I have for a number of years felt like an ambassador serving as liaison between the arts world and the broader not-for-profit world. (This comes from my roles as director of an arts management degree program as well as director of a not-for-profit management degree program.) To some that seems like an odd thing to say. “Aren’t the arts a part of the not-for-profit world?” In a technical, legal sense, yes. However, there have, at least until lately, been few members of the arts community that have seen themselves as having common cause with the rest of the not-for-profit establishment, especially social service agencies. The first few years I attended conferences of the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits (Shout-out: These are always among the best organized learning experiences I’ve found in conference settings), I and a small handful of others were very lonely at the “arts interest group” lunch table. This is one reason that serious engagement involving collaboration between arts and non-arts agencies can be so difficult: there’s no history of interaction.
But all of this is simply preamble to the content of this post. What interests me here is a commentary on shifts in the philanthropic world that I only saw because I have a foot in the not-for-profit pool. (Oddly disconcerting metaphor, I know.) Recently, an article in The Nonprofit Quarterly (Another shout-out: One of the best journals on any topic, bar none), Community Philanthropy: It’s Not Just for the Wealthy Anymore, dealt with the fundraising aspects of serious community engagement. Beginning with an international perspective, focusing on philanthropy in the developing world, the article discusses shifts both in focus and in results when communities and their welfare are seen as the core of philanthropy. The article begins by saying:
Until somewhat recently in the U.S., community foundations were pretty much the province of the wealthy. The same goes for the rest of institutional philanthropy—family foundations, donor-advised funds, etc. But something may be happening to community philanthropy in the U.S. and around the world that reflects the “mutuality of philanthropy,” the sense that “community philanthropy is for everyone,” according to Nick Deychakiwsky, senior program officer of the C.S. Mott Foundation.
In particular, the article cites Tewa, a Nepalese foundation with 3,000 donors, at least some of whom are also recipients. This model creates some problems (both cultural and practical) in connecting with traditional, top-down development agencies. However, incorporating local voices into the mix presents the potential for a great leap forward in impact. The World Bank is struggling with how to respond to local initiatives like Tewa. The article acknowledges that local does not necessarily mean “better.” Sometimes local efforts reinforce, through inertia, existing power structures–the status quo. But they also offer real opportunities for supporting solutions well-suited to on-the-ground reality, unimaginable by remote financiers.
But Engaging Matters, for better of worse, focuses on the arts in the U.S. What’s the point of this? I have argued (and continue to do so) that engaging with communities will provide us access to more and different kinds of funds than has ever been possible to date. Crowdsourced funding (a Web 2.0 version of what the NQ article is discussing) is one of those options. The article identifies “an emerging U.S. transition from community foundations into community development philanthropy. ‘It’s not giving just to do good . . .but giving for change.’ The key is not (or not just) how much money is being raised and distributed . . . but ‘how many people are giving, how many people are involved in the governance. . . Participation . . .is the new endowment.'” [Reader beware: if tapping new funding sources is the only motivation for change, it will not work. To be successful, engagement must be systemic. This potential new approach to funding is simply one of the many side benefits of engagement.]
The ultimate point, for the purposes here, is found in one of the closing statements: “community philanthropy in the sense of ‘local people helping each other, by sharing resources for the common good,’ is a naturally occurring asset, found in all communities and cultures, and encouraged by all major religions and traditions.” Where arts organizations are positioned as community members working shoulder-to-shoulder with others to make lives better, they will be able to participate in this new form of community philanthropy. This will not be possible for business-as-usual arts organizations. But for those seriously committed to substantive engagement, it will.
Engage!
Doug