It’s as if the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy knew I was writing about funding inequity in Quality and Community-2. Seriously, there seems to be something in the air. The NCRP report released recently, Fusing Art, Culture, and Social Change (note that this link may change), points out that:
Each year, foundations award about $2.3 billion to the arts, but the distribution of these funds does not reflect the country’s evolving cultural landscape and changing demographics. Current arts grantmaking disregards large segments of cultural practice, and consequently, large segments of our society.
[Here’s a link to the AP story on the report: APNewsBreak: Arts funding doesn’t show diversity]
This has been big news at the Grantmakers in the Arts recent conference as well as in the press and throughout the blogosphere. Imagine, some segments (genres and cultures) of the arts world get far more financial support than others! The fact that most people’s reaction has been, “Well, duh!” (official pronouncements have been, obviously, more articulate than that) says something about the pervasiveness and long-standing nature of the situation. It’s no surprise. The not-for-profit arts infrastructure has, by and large, taken over for Europe’s patronage system. And patrons were, wait for it, people with money.
Now even though I am a self-confessed hemophiliac bleeding heart liberal (aren’t there like two of us left?), my post here is not focused on the social justice aspects of this report (if for no other reason than they are so patently obvious). My real concern has to do with the handwriting on the wall.
Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin
The Babylonian King Belshazzar’s warning from God,
“You are weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
Granted, this is, perhaps, a bit of hyperbole for the current point, but it’s one of the things that has motivated me for years to try to get the arts community to take community engagement seriously. The demographics of this country are changing profoundly. The social, political, and economic structures that supported the establishment of the not-for-profit arts industry will not hold forever. At some point, without real effort being expended to be meaningful to our communities (entire communities), we could even move from a current position of irrelevance in the minds of many citizens to outright antipathy. Howard Zinn, in A People’s History of the United States, documents a nineteenth-century riot in New York City in which a mob attacked the Astor Place Opera House, shouting, “Burn the damn den of aristocracy.” We don’t want any segment of our industry to find itself in such a place.
I’m not saying we are there or even close to there. (Although the current spread of the Occupy Wall Street movement gives a hint that things are bubbling below the surface.) And even if we never again get to a place of real class warfare, I am saying that the danger of being viewed as out of touch with the community is a profound, existential danger for the arts. Many are moving to address this already. But I honestly believe the pace of change needs to quicken considerably.
[Let me also acknowledge that this topic is getting a lot of play among bloggers. In particular, Nina Simon recently published a great post that parallels this one as well as both of my Quality and Community posts: Equity in Arts Funding: We’re Not There Yet. We’re Not Even Close. Once again, it seems like Museum 2.0 and I have many parallel interests.]
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OK, let’s lighten the mood (considerably). My example for today is not from the arts world. I recently attended an event sponsored by my CSA (community-supported agriculture) provider, The Produce Box. (Yes, I’ve got another post coming before too long about food. There’s just too much out there.) They are a statewide operation that delivers produce to you, without the co-op requirement. All the benefits of CSA’s with none of the work. Win-win! The event in question was a get-to-know-you reception (heavy hors d’oeuvres–for which we paid–made from their produce) at a local restaurant/brewery. They got a chance to tell us about their work, get feedback about their produce (no more eggplant for a while!), and learn a bit about who we, their customers, were. (And, oh yes, we got a pretty cool beer tasting and brewery tour as part of the bargain.) I’ve got to tell you, I am at this moment a seriously devoted customer/fan. Incredibly simple (it was organized via an email invitation and RSVP)–low cost, high impact. This seems eminently replicable, not in details but in essence. Give it a try.
Engage!
Doug
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Do you know of any corresponding studies planned where charitable giving by wealthy people of color is further analyzed?
The finding that wealthy arts patrons are primarily white should not have surprised anyone at all, especially combined with all the recent scholarship on increasing income inequality and wealth distribution. I don’t find the arts studies particularly useful in terms of organizational strategy because they don’t directly address what to me are key questions: Where ARE wealthy minorities focusing their charitable giving? Is it not in the arts for lack of artistic relevance to some as-yet-unarticulated cultural priorities? Or is it because they see greater needs right now in, say, the social services non-profit sector?
Over and over again I see a call to “prioritize grant making to the underserved” but in times of recession non-profits tend to double down with their current reliable donors and focus on patron retention and customer service, so as not to lose the audiences and donors they already have.
Doesn’t chasing new audiences specific to their skin color or socioeconomic status risk mission creep? At what point do we assume that people are freely making their own choices in regard to how to spend their entertainment dollars, and our individual arts organization may not be their choice?
Sorry it’s taken me a bit to respond. First, I don’t know if there is good data out there about your first question. That’s an excellent area for study. As for your last point, I’d not call what I’m talking about “chasing new audiences.” My fundamental concerns are two-fold. I am concerned that resources expended on the arts are largely in the service of a narrow range of cultural expression. This is, to me, an equity issue. The other, the practical side, is the possibility that the market for “the arts as is” is shrinking so much as a percentage of the population that viability is a real concern even in the medium term. I would frame the resultant re-thinking of programming not as mission creep but as mission revision.