In the Community Engagement Network’s May and June Conversations on Benchmarking Equity (See What Was Said) a good deal of time was spent on the question of when an arts organization is ready to pursue DEI initiatives. The overwhelming opinion was that just because an organization would like to be seen as equitable does not mean it was ready to begin working toward equity. Here are some indicators that an organization is not ready: When an … [Read more...]
Equity and Engagement
As I mentioned in What Was Said, the report on the Community Engagement Network’s May and June Conversations on Benchmarking Equity, participants frequently commented on the relationships between community engagement and work in pursuit of equity. I’ve long held that without a commitment to community engagement an arts organization’s DEI efforts are not likely to succeed (Doomed to Fail). But the Conversations went way beyond that. In particular, … [Read more...]
What Was Said
In May and June the Community Engagement Network hosted Conversations addressing the topic Benchmarking Equity. While we did not take the advisability of benchmarking as a given (Benchmarking? Maybe Not), the premise of the discussions was that without some form of accountability, statements committing to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion can easily be as toothless as “thoughts and prayers” about gun violence. For those interested, the notes … [Read more...]
The Pursuit of Equity
Last week Selena Anguiano (Benchmarking? Maybe Not) cautioned us about attempting to develop benchmarks for progress toward equity. She was responding to the announcement of the Community Engagement Network's next Conversation, Benchmarking Equity. In her post I see her identify two primary problems with benchmarking. First, there is no one size fits all approach that's workable (no two organizations are even remotely alike) and, … [Read more...]
Benchmarking? Maybe Not
Guest Post by Selena Anguiano Selena Anguiano is a member of the Advisory Board of the Community Engagement Network. (Her bio is given below.) She has expressed some concern about CEN's next Conversation, Benchmarking Equity as announced in the last blog post here. Here are her thoughts. Next time we'll try to address the concerns. In trying to achieve equity in nonprofit (arts) organizations, there is a basic question - can one really … [Read more...]
Join the Conversation
Engaging Matters has been "dark" (as they say in the theater) for longer than normal. Some of that is pandemic ennui, some sheer laziness, some a sense that in this tenth year of the blog (more on that later this year) I've said a lot of what I want to say, but most of it is that I've been focused on other things. I continue to train small cohorts in community engagement, I do some "how to" consulting with arts organizations seeking to be more … [Read more...]
Build Back Better
One day –whether it's six months, a year, or two years from now– arts organizations will have emerged from their bunkers to once again make in-person arts experiences indoors. The trauma that we as individuals and as an industry have experienced between last March and then will be the backdrop for whatever that reality looks like. Many are making big picture suggestions: a 21st-Century WPA program, a cabinet-level department devoted to … [Read more...]
There Is No “Try”
My post last week (Justice) prompted Jerry Yoshitomi to comment, "It seems that we must ask our Black colleagues to share some benchmarks/metrics that we as a field might strive to meet." So maybe this could be the catalyst to get us past good intentions (the industry equivalent of "thoughts and prayers") to action. Long ago Barry Hessenius charged us to move from thinking of the pursuit of equity as a "issue" to making it an obsession. So, if … [Read more...]
What Comes Next? IV
The post-pandemic world will be different, probably in significant ways. We have no idea what those ways will be. There may not be a political reckoning as the result of any heightened awareness of inequality and injustice that this crisis has highlighted. I don't expect violent social unrest. (See What Comes Next? I, II, and III.) But I am not the only one imagining the possibility of big changes. Michelle Goldberg, a New York Times columnist … [Read more...]
What Comes Next? III
If we as a nation come out of the pandemic with a heightened awareness of and reaction to profound economic inequality and the systemic injustice in which it is rooted, it could be that the arts are in for a difficult time. As I wrote in my last post: In the minds of many, we are closely associated with the economic and social "elite." This may bode ill for our organizations. This association is as old as the U.S. I was first made aware of the … [Read more...]