In my two previous posts (Deadly Sin: I and Deadly Sin: II) I highlighted the toxicity of arrogance and its devastating impact on the future of the nonprofit arts industry. I promised an antidote and that's why this post focuses on humility. Why humility? Remember that to be/become sustainable we need to form relationships with many, many new people. While we may not have much experience in relationship building with groups, we all know that … [Read more...]
Deadly Sin: II
Last time (Deadly Sin: I) I wrote about arrogance with respect to the work we present, the art of European Aristocratic Culture. This time I'd like to focus on arrogance in our beliefs (conscious or unconscious) about the people we need to reach to become/remain viable. The following is an inelegant statement of such a belief: Appreciation of Art of the European Aristocratic Cultural Tradition requires education, intelligence, and … [Read more...]
Deadly Sin: I
I have written about arrogance before, but in my last post (Cutting Back) I promised to keep my hand in when it seemed important. The topic of arrogance in our industry bears further consideration. As I said in Beware Arrogance, Arrogance, even unconscious arrogance, is a self-inflicted wound that can stop community engagement–the development of relationships with new communities–efforts in their tracks. So, if it is essential to substantially … [Read more...]
Getting It Right
As part of Engaging Matters' 10th Anniversary, we are highlighting important and/or popular posts from the past. In reviewing such posts it became clear that many were grouped thematically. As a result, this Anniversary series will, for the most part, present the theme with links to relevant posts rather than simply re-posting individual items. Early this year, looking/hoping for a light at the end of the COVID tunnel, I wrote a series of … [Read more...]
Matter
We have been considering the prospects for making the most of our organizations' post-pandemic potential. (Getting the Question(s) Right and Connect.) The thread that binds these posts together is this quote from Getting the Question(s) Right: So our questions should be, first, "What are our communities feeling/ experiencing?" and second, "How can we help them?" Once we have our questions right, we will need to position ourselves to be of … [Read more...]
Connect
The viability of our industry depends upon significantly expanding our base. To do so, we must connect with and come to matter to more and more people. This post is a follow up to an earlier one, Getting the Question(s) Right. It would probably be a good idea to read that if you've not done so. Here is an excerpt from the close of that post: So our questions should be, first, "What are our communities feeling/ experiencing?" and second, … [Read more...]
Why Engage?
Guest Post by Penny Brill When we investigate the disconnect between what we are doing with our art and what we might do, we become aware of who has been left out of what we present, preserve and protect, what has been disregarded, who does or does not benefit using our current model, and who has been harmed by our decisions. We have excluded large segments of our communities and have not demonstrated that we value their … [Read more...]
Viability
For years, my work has been built on three simple premises. First, the combination of skyrocketing costs and rapidly withering traditional arts funding represents an unavoidable, near-term, existential crisis for arts organizations. Second, the only path to viability is a dramatic increase of arts organizations' reach–the pool of people who could realistically become arts supporters. Third, the means to that end is the development of trusting, … [Read more...]
Trust
Crazy-making. So much so that, of course, it's hard to concentrate on issues around community engagement. The troubles are simply too numerous, too big. Even so, occasionally something bubbles up that returns me to my CE thinking. One such instance was a New York Times article about masks and vaccines: How to Actually Talk to Anti-Maskers. The initial story was about doctors trying to get Guineans to take the vaccine for Ebola in 2014. There … [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...]