Thursday, October 30, 2008

Power Trio for the Arts: Louloudes, Levin and Ragsdale

This morning ART/NY hosted an SRO forum on where the arts live in New York City's current fiscal crisis. 3 of NY's most powerful women spoke articulately about where we are, what we can do and how we can do it. First, not from them but from me: everything I am hearing on the ground level is "it will get worse." I am not being a scaremonger but I want to make sure that we are actively looking forward and thinking about how we can ensure our survival (and our "thrival".) Second:

THREE THINGS I LEARNED FROM LOULOUDES, LEVIN AND RAGSDALE (paraphrased and bastardized!):
1) Redefine your mission in relation to people! It's not enough that you make intriguing experimental theater, alas. Who are you making it for? How are you engaging them?

2) Growth doesn't equal impact. Focus on the depth of engagement of your audience and build loyalty and commitment.

3) People do have time for the arts. They have time for great art that engages them and considers them. They do not have time for art that leaves them out of the picture.

P.S. Aggregate don't separate!! It looks like there is a "cultural aggregator portal" in the works!! The big 3 are working on it and believe in it. Based on recommender sites like Amazon, if you bought a ticket for "The Seagull" you might get a recommendation for "The Cherry Orchard" at PS122 or an exhibit at the Audobon on birds! or a biography on Kristin Scott Thomas (currently playng Arkadina!) or a band that plays 19th century Russian music. As Jack on "Lost" says (stupidly but true?): "live together or die alone." If you want to survive this madcap time, partner, collaborate, aggregate, unify.

THANK YOU to these 3 amazing ladies for once again inspiring, edifying, and provoking us.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

3 Things you can do right now to ensure the long-term health of your organization

1) Get rid of "dead weight" on your Board. Then build up your Board in clumps. Two members at a time. Super cultivate them (in small group meetings with you first! and then to a full Board meeting). Call them each once a month! Clarify your "give/get policy" and ensure compliance. Anyone who is not fully participating (in some way!) will drag down the energy and support of the rest of the team. Everyone on the Board has to do something tangible.

2) Plan for 5 years! We've all heard it before and usually we are toooo busy to do it! This is NYC after all! But do it. Plan all your programs for 5 years, even if they are abstract plans. Think big. "In 2009 we will hunker down and do two staged readings of Yehuda's plays. In 2011 I want to do a full season of works by 5 EMERGING PLAYWRIGHTS around immigrant issues. We will do 2 symposiums around this and 3 master classes. In 2012 we will pilot an education program working with ________" Assess your projects for "fundability" and "marketability" and then plan your fundraising strategy around that. You can have one program that is less "accessible" but highly fundable, and another that is not so fundable but very accessible. Diversify your offerings so that the overall year is healthy and dynamic.

Funders want to plan ahead! If you go in and just try and sell them one small project (e.g. your experimental dance season) they may easily balk. But if you listen to what they are interested in and if you talk to them about your full "menu" of projects, they will have more opportunity to engage with you on multiple channels. Like any relationship: LISTEN to their desires and their mission. It is a two-way street here, not a monologue.

3) Start each Board Meeting with the ART not with the $$$. Attach each Board member to a project. Engage them in one thing. Don't just speak to them en masse with the white noise of "Go out and fundraise!" blah blah blah....Again, it is a dynamic relationship between the two of you - get them actively engaged.

Great art, well marketed!

9am this morning I was lucky enough to be in a hotel conference room with 100 other arts organizations listening to the brilliant and inspiring Michael Kaiser of the Kennedy Center talking about "Why it's so hard to run an arts organization." Mr. Kaiser and the Kennedy Center, via the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation, is doing a two-year capacity building program with Carnegie Corp grantees (e.g. The Field is one!). Often these kind of programs are more a waste of time than helpful but this one left me energized and ready to make some changes. (Thank you Carnegie and thank you Kennedy!) Check out their site at artsmanager.org

The trickle down?
What The Field learns = what you learn! I will share as much as I can from this experience with you all on this blog. Take what you can, share the rest. http://www.kennedy-center.org/capacity/#artsadvantage

BIGGEST THING I LEARNED THIS MORNING: (Caveat: these are my simple and crude interpretations of this morning's seminar. Not a transcript or a podcast. I give all kudos to Mr. Kaiser! I hope you approve of my mass dissemination of your brilliance!)
Survival of the fittest! Some arts organizations will raise more money and sell more tickets in these scary and rough times. They will creatively figure out how to achieve their mission (e.g. make art!) dynamically and strategically. They will do scaled down versions (staged readings with simple lights?) and they will market their programs assertively and targetedly.

Many other arts organizations will lose grants, tickets and contributions. They will cut plays and outreach efforts and dances in order to make ends meet. DON'T CUT YOUR ART OR YOUR MARKETING (until the very end.) These are the very things that will generate revenue and that make you who you are! Do it smaller now, do more collaborations and partnerships - but do it!

Stay tuned tomorrow for "3 THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW" to make sure your organization stays healthy.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Get counted!

Our friends at the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation are trying to count all of you off-off and off-off-off and off-off-off etc theater artists. Why is counting important? for government funders, for the Mayor, to make our voices louder as an economic sector, and more! They are trying to get 6,000 respondents by the end of October for our demographics survey. The survey is available online at http://www.nyitawards.com/survey/oobdemographics.asp. It is anonymous and only takes about 2 - 3 minutes. THANK YOU!!

Joe's Pub event and artists on WNYC!

Listen in.....
Maybe you are on the radio too!

artists are not invisible to the city!

They like you they really do! I just had a 90-minute meeting with some very influential NYC government movers and shakers talking all about independent emerging and mid-career performing artists (that's you!). We talked about how to: get you all at the table, make our voices louder in the city, combine our efforts for a more unified and strategic impact, and how to stabilize this vital piece of the creative economy (that's you!) in these fraught times.

We at the (capital F) Field are doing our best to get the (small f) field (that's you!) at the table. Funding is just one piece of this puzzle (albeit an important one) - the City can support comprehensive and targeted efforts to strengthen our sector (housing, insurance, small business services, cultural corridors, loan funds, etc etc...) We just have to know what we need, back it up, increase the volume, and ASK!

Times are going to get tough but we are nimble, flexible and ambitious. Now is the time for a dynamic and strategic re-alignment of priorities in this crazy city.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Artist or Cultural Entrepreneur?

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Artist or Cultural Entrepreneur?
ERPA Invention Session #3
Thursday, October 9, 2008, 8:30-10pm
Chez Bushwick

Moderated by Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, Artistic Director, Emerging Artists, 3LD Art & Technology Center and Founder, The Lost Notebook

Panelists:
Ryan Fix, Founder, The Pure Project
Lara Galinsky, Vice President of Strategy, Echoing Green
Jmy Leary, Dance Artist

In any economy, being a professional artist really means that you are on a path to one of three possibilities: (1) get hired by an established artist or company, (2) be a pickup artist (i.e. self-employed freelancer), or (3) start your own company. In all of these cases, you are an entrepreneur with an emerging micro-enterprise – your art. And as the term entrepreneur implies, you have to be willing to take full risk and reward for your new enterprise. However, it seems that we often shy away from taking our work as seriously as we could to optimize our success. Instead of thinking of it as “selling out”, is there a way to buy in? Can we learn to get organized, plan our businesses, and think about our growth, audiences, finances and work as the entrepreneurial enterprises that they are? Are there tools we can learn to use that might guarantee a higher probability of success, sustainability and aesthetic risk taking? Is there a way to be both pragmatic and artistic?

I don't understand this credit crisis! HELP!

Listen to Ira Glass' and his indefatigable team explain in lay terms WHAT the heck is happening. Plus they have a daily podcast on itunes to keep you fully empowered with the real scoop. YOU NEED TO KNOW.....http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=94411890

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Giving portal for artists??

DonorsChoose.org is a national giving portal for public school teachers across the country. They vet the proposals, promote you, give you the contributions to support your project (i.e. help us buy a new blackboard!). They support their own operation quite transparently it seems - big funders from Silicon Valley and some banks (uh, Lehman Brothers?) and an "opt out button" on their donation page that automatically gives 15-25% toward the operations of DonorsChoose. The very friendly guy I spoke at their office says that 90% of the donors give towards the operating costs. Is this because it is "opt out" and not "opt in"? Don't know but we all know that you gotta pay the rent and the salaries of the people running the company!! ANYONE KNOW OF SIMILAR SERVICES FOR ARTS ORGANIZATIONS?? any horror stories or fairy tales?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Fans fund your creative process?

Can the dance and theater world borrow this innovation from the music world? ArtistShare gets fans to fund their favorite music artists " in exchange for access to the creative process, limited edition recordings, VIP access to recording sessions and even credit listing on the CD." Artistshare is built around the artist and supports the fans!! Apparently they have helped alot of jazz musicians comprehensively build their careers. Can we use this idea?? www.artistshare.com/home/about.aspx