By: Elena
You know….I had an entirely different post lined up for today. And then I read the news...
All too often in the arts we hear about how funding is declining/shrinking/*insert depressing verb here*, and unfortunately, these trends are founded in fact. Working within the development field for a little over 5 years now has taught me that garnering support for excellent art is a delicate process that is coupled with an uphill climb and recession-bruised wallets. This has been especially true during my time working to fund performing art that was niche-focused, ethnically specific, and/or unique and modern. So when the DeVos Institute for Arts Management published a study agreeing with my sentiments, followed by a very well articulated article by the Los Angeles Times, you can imagine my surprise when I promptly despised both pieces.
Since the article contains more accessible information than the study, for the purposes of this post, I will focus my laser vision there. For reference and (extreme summarization), the article (found here), centers around findings in the most recent “Diversity in the Arts Report”, one of which states that the economic picture for African American and Latino arts nonprofits is bleak and “suggests that donors may have to let weaker organizations wither so that the strongest ones can grow.”* Their words not mine. The article also asserts that “When large, mainstream arts organizations put on black- or Latino-themed performances or exhibitions, they siphon away artistic talent, donations and attendance from black and Latino companies.”* Again….their words.
If you follow the news in the arts world, none of this should shock you. This article was published two days ago and is quickly making its rounds. So why don’t I like it if some of the larger tenants are founded in truth?
Here’s what I HIGHLY disagree with:
All too often in the arts we hear about how funding is declining/shrinking/*insert depressing verb here*, and unfortunately, these trends are founded in fact. Working within the development field for a little over 5 years now has taught me that garnering support for excellent art is a delicate process that is coupled with an uphill climb and recession-bruised wallets. This has been especially true during my time working to fund performing art that was niche-focused, ethnically specific, and/or unique and modern. So when the DeVos Institute for Arts Management published a study agreeing with my sentiments, followed by a very well articulated article by the Los Angeles Times, you can imagine my surprise when I promptly despised both pieces.
Since the article contains more accessible information than the study, for the purposes of this post, I will focus my laser vision there. For reference and (extreme summarization), the article (found here), centers around findings in the most recent “Diversity in the Arts Report”, one of which states that the economic picture for African American and Latino arts nonprofits is bleak and “suggests that donors may have to let weaker organizations wither so that the strongest ones can grow.”* Their words not mine. The article also asserts that “When large, mainstream arts organizations put on black- or Latino-themed performances or exhibitions, they siphon away artistic talent, donations and attendance from black and Latino companies.”* Again….their words.
If you follow the news in the arts world, none of this should shock you. This article was published two days ago and is quickly making its rounds. So why don’t I like it if some of the larger tenants are founded in truth?
Here’s what I HIGHLY disagree with:
- The article supported its arguments and examples by using a rankings system for arts nonprofits that DeVos put together purely to help itself gain financial footing to tackle their piles of research. Of these rankings, the article only focuses on what it calls the “Blue Chip” arts organizations. The big fish in the sea. However, I can GUARANTEE you that the bigger organizations who have endowments and multi-million dollar budgets are not feeling the pain of the funding trends they claim are happening in the same way or degree of severity that other diverse arts groups currently are. That’s not to say that they don’t have deficits or aren't experiencing shrinking funding. I’m just saying it’s hard to compare an organization that has a modicum of stability to another that does not. It’s a hard life trying to compare apples and turnips.
- Alvin Ailey is put on a pedestal to make it seem like the be-all end-all of ethnically diverse arts organizations. In my opinion, it is not. That institution has its own issues. But again, that’s just my opinion.
- THIS PHRASE RIGHT HERE: “Although many of these organizations produce important work, ‘the majority are plagued by chronic financial difficulties that place severe limits on what can be produced, how much can be produced, how many artists are trained, and how many people are served,’ the report says”…..I’m not arguing against financial difficulties or their implications and effect on reach. I will get to that in a minute. But in my experience at both a Hispanic theatre and at a presenting organization that prided itself on presenting premiere, contemporary, ethnically diverse art (that also carried a healthy deficit during my time there), I did not see it affect the “what” of what was presented. Despite financial challenges, the art was ALWAYS fantastic. Always. I’m not saying the means to produce that art weren’t altered or affected, but to assume that an organization’s art is mediocre just because an organization has financial issues seems like a vastly presumptive statement to me.
- Abandoning the smaller organizations so the larger ones may grow….need I say more? This plays right into my previous point. Who’s job is it to justify that the larger organizations are the ones who should thrive? What if the little guy is actually more artistically relevant than the big guy? Again, another sweeping statement completely unfounded in consideration or thought. This whole point just makes me angry. And you won’t like me when I’m angry.
Ok, deep breaths. I promised myself my head wouldn’t explode. Now onto what I agree with:
- There is a huge funding gap that ethnically diverse arts organizations face. Grants get reduced, shrink, disappear and individual fundraising is a consistent nightmare. The percentages the article presents are real. Individual giving rarely makes up a double-digit percentage of a smaller diverse arts organinzation’s contributed income. Though I do think that this study ignores one very important item...culture. One of the biggest challenges of my job as a fundraiser for a Hispanic performing arts organization wasn’t raising money, it was challenging the culture of our audiences. To elaborate, most Hispanic immigrants and individuals (our audience during my tenure at the organization) were brought up on the ideal that money should only be given to government enterprises, not private institutions. Giving to a non-profit is literally against their predisposed, conditioned behavior. My job was first to teach our audience about why philanthropic giving was “a thing” before I could even think about asking them for a penny or a nickel, let alone a check with multiple zeros. Let me tell you…..it’s time consuming. Even more so considering I was a one-woman show. And you wonder why you don’t see a whole heck of a lot of ethnically-diverse, traditional art out there these days.
- Boosting programs vs. Building venues. Ok. Ok. I get it. It’s kind of like “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”. But Capital Campaigns suck. I’ll be the first to admit that. Regardless, I do think that they were on to something here. Sometimes arts organizations focus so hard on what they think is stable (finding and securing a permanent home) that they forget to keep their services viable. If your programs are a cornerstone of your community and your artistic medium, then the stability will come along on its own in time. I know that’s a very "Glinda the Good Witch" thing to say, but it kinda makes sense.
- Big companies are very much drawing resources away from smaller companies. Whether it’s financial resources, artists, playwrights, licensing rights, I could go on...it’s real. It’s happening. Smaller arts organizations are consistently getting out-bid for some of the cornerstone facets of traditional programming. I agree with Kaiser...the 80’s boom in ethnically-diverse art created a widespread demand, which in turn led to an over-saturation of the market. Not by the little guys, but by the big institutions that had no mission-related reason to undertake those programs in the first place. And to further the problem, the big guys rely on the commercial variations of traditional art forms, and that in turn dilutes the art into something uber-consumable that makes the real, authentic thing inaccessible to non-traditional audiences. Can you tell I feel passionately about it? I applaud Kaiser for taking the time to drop the mike on this.
Ok. So what does this all mean? It means there’s a crisis for ethnically-diverse art. And yes, it requires a wake-up call to funders, philanthropists, and arts audiences alike. But something else has to change besides just the funding, and that starts with holding the big-fish arts organizations out there to the same accountability standards that are held against the smaller ones. Either way, I think we can all agree that the way we are examining and supporting ethnically diverse art forms isn’t working, and it needs to be revised quickly before all of these organizations, large or small, lose their grip on whatever stability they have left.