down the list of candidates and then we interview the finalists. Once. Both interviewees and interviewers can have off or on days, both of which may create an inaccurate impression. Making such an important decision on one single interview seems ill advised. It's possible to right candidate may be one that we dismiss and reject based on a single interview, when a second interview might give us a much better picture of their qualifications and whether or not they might be a good fit in our organization. And I think this makes sense even if we engage a Search Firm and they have already done one (or more) interviews. It might also make sense to have at least some different people doing the interview so as to get other impressions.
And on the flip side, a candidate might have a single brilliant interview, but might, in fact, turn out not be the best fit for us. I think it incumbent on us to do that second interview to validate whatever conclusions we came to based on an initial interview. And to get a better sense of whether or not the person we like is actually the person we think they are. Having been in the position to make critical hires over my career, I know that to a degree, a final decision is often a crap shoot - guess work - and sometimes it turns out right, and other times it turns out wrong - very wrong.
The higher up the staff rung, the more critical is the decision. Choosing a new Executive Director or comparable CEO is quite possibly the single most important decision a Board can ever make. Relying on a single interview is risky.
It also occurs to me that our whole approach to finding the best candidate for our leadership might benefit from re-thinking. I have come to the conclusion that turning the whole thing over to a Search Firm is NOT always the responsible thing to do - unless you do everything possible to help that firm help you. While Search Firms have a valuable role to play in the process - and can save us time and yield us good results due in part to their experience in that process, simply ceding the responsibility to an outside source - and expecting they will (or can) do it all for us - may just be an abrogation of our own responsibility to be more intimately involved at all stages of looking for someone to helm the ship. It may just be too easy to say: "let's get a good search firm and that will insure we do this thing right." And I think that happens far too often.
First of all, not all firms are equal. Some are good, some very good, many others are just so-so, and some are virtually worthless. A good firm ought to help with a situational analysis in painting an accurate picture of where the organization is on a host of fronts. Only with an accurate picture of the real challenges it faces, can you identify the skills and qualifications you need in a hire. How much time do we spend vetting those firms before we engage one? How often is the decision simply that someone recommends a firm, and we just then go out and hire them. That seems risky to me.
Second, there is no way a Search Firm can possibly know your organization from the inside, and without that perspective the search itself is quite possibly flawed from the outset. A good Search Firm will try to get background on the organization, but that effort will be constrained by time, cost and the fact that many organizations may be, for a variety of reasons, hesitant to share a full disclosure of their situation, particularly financial matters - and, let's face it, a lot of organizations don't themselves face directly all their problems and the causes thereof. That's assuming the organization even knows all the root causes of any problems it faces. A lot of organizations do not. If the organization is not painfully honest with itself, there is little the search firm can do to fully know what to look for in a candidate. Every decision we make in the process of finding our leaders is critical. We need to get more involved and we need to be more honest.
We might also more frequently consider both promotions from within, and searching in related fields, outside of the nonprofit arts.
Several years ago I wrote a satirical blog on the typical "job description" you see in the arts - which in our field is symbolic and representative of all our job descriptions -- unrealistic and often inaccurate portraits of the Messiah we all seem to be looking for. It's a joke. We need to paint a much more realistic description of the real challenges facing those we hire. And we need to much more realistically and accurately delineate the kinds of skills we are really in search of. The point at which a key position becomes vacant ought to signal to the organization that they need to take a long hard look at what is going right, and what is going (gone) wrong and assess very specifically what is needed in the replacement hire, but very often we don't do that either. We create an inaccurate picture in our own minds as to what we are looking for, gloss over the mistakes made, live in a somewhat fantasy world, and in being so cavalier about the challenge, we do a tremendous disservice to our own organization's future.
Back to the building trades analogy, professional house painters will tell you that painting the house is relatively easy and quick. The hard and time consuming work is in the preparation. And it is that preparation that is key to a satisfactory result - a professional result. The same is true in our candidate searches. Once the self-assessment is done so as to determine with specificity the kind of qualities, skills and experience you are really looking for (or should be), and by inference what is not necessarily needed in a candidate, the search and decision itself need not be nearly as time consuming as we make it. I know of numerous searches in our field that take a year or longer. That's unhealthy for the organization, puts undue pressure on the existing staff and interim leadership, puts the organization in an unfortunate limbo, and, quite frankly, is irresponsible.
Much of the due diligence in determining, before the process starts, of what you are looking for really ought to start before the key person leaves (whether voluntarily or involuntarily). And unless people are burying the head in the sand, more often than not, you know when a change looms on the horizon.
At the very least, I would urge everyone - at least for new Executive Director level hires - to spend a lot more time in preparation for the search.
So please consider that the essence of a good search is first and foremost in searching for the keys to where your organization is currently (and for the future) at, what you need, and how you might best find what you need. And the critical element is honest self-assessment. When you settle on a couple of potential candidates, don't make the final decision based on a single interview.
Have a great week.
Don't Quit
Barry
Sunday, October 19, 2014
GIA Wrap Up & Thoughts on the Equity / Racial / Social Justice Issue
Good morning
"And the beat goes on…………………"
Note: Reminder - click here to access the Dinner-vention video to watch in whole or in part at your leisure. Thanks.
When I first got into this field, the dominant buzz was all about PARADIGM. Irrationally, I grew to hate that word. Over time our lexicon changes. Here is a summary of the GIA Conference in BUZZ WORDS (all of which I heard repeatedly during the three days):
CurateUNPACK authentic Cohort ValuemappingTransforming SocialJusticeEQUITYintersection RISK Agency CAPACITYBUILDING story telling Conversations GUARDRAILS 2.0 challenges COMMUNITYofPRACTICEDiversity Sustainability TRUST Outcomes Recipe
MARKETING CollectiveImpact excellence
inclusion transparency
Whew. Master these concepts and you too can sound erudite and informed at any gathering of the field! While some of these are actually helpful in framing discussions, one can only hope some of the more pretentious of these will be short-lived.
The 2014 GIA Conference was, I think, very successful. This gathering remains small enough to be intimate, but large enough so that the conversations are expansive. As the funding community continues to grapple with some very large challenges, as a body it is making steady progress on working together to, if not collaborate on every approach, at least coordinate some of what use to be very disparate and wide ranging approaches. Perhaps the word that ought to be included in the vocabulary above is the word "SHARING". Increasingly this community is doing just that - sharing knowledge, practices, research and data, approaches, concerns and more; sharing all of that not just with each other, but across the field. The challenges all remain, with ever greater complexity involved. GIA is pitching a big tent, with notable success.
The EQUITY SOCIAL / RACIAL JUSTICE Issue:
Several sessions dealt with the Equity and Racial / Social Justice Issue - detailing pilot programs that are beginning to develop tools and approaches to addressing the issue. I won't detail them here, as they really are at the beginning stages. Suffice it to say, I think we are moving steadily, if slowly, from talk to action on a practical basis. What I hope is that we can ramp up and move faster.
Personal Opinion Piece: It strikes me that if we are to really move towards a future that corrects the mistakes and omissions of the past, we are going to have to abandon the idea that we can treat this as a challenge, and move to treating the issue of equity, of social and racial justice (within our field anyway) as an obsession. We need to move away from the dispassionate and detached position of observer to one where we voluntarily and eagerly move as committed activists to change - not in the long term, but now. This isn't just another issue or challenge for us - this is a defining moment for us. We can't simply treat it as business as usual and approach it as just another issue to deal with. It's more fundamental than that.
It also strikes me that if we are to institute real change, and do it sooner rather than later, we need to find ways to move towards equity that will unite us, not pit us against each other. Thus, on the money allocation side of equity, we have got to find ways to convince those among us who are going to have net losses by virtue of a realignment to a fairer distribution of wealth that it is ultimately in their own best interests to support that realignment. I believe that to be the case, but we need to (here I am, OMG, about to use one of the buzzwords) unpack exactly how that might play out. We must, I think, avoid at all costs creating internal sector factions and the silo-ization of our field. We have to avoid demonizing any group, casting blame or boxing anybody into a corner. But saying that does NOT mean we have to now go very slowly so as not to upset any apple carts. Just the opposite, I think. We need to move as quickly as we can to reaching a situation where equity exists (remembering the point made in the pre conference, that equity does not always mean absolute equality.)
The questions for us are: Are we going to exhibit real leadership and foresight for our collective future? Are we going to make course corrections that will ultimately serve us all (painful to some as those corrections may be), or are we going to procrastinate and find ways to avoid any real movement? As I said, this is I think, a defining moment for us. Going too slowly, too deliberately now is a mistake. While I am not suggesting we act with total abandon before we fully understand all the ramifications and nuances and potential impacts and consequences of the pursuit of a strategy, I am suggesting that, at this point, we pretty much understand those ramifications, nuances and potential impacts and consequences, and we need to boldly move towards implementation of a new reality. And that new reality is a fairer and more equitable allocation of resources and opportunities that will give voice (or a louder voice perhaps) to those who really haven't been seated at the big table yet. This is just my opinion. Others can reasonably disagree of course.
If we dilly dally, and jibber jabber, and hesitate, we will only put ourselves in the position of "also rans". The equity issue cuts across a wide swath of our entire culture. The change is coming no matter what. This isn't a party we want to come late to. We need to get out front on equity and justice issues now. Because it is the right thing to do. Private funders and arts organizations need to convince their Boards, government agencies need to convince the decision makers, and the various parts of our field need to convince each other to act. We don't want to be in the middle of the pack as the demographic societal shifts change the mechanisms by which our society runs itself. The Nonprofit Arts need to be at the forefront of this leadership. And the train is leaving (if it hasn't already left) the station. All aboard!!
What does that mean? To me, it means a significant shift in the allocation of funding. That shift does not necessarily have to be exclusionary to those that heretofore got the lion's share, but it does mean a meaningful shift that now gives substantial resources to the smaller and mid-sized and multicultural organizations. And yes, that will be somewhat, but not entirely, at the expense of the larger, more Euro centric and established white cultural organizations. We should also bear in mind, that as to scarce and limited financial support, there are always two options. Just like in your own personal budgets you have two options when pressed for funds: you can spend less, or make more. The arts need to more deeply explore both - and especially the ways we can make more (including a state of the art (no pun intended) , world class lobbying (not advocacy) campaign to get a fair share of the government largess that we help to pay for. As I said above, we need to demonstrate to those organizations that will lose some of their base funding, that the positive benefits to them outweigh that loss. We need to identify what those benefits are, and make them an integral part of the whole approach.
What are those benefits? A rising tide that will raise all our boats. Inroads and connections to the Millennials for whom this is not even a debatable issue. New intersections, collaborations and potential windfalls for all of us. And new ways to work together to leverage our collective numbers. It may also yield us some new partnerships and the benefits that come with being seen as true leaders. The list goes on.
What else does it mean? It means we have to dramatically rethink our criteria for all the things we value and how that valuation is manifested. We will need to foster and nurture cross platform decision making and collaboration on a level that has nothing to do with programs or projects, and much more to do with conceptual thinking about how we can leverage the strength of our numbers. It means we can no longer sit at isolated tables when we consider both sector wide cultural policy and what is right for each of our organizations. It means we will have to build a level of trust and intimacy with each other that, quite simply, has never existed before. It means we will not only have to pursue, but succeed in that pursuit, at finding ways that when we say art and culture, the consensus meaning of that phrase is automatically all inclusive.
It will entail some very hard decision making both at the individual organization level, and at the sector level. It will mean that there is a general, if begrudging acceptance, that we are not going to solve everyone's problems, and that we are not going to be able to meet everyone's needs. That will be very difficult, but it absolutely, positively has to happen. And it means that we must redefine the reality as it exists and our relationship to, and acceptance of, the changing dynamics of the world - ours and the wider one (neither of which we have complete control over).
Can we do it? The more appropriate question is probably: can we not? Ebola has everybody freaked out now, and to an extent, rightly so. It is a dangerous and frightening threat. But it is manageable. What scares me about Ebola is that it may just be a test case. If (or perhaps when) a deadly virus mutates so that it is airborne, then we will face a real crisis that may endanger the world. How we handle the current Ebola threat is telling about how we may handle the future. I think the same may be true of the future of the arts: How we handle the big dangers to our thriving in the world right now, may tell a great deal about how we are able to handle some much bigger threats down the road.
The chief attributes we need to succeed as we remake our hierarchies and fundamentally shift from one (ugh, here it is again) paradigm to another, include, it seems to me, first and foremost mutual goodwill towards one another. It also will include bold action and vision, risk, hard decision making, and tenacity. It will involve sacrifice, compromise, and new thinking about how to proceed - together.
We, of course, need to proceed methodically - but not in the sense that methodical implies dragging our feet, or plodding along; methodical in the sense that we have thought things through and are willing to do what has to be done to emerge stronger, healthier and equipped to withstand the pressures the future will surely bring. This is about surviving and thriving - for all of us.
Have a great week.
Thanks GIA.
Don't Quit
Barry
"And the beat goes on…………………"
Note: Reminder - click here to access the Dinner-vention video to watch in whole or in part at your leisure. Thanks.
When I first got into this field, the dominant buzz was all about PARADIGM. Irrationally, I grew to hate that word. Over time our lexicon changes. Here is a summary of the GIA Conference in BUZZ WORDS (all of which I heard repeatedly during the three days):
CurateUNPACK authentic Cohort ValuemappingTransforming SocialJusticeEQUITYintersection RISK Agency CAPACITYBUILDING story telling Conversations GUARDRAILS 2.0 challenges COMMUNITYofPRACTICEDiversity Sustainability TRUST Outcomes Recipe
MARKETING CollectiveImpact excellence
inclusion transparency
Whew. Master these concepts and you too can sound erudite and informed at any gathering of the field! While some of these are actually helpful in framing discussions, one can only hope some of the more pretentious of these will be short-lived.
The 2014 GIA Conference was, I think, very successful. This gathering remains small enough to be intimate, but large enough so that the conversations are expansive. As the funding community continues to grapple with some very large challenges, as a body it is making steady progress on working together to, if not collaborate on every approach, at least coordinate some of what use to be very disparate and wide ranging approaches. Perhaps the word that ought to be included in the vocabulary above is the word "SHARING". Increasingly this community is doing just that - sharing knowledge, practices, research and data, approaches, concerns and more; sharing all of that not just with each other, but across the field. The challenges all remain, with ever greater complexity involved. GIA is pitching a big tent, with notable success.
The EQUITY SOCIAL / RACIAL JUSTICE Issue:
Several sessions dealt with the Equity and Racial / Social Justice Issue - detailing pilot programs that are beginning to develop tools and approaches to addressing the issue. I won't detail them here, as they really are at the beginning stages. Suffice it to say, I think we are moving steadily, if slowly, from talk to action on a practical basis. What I hope is that we can ramp up and move faster.
Personal Opinion Piece: It strikes me that if we are to really move towards a future that corrects the mistakes and omissions of the past, we are going to have to abandon the idea that we can treat this as a challenge, and move to treating the issue of equity, of social and racial justice (within our field anyway) as an obsession. We need to move away from the dispassionate and detached position of observer to one where we voluntarily and eagerly move as committed activists to change - not in the long term, but now. This isn't just another issue or challenge for us - this is a defining moment for us. We can't simply treat it as business as usual and approach it as just another issue to deal with. It's more fundamental than that.
It also strikes me that if we are to institute real change, and do it sooner rather than later, we need to find ways to move towards equity that will unite us, not pit us against each other. Thus, on the money allocation side of equity, we have got to find ways to convince those among us who are going to have net losses by virtue of a realignment to a fairer distribution of wealth that it is ultimately in their own best interests to support that realignment. I believe that to be the case, but we need to (here I am, OMG, about to use one of the buzzwords) unpack exactly how that might play out. We must, I think, avoid at all costs creating internal sector factions and the silo-ization of our field. We have to avoid demonizing any group, casting blame or boxing anybody into a corner. But saying that does NOT mean we have to now go very slowly so as not to upset any apple carts. Just the opposite, I think. We need to move as quickly as we can to reaching a situation where equity exists (remembering the point made in the pre conference, that equity does not always mean absolute equality.)
The questions for us are: Are we going to exhibit real leadership and foresight for our collective future? Are we going to make course corrections that will ultimately serve us all (painful to some as those corrections may be), or are we going to procrastinate and find ways to avoid any real movement? As I said, this is I think, a defining moment for us. Going too slowly, too deliberately now is a mistake. While I am not suggesting we act with total abandon before we fully understand all the ramifications and nuances and potential impacts and consequences of the pursuit of a strategy, I am suggesting that, at this point, we pretty much understand those ramifications, nuances and potential impacts and consequences, and we need to boldly move towards implementation of a new reality. And that new reality is a fairer and more equitable allocation of resources and opportunities that will give voice (or a louder voice perhaps) to those who really haven't been seated at the big table yet. This is just my opinion. Others can reasonably disagree of course.
If we dilly dally, and jibber jabber, and hesitate, we will only put ourselves in the position of "also rans". The equity issue cuts across a wide swath of our entire culture. The change is coming no matter what. This isn't a party we want to come late to. We need to get out front on equity and justice issues now. Because it is the right thing to do. Private funders and arts organizations need to convince their Boards, government agencies need to convince the decision makers, and the various parts of our field need to convince each other to act. We don't want to be in the middle of the pack as the demographic societal shifts change the mechanisms by which our society runs itself. The Nonprofit Arts need to be at the forefront of this leadership. And the train is leaving (if it hasn't already left) the station. All aboard!!
What does that mean? To me, it means a significant shift in the allocation of funding. That shift does not necessarily have to be exclusionary to those that heretofore got the lion's share, but it does mean a meaningful shift that now gives substantial resources to the smaller and mid-sized and multicultural organizations. And yes, that will be somewhat, but not entirely, at the expense of the larger, more Euro centric and established white cultural organizations. We should also bear in mind, that as to scarce and limited financial support, there are always two options. Just like in your own personal budgets you have two options when pressed for funds: you can spend less, or make more. The arts need to more deeply explore both - and especially the ways we can make more (including a state of the art (no pun intended) , world class lobbying (not advocacy) campaign to get a fair share of the government largess that we help to pay for. As I said above, we need to demonstrate to those organizations that will lose some of their base funding, that the positive benefits to them outweigh that loss. We need to identify what those benefits are, and make them an integral part of the whole approach.
What are those benefits? A rising tide that will raise all our boats. Inroads and connections to the Millennials for whom this is not even a debatable issue. New intersections, collaborations and potential windfalls for all of us. And new ways to work together to leverage our collective numbers. It may also yield us some new partnerships and the benefits that come with being seen as true leaders. The list goes on.
What else does it mean? It means we have to dramatically rethink our criteria for all the things we value and how that valuation is manifested. We will need to foster and nurture cross platform decision making and collaboration on a level that has nothing to do with programs or projects, and much more to do with conceptual thinking about how we can leverage the strength of our numbers. It means we can no longer sit at isolated tables when we consider both sector wide cultural policy and what is right for each of our organizations. It means we will have to build a level of trust and intimacy with each other that, quite simply, has never existed before. It means we will not only have to pursue, but succeed in that pursuit, at finding ways that when we say art and culture, the consensus meaning of that phrase is automatically all inclusive.
It will entail some very hard decision making both at the individual organization level, and at the sector level. It will mean that there is a general, if begrudging acceptance, that we are not going to solve everyone's problems, and that we are not going to be able to meet everyone's needs. That will be very difficult, but it absolutely, positively has to happen. And it means that we must redefine the reality as it exists and our relationship to, and acceptance of, the changing dynamics of the world - ours and the wider one (neither of which we have complete control over).
Can we do it? The more appropriate question is probably: can we not? Ebola has everybody freaked out now, and to an extent, rightly so. It is a dangerous and frightening threat. But it is manageable. What scares me about Ebola is that it may just be a test case. If (or perhaps when) a deadly virus mutates so that it is airborne, then we will face a real crisis that may endanger the world. How we handle the current Ebola threat is telling about how we may handle the future. I think the same may be true of the future of the arts: How we handle the big dangers to our thriving in the world right now, may tell a great deal about how we are able to handle some much bigger threats down the road.
The chief attributes we need to succeed as we remake our hierarchies and fundamentally shift from one (ugh, here it is again) paradigm to another, include, it seems to me, first and foremost mutual goodwill towards one another. It also will include bold action and vision, risk, hard decision making, and tenacity. It will involve sacrifice, compromise, and new thinking about how to proceed - together.
We, of course, need to proceed methodically - but not in the sense that methodical implies dragging our feet, or plodding along; methodical in the sense that we have thought things through and are willing to do what has to be done to emerge stronger, healthier and equipped to withstand the pressures the future will surely bring. This is about surviving and thriving - for all of us.
Have a great week.
Thanks GIA.
Don't Quit
Barry
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