Some years ago, a major figure in the orchestra world told me a story. Foundations, he said, were losing interest in funding orchestras. So he and a colleague went to an annual foundation gathering, to try to stir up some interest.
At this gathering, he said, anyone could invite foundations to a meeting, to discuss funding projects. Normally, he said, 20 to 30 foundations would show up whenever one of those meetings was called.So he and his colleagues invited foundations to talk about funding orchestras. Only five or so came — a demonstration, this man told me, of how uninterested they were.
And, before that, the arts funder at a major foundation had told me about losing interest in orchestras. They weren’t solving their problems, this person said, and weren’t doing anything interesting. So this foundation wouldn’t be funding them.
But there’s been a loss of interest, overall. Some of it is due to economic conditions, and a feeling that social causes may be more important than arts funding. But some of it, where orchestras are concerned, is due to what Tony Woodcock (president of New England Conservatory and former CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra) called “donor fatigue,” in a blog post I linked to earlier:
Donors are feeling fatigued by orchestras – the constant demands, the needs, the on-going and unresolved problems. They are questioning the role of “orchestra monoliths” whose consumption of a community’s philanthropic wealth is disproportionate to the value they produce.
Individual donors
Previous posts in this series:
The cost squeeze (an introduction to the concept, with some devastating quotes from institutions being squeezed)The cost squeeze — ticket salesSomeone on Facebook — an arts professional — complimented me on the ticket sales post, and added something I didn’t know about. Performing arts organizations increasingly sell tickets through online discounters, like Groupon. Which gets their attendance up, but (just like lowering ticket prices to attract a younger audience) brings ticket income down, compared to what it would have been if these tickets have sold at full price.
And since the organizations’ customary financial planning calls for the tickets to be sold at full price…
I wonder if the massive growth in the sheer number of DGR status ‘arts and culture’ things that donors can choose between, might also be a factor? Over the past twenty years governments have moved to shift as much arts funding as they can onto DGR philanthropy- For examples both the Australia council and ABAF run large programs aimed at directing donations to hundreds of small art projects (very few of which are orchestras), there is an awful lot of activity going on but there is only so much money available, no?
Classical ensembles need to change their marketing. In Britain, every single concert seems to be advertised as “cutting edge”, “innovative”, “confrontational”, “dangerous” and a few other tired old cliches.
It is quite clear they don’t want people who go to enjoy themselves!
Why do they have such a reluctance to change their marketing strategy, when the present one is not working?
Donation fatigue is also true, everybody is asking for money. I am sure every cause is worthy but enough is enough. My wife and I both work hard and have high stress jobs. However when I mentioned to a friend (who was a director of an arts charity) that we were taking a week’s holiday, she shouted “a holiday!, if you’ve got too much money you can give it to my charity!”
And therein lies the problem. On one of our major news programmes the director of a dance organisation was asked about the arts cuts in Britain. He based his argument around the concept of “artistic entitlement”.
I can assure you, nothing irritates people more than the concept of “entitlement”.
You have brought up something that I have been wondering about. In the wake of Philly/Detroit, some commentators encourage everyone to shift the focus to orchestras that are succeeding better in their finances. But I have wondered, how much of the difference between, let’s say (and I’m not choosing these institutions terribly carefully) a NY Phil situation and a Philly situation comes down to a handful of super-donors? Because it seems to me relying on a few deep-pocketed angels isn’t a fund-raising strategy, it’s more like Russian roulette.
I presume these depressing developments will impact on young people who might otherwise be considering a career in classical music. But if they persevere, against such odds, perhaps they will find a way to draw in new audiences.
However, if those large gifts are to endowments, then it’s not just a one-off deal.
If donors think orchestras are stale, we know how to make them fresher – your ideas are at least a start. But what to do about orks who are, to some degree, dysfunctional?
It’s too bad other arts organizers are so often barred from music, or have no interest in it. If music has to be limited to a) its own marketing and administration people or b) the big-money, for-profit sector for ideas on how to survive, it is inevitably going to grow a) more insular or b) more commercial.Neither bode well.