“I am the walrus” by Steven Coutts | via Flickr (Creative Commons)

A controversial editorial published by the Writers’ Union of Canada’s magazine Write has resulted in resignations from the author of the piece, Hal Niedzviecki, and an editorial board member, as well as a formal apology from the union and statement from its Equity Task Force. Niedzviecki had made the interesting choice to publish an editorial brushing off the harms of cultural appropriation and calling for a tongue-in-cheek “Appropriation Prize” as the introduction to an issue of the magazine dedicated to the voices of indigenous Canadian writers. Niedzviecki’s prize would have encouraged writers to reach outside their personal experiences to “imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.” The backlash was swift, but many top members of Canada’s literary community defended Niedzviecki’s statements on Twitter – which in turn led to editor-in-chief Jonathan Kay’s resignation from The Walrus, a highly esteemed literary magazine. Debates about cultural appropriation and representation in the arts world appear to be only intensifying in recent months. Also in May, the Walker Arts Center in Minnesota decided to work with Native American elders to dismantle a sculpture by a white artist evoking the hanging of 38 Dakota men in 1862 that it had started to install in a public park, following a public outcry that echoed the strong opposition to a white artist’s painting of Emmett Till’s casket showcased at the Whitney Biennial earlier this year. Meanwhile in the theater world, the Edward Albee estate’s decision to block the casting of a black actor in a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is likewise stirring widespread contention.

Terrorists make arts and culture targets the new normal. The May 22 suicide bombing killing 22 and injuring more than 100 people outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England signaled a direct attack on young people enjoying a cultural event and engaging in leisure activities. On the heels of the one-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, the Manchester atrocity came just days before terrorist attacks – with responsibility claimed by ISIS – on an ice cream parlor in Baghdad and unassuming pedestrians on London Bridge. The attacks point to a larger trend: the desire to bring chaos to cultural products and turn places of joy into tragedy. It remains to be seen whether and how heightened security measures at live events and heritage sites will alter the ways in which people engage in arts and culture.

Federal arts agencies get a boost – for now. Despite the potential threats of federal slashing of agencies such as the National Endowments for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Corporation for Public Broadcasting that made headlines in January, February, and March, arts organizations can breathe a small sigh of relief: the final federal spending bill for fiscal year 2017 spares the CPB and actually increases the budgets for both the NEA and NEH through September. The Trump administration had sought to cut the current year’s budget as well as next year’s, but those recommendations met opposition on both sides of the aisle, with several key Republicans among those fighting to maintain arts funding. Nevertheless, with President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget officially released this month. Entitled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” the budget, if enacted, would take deep bites out of funding for the arts, education, scientific exploration and scholarly research – it remains to be seen whether the future will be sunny on Sesame Street.

Seattle’s art tax goes to the ballot box. King County residents will vote in August on whether or not to raise sales taxes in an initiative intended to fund more than 300 arts organizations across the region. Modeled after the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District in metropolitan Denver and other tax initiatives in places like St. Louis and Cleveland, the bill imposes an additional 0.1% sales tax hike, yielding approximately $67 million a year toward Seattle-based arts and culture. Amid concerns that the arts would get a bump over critical issues such as homelessness, poverty, and the criminal justice system, council members ultimately altered the measure to ensure the county’s outlying areas see an equal share of the money in an effort to encourage Washingtonians to start and maintain arts organizations in rural locations.

New rights and protections for NYC and Hollywood freelancers. On May 15, New York became the first U.S. city to enact a law aimed at shoring up protections for freelance workers. The Freelance Isn’t Free Act places harsh penalties on employers who withhold payment from independent contractors or fail to pay on time or in full. The law rose out of an extensive 2015 report created by the Freelancers Union illustrating the impact of freelancers and the high percentage of workers who have struggled to receive payment. Under the new law, New York freelancers stiffed by their employers can file a complaint with the city, which will intervene on their behalf. The news follows the announcement earlier in the month of a new labor agreement between the Writers Guild of America and Hollywood studios which was widely seen as a win for struggling television and movie writers.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS:

• Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities William D. Adams unexpectedly announced his resignation on May 22. Deputy Chair Margaret Plympton will serve as acting chair until a replacement is named, which could be a while since that replacement would have to be nominated by the Trump administration.
• Publisher Françoise Nyssen has been appointed the new Culture Minister of France.
• Jaime Dempsey will be the new Executive Director at the Arizona Commission on the Arts in August. Previously deputy director of the agency, she succeeds Robert Booker, who will retire after 40 years in the arts.
• Rose Ann Cleveland will retire from the D.C.–based Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation in October.
• Executive director Eloise Damrosch of Portland’s Regional Arts & Culture Council will retire at the end of June.
• The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving announced its new president, Jay Williams, will begin in July.
• Motion Picture Association of America chief Chris Dodd will leave his post five months before his contract ends, to be replaced by Charles Rivkin. Rivkin was an assistant Secretary of State for economic and business affairs during the Obama administration.
• Juilliard has named Damian Woetzel as its seventh president. The former New York City Ballet star was previously the director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program.
• The New York Review of Books named Ian Buruma as its new editor after the death of founding editor Robert B. Silvers.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE:

• A recent study from Berlin promotes incentives for donors, with results indicating that those provided with a certificate stating the quality of the charitable product or organization gave approximately 10 percent higher contributions. However, a study by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy indicates that President Trump’s proposed tax reforms could reduce charitable giving by as much as $13.1 billion in the United States.
• The first ever World Cities Culture Finance Report analyzes how cities fund cultural activity. Results indicate that Paris, Moscow and London spend the most on arts and culture.
• A new report analyzes results from a pilot program by the National Endowment for the Arts aimed at increasing access to arts education in rural areas. Access is proving to be key: A deeper analysis of the 2016 National Assessment of Educational Progress in the Arts indicates that access and opportunity take precedence over achievement in the arts.
• A policy briefing from the Brookings Institute provides a framework for implementing the goals of the Every Student Succeeds Act and measuring success in arts education.
• Aesthetic Perspectives is a new framework produced by Americans for the Arts’s Animating Democracy program. It establishes 11 attributes that may be used to describe and assess creative work intersecting community engagement and social justice.
• Across the pond, the UK’s Department for Culture, Media & Sport published an in-depth review of Arts Council England’s priorities and positioning. A House of Lords report indicates that theater patronage in the UK is “still dominated by rich, white people.” These findings are supported by additional survey data indicating a 7 percent drop in participation among Asian audiences across all artforms in the UK over the last 10 years. And MyCake founder Sarah Thelwall completed her fourth annual ‏report on the Arts Council’s grantees, analyzing income sources across creative organizations, and differences between small and large organizations.
• George Windsor and Cath Sleeman have completed an analysis of job advertisements in the country to determine what skills creatives need to be successful professionals in the UK.
• A new publication explores the current status of urban cultural policy at local levels across Europe and outlines the challenges that lie ahead.
• People from working-class backgrounds tend to view themselves as relatively more interdependent with and connected to others, according to new research.
• Some librarians really hate those cute “Little Free Libraries.” Research indicates that they are most present in upper-middle class, white neighborhoods – areas that already have increased access to public libraries.
• Apparently rainy days motivate people to visit museums, but more so if storms ease up in the afternoon. And though tourism and leisure are many visitors’ primary goals when visiting museums, measurable learning occurs even when it’s not their intention.
• UNESCO-funded initiatives safeguarding and rebuilding indigenous architecture in Vanuatu following the 2015 Tropical Cyclone Pam are evaluated in this final report.
• New data indicates that automation will affect jobs in Las Vegas and California’s Inland Empire more than the so-called “Rust Belt.”
• A visual interpretation of research spanning three years, 75,000 concerts and 7,000 bands analyzes the chances of a band “making it” big in New York City. The odds? Roughly 0.3 percent.
• The fiction books you read can shape your world view and tilt your moral compass, according to newly published research in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Poetry may also have a profound effect: scientists researched physiological responses to “this is your brain on poetry” and discovered that responses differ from those of music or movies.
• Research suggests a gap between fact and myth in what music teachers believe about music and the brain.
• Last but certainly not least, is the Biebs responsible for killing the good, old fashioned love song? According to the journal Sexuality & Culture, hit songs are more likely than ever to be all about sex.

Men playing go – photo by flickr user J.A.G.A.

Computers have a long history of beating humans at complex games. This month, Google clinched the crown jewel a decade earlier than anticipated, when its program AlphaGo defeated Korean grandmaster Lee Sedol in four out of five games of Go. Invented some 2,500 years ago in China, the game is deceptively simple: despite straightforward rules, there are more possible legal positions in the game than there are atoms in the observable universe (actually, than all the atoms in all universes if there were as many universes as there are atoms in our universe!). As such, it has long been an irresistible challenge to artificial intelligence researchers. Google’s DeepMind project team’s winning strategy was to abandon the traditional AI tactic of building search trees in favor of deep neural networks, training AlphaGo not only to learn from games past, but, importantly, to discover new strategies for itself. Why does this matter for the arts? Well, first of all, we just witnessed a computer mastering an art form: historically, Go was considered one of the four essential arts required of any true Chinese scholar, the others being a musical instrument, calligraphy, and painting. And second, the implications of AlphaGo’s win for the future of artificial intelligence go far beyond this single match; the principles DeepMind uses in AlphaGo may have broader applications for artificial “general” intelligence, which could include creating artistic work. More controversially, the early completion of this milestone may signal a hastening of the moment when machines take over the world.

China cracks down on TV. Cultural censorship in China reached new levels this month when the the government released updated regulations for what’s shown on television. The guidelines make it illegal to depict “abnormal sexual relationships and behaviours” on screen. This means, effectively, no incest, extramarital affairs, one night stands, underage relationships–and no gay people. Although homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997, it still remains taboo, and the first show to be cut under the new rules was Addicted, about the lives of queer high schoolers, outraging the show’s many fans and angering LGBT activists. The measures are a challenge for everyone, not least of which for Chinese video websites, which have benefited from a lack of government regulation of online television: in 2015, Chinese video platforms produced some 805 online shows, compared with 200 shows in 2013. All eyes are on if and how the new regulations are circumvented or resisted. The increased censorship comes at a time of rising individualism in China, and on the heels of a recent tiff between President Xi Jinping and Chinese tycoon Ren Zhiqiang which unexpectedly spurred journalists, scholars and party insiders to come forward in his defense. Will it be enough to force a wavering of the party line? Only time will tell.

Canada follows through with big arts funding increases. Just two months after committing to diversity at the grant level, Canada continues to lead the way in government arts funding with the announcement of Justin Trudeau’s budget plan. Fulfilling campaign promises, the cultural sector will receive a $1.87 billion boost over five years. $75 million was reinstated to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s budget this year, to be followed by $150 million a year until 2020-21. The Canada Council for the Arts also received welcome funding news, though a bit less than expected; it will see an additional $40 million this year, eventually rising to $180 million by 2020-21. Likewise, the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada will each receive $3.5 million this year, and $8 million annually thereafter. (The NFB made its own news this month when it announced that it is committed to ensuring that, in the future, half of its films are directed by women and half of its production budgets are spent on films directed by women.) After years of budget slashes by the previous Conservative government, all are in agreement that the funding is a “game changer.” The package also includes capital funding for Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, which announced this month that it will launch a new Indigenous Theater department that will equal the NAC’s English and French Theater companies in importance.

ISIS is out of Palmyra. The Islamic State’s ongoing destruction of antiquities in Iraq and Syria has received lots of coverage from Createquity over the past year (see here, here, and here.) This month, ISIS was finally driven by Syrian government forces from the ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the center of Syria. With ISIS gone, the work of restoring the ancient site can begin. Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s head of antiquities and museums, has said that “eighty percent of the ruins are in good shape,” and that the city will be fully restored in five years. Beyond Palmyra, significant efforts are underway to preserve antiquities under threat. The Italians, in conjunction with UNESCO, have created a task force dubbed Peacekeepers of Culture which is aimed at keeping ancient artworks, monuments, artifacts and archaeological sites in conflict areas out of the hands of extremists. In addition, several organizations have undertaken to document cultural heritage digitally, most recently the French 3D digitization agency Iconem. Finally, the International Criminal Court this month is considering whether to take to trial Malian jihadi leader Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi for destroying mausoleums and damaging a mosque in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012. If the trial goes ahead, it will be the first time that war crimes against cultural heritage constitute the main charge of an ICC hearing.

Cultural policy is so hot right now in the UK. The UK’s culture minister, Ed Vaizey, published a much anticipated White Paper this month, the first such statement since 1965. It comes at a critical juncture for the arts in Great Britain, as organizations across the country continue to recover from the recession-era austerity policies that forced a greater reliance on American-style private funding and government advocacy. The White Paper calls for a widening of access for the arts, announces a Cultural Protection Fund for heritage in global conflict zones to be launched this spring, and calls for a detailed reviews of museums, arts and heritage, due to be completed by summer 2017. (In advance of the paper’s release, Arts Council England announced earlier this month a major restructuring to its grant programs, which are in direct support of many of the tenets of Vaizey’s work.) Though some have criticized Vaizey for a lack of vision, many welcome the “vote of confidence” it places on the arts. Meanwhile, the Cultural Value Project, a two-year exploration of the value of culture beyond economic measures, concluded this month with the publication of a significant evidence review that perhaps controversially concludes that the value derived from arts and cultural activity arises primarily at the individual level.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Maurine Knighton, currently senior vice president at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, has been named new program director of the Doris Duke Foundation’s Performing Arts Program, replacing Ben Cameron.
• Malcolm White returns to the helm of the Mississippi Arts Commission after three years as the state’s tourism chief.
• Pew Center for Arts & Heritage seeks a Center Specialist in the visual arts. No closing date.
• The League of American Orchestras is hiring a Director and a Manager for its Knowledge Center. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Americans for the Arts and Ipsos surveyed 3,020 adults in December 2015 on topics such as support for arts education and government arts funding, personal engagement in the arts, and the personal benefits and wellbeing that come from engaging in the arts. Here are the results.
• A report commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation looks closely at what arts leaders across generations “really need” while the Center for the Future of Museums’ TrendsWatch report looks at what museum audiences “really need.”
• Art of the Rural and the Rural Policy Research Institute launched Next Generation: The Future of Arts & Culture Placemaking in Rural America, a “digital learning commons” designed to address major challenges facing rural arts practitioners.
• A paper published in the Journal of Cultural Economics this month looks at the history of copyright in music and of music publishing.
• “Neighborhood Diversity, Economic Health, and the Role of the Arts” zeroes in on the relationship between arts organizations and economic and cultural diversity in New York City.
• Over the last three years, the Denver Public School system has invested $40 million into its arts education programs. This month, it released an analysis of the impact of this investment.
• Several reports this month look at the benefits of music making. A close look at choral singing published in Psychology of Music suggests that the “well-being benefits afforded by choral singing could be distinct in comparison with other leisure activities.” Another study, this one from WolfBrown and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, looks at the positive impact that making live music together has an families. A third builds on the Manchester Camerata Orchestra’s pioneering music projects with dementia patients.
• A paper published this month offers a systematic literature review of the applications of cultural impact assessment internationally.
• Besides the Cultural Value Project’s final report, several other studies have come out of the UK this month. One report looks into whether physical proximity to a museum or gallery affects whether or not you’ll visit. A survey by the Entertainment Retailers Association finds that the number of stores selling music and video has more than doubled since 2009, while another finds that London-based organizations receive almost twice as much arts funding as the rest of England combined. Finally, researchers from the London School of Economics and Goldsmiths College suggest that there is a “class ceiling” in British performing arts organizations.

Seward Johnson, “A Reason to Smile,” installed at Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ. (Photo by Flickr user Wally Gobetz)

On November 13, gunmen opened fire on approximately 1,500 unsuspecting audience members at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at Paris’s historic Le Bataclan music hall, killing 89. The Bataclan was the deadliest site in a cluster of coordinated terrorist attacks throughout the city that evening for which ISIS claimed responsibility. While U2 frontman Bono described the Bataclan massacre as “the first direct hit on music in this so-called war on terror,” the scale and locations of these attacks only solidified an unsettling new direction in terrorism: concert halls, stadiums, cafes, museums, and other cultural institutions (not just local or politically symbolic international sites) have all been targets this year. Indeed, ISIS’s statement of responsibility indicated that the attack sites were carefully chosen as symbols of “abominations and perversion.”

Leaders have responded by bolstering both physical and financial security for cultural venues. In addition to new safety measures, French cultural minister Fleur Pellerin established a “solidarity fund” of approximately $6 million to protect music groups from “expected declines in business and other financial hardships.” President François Hollande revealed a proposal for France’s museums to temporarily house Syrian cultural objects “at risk” of ISIS looting. Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged 1 billion euros to spend equally on culture and security, which has raised concerns among Italy’s business leaders that a corporate tax cut could be postponed as a result. How to protect concert halls and stadiums, and who will ultimately pay, have likewise come up in New York City: Ray Waddell, a senior editor at Billboard, suggested that more metal detectors and bag checks may mean higher ticket prices.

While questions remain about how best to allocate resources, protecting culture now seems especially urgent in “fighting back against a group that is notorious for destroying cultural symbols and objects it deems idolatrous.”

STEM education just got a little STEAMier: In what arts education advocates considered a “huge win,” the joint House-Senate Conference Committee unanimously accepted a bipartisan amendment to the rewrite of the nation’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (aka “No Child Left Behind”) that will integrate the arts into STEM education. Introduced by Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), the amendment sets the stage for new K-12 education policy by acknowledging that arts integration can “improve attainment of STEM-related skills” (science, technology, engineering and math). Last week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that reauthorizes ESEA and includes additional language about the importance of the arts to a “well-rounded education.” ESSA’s more flexible math/reading test requirements and emphasis on state-level decision-making may also be friendly to arts education strategies, according to a detailed analysis by the National Art Education Association. This victory for arts ed advocates comes just after the Arts Education Partnership launched a five-year Action Agenda for Advancing the Arts in Education. It similarly emphasizes the importance of arts integration especially in underperforming and impoverished schools, and recommends incorporating the arts into training for teachers and academic leaders.

A new day in Canada: In a November letter to Minister of Culture Melanie Joly, new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demonstrated his intentions to make good on campaign promises to double the Canada Arts Council budget, provide $150M to CBC/Radio Canada, reinvest in Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board, and provide increased support for indigenous culture and youth initiatives. This is welcome news to arts groups after nine years of arts funding cuts under former conservative PM Stephen Harper. According to the Globe and Mail, Joly’s youth and relative inexperience in government will hopefully be an asset rather than liability in achieving this ambitious agenda while also redefining the ministry with “symbols of progressiveness.” Trudeau also gained popularity with social scientists when he announced in early November the reinstatement of a mandatory national census, which serves as the bedrock of all government data collection.

Ford Foundation’s new inequality-focused agenda will include the arts: In June we reported on Ford’s announcement that the foundation will shift its entire focus to fighting inequality. Three months later, president Darren Walker has revealed more detail on the specifics of the new strategy, which will involve consolidating 35 program areas into 15. While detailed arts funding guidelines have yet to be announced, Ford’s website lists a reframed creativity and free expression program encompassing “social justice storytelling” and “21st century arts infrastructure.” Walker’s “New Gospel of Wealth” essay suggests that the foundation’s ultimate goal is a reformed capitalist system, and creative expression is considered a piece of the puzzle. Ford will privilege initiatives for broader structural change over those providing direct assistance to the poor; discontinued programs include direct cash transfers in Latin America and microfinance, as well as causes like LGBT rights that have gained philanthropic support from other sources in recent years.While Ford’s program to construct new art spaces will also be cut, the foundation will increase its general operating support–with a new BUILD initiative to specifically strengthen the operations of social justice-oriented institutions and partnerships.

Cleveland arts organizations light up on election day as cigarette tax for the arts is renewed: An overwhelming majority of voters passed Issue 8, which will renew Cuyahoga County’s 10-year, 30-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes to support arts and culture. The original approval of this tax in 2006 turned a region with scant arts funding into “one of the most highly ranked metro areas in the country in local public support for the arts.” More than 300 large and small arts organizations have depended on the $125 million in cigarette tax proceeds distributed since 2008 for both general operating support and special projects. The campaign to renew the levy was propelled by an Arts and Culture Action Committee that raised over $1 million for advertising, but the renewal faced very little visible opposition.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• Prince Charitable Trusts welcomes Carolynn Brunette, who will head its Washington, D.C. office as Managing Director and also co-direct the Rhode Island program, beginning on January 1. Carolyn succeeds retiring Managing Director Kristin Pauly, who has been with Prince Charitable Trusts since 1998.
• New Orleans Arts Council CEO Kim Cook announced her departure at the end of 2015; Acting Director Nick Stillman will oversee the organization in the interim. Cook is moving to the Bay Area to serve as Burning Man’s Director of Art & Civic Engagement, a newly created position.
• Longtime theater critic Steven Leigh Morris will assume the role of LA Stage Alliance’s new executive director.
• UC Davis Law professor and international human rights scholar Karima Bennoune has been appointed special rapporteur on cultural rights to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
• The nonprofit sector mourned the sudden November 17 death of Rick Cohen, nonprofit advocate and national correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly. Cohen previously led the led the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a foundation watchdog, and was known for focusing on the needs of low-income and underrepresented populations.
• CERF+, a national nonprofit that “provides a safety net to artists through readiness, education and relief programs,” seeks a Director of Programs. Deadline 12/18.
• The Newark Arts Council seeks a new Executive Director. Deadline January 1.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• The new book Making Culture Count: The Politics of Cultural Measurement, part of Australia-based publisher Palgrave Macmillan’s New Directions in Cultural Policy series, explores diverse approaches to cultural measurement and their political implications.
• Nesta, a UK-based foundation, presents a potentially fresh approach for measuring the intrinsic benefits of the arts–including asking people how much they would need to be paid to compensate for the removal of cultural institutions.
• An initial report on spillover effects of public investment in arts and culture in Europe reviews existing evidence and recommends a future “holistic research agenda” for the European Union.
• In the United States, the Nonprofit Finance Fund published an arts-specific analysis of its annual State of the Sector Survey, encompassing data from over 900 arts, culture and humanities organizations. Trends include decreased debt (but ongoing challenges with sustainability), and an emphasis on expanded programming and audience-building, as well as more focus on outcomes measurement.
• The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s new assessment of the nonprofit arts sector spanning 11 U.S. metropolitan areas (using Cultural Data Project data) found that increased earned income is driving many organizations’ recession recovery, but they also face decreased contributed income among other fiscal challenges.
• A Theater Communications Group study indicates that U.S. nonprofit theaters still face shrinking attendance despite increased revenue; offering more family-friendly programming may help. Early exposure to theater could benefit young people in various ways; the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published findings from a randomized control trial that suggest theater training may boost skills in kids with autism.
• A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia offers a closer look at the pros and cons of gentrification in the City of Brotherly Love, with implications for national urban policy.
• The arts management workforce still does not match the diversity of the general population. Meanwhile, a survey of UK arts professionals suggests a “stark gender pay gap.”
• A Los Angeles County Arts Commission report analyzes the importance of volunteers to arts organizations – and of volunteer management.
• With Adele’s new album enjoying record-breaking sales last month despite not being available for streaming, researchers continue to debate the impact of digital music distribution. The NEA responded to a methodological debate that broke out earlier this year between the New York Times Magazine and The Future of Music Coalition by looking at what two alternative datasets might tell us about the viability of making a living as an artist in the digital age. Meanwhile, an analysis of two years of Spotify data from the Bureau of Economic Research suggests that music streaming “brings virtually no financial gain to the industry, but it also prevents losses.”
• Several reports explored the “dark side of creativity,” with growing evidence that creative people may be more dishonest and prone to depression and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
• Finally, will there be more to be thankful for than usual this year? A Charities Aid Foundation study found that charitable giving is up around the world, including an increase from young people and men.

• In a reversal, the FCC has drafted new net neutrality rules that critics claim are unworthy of the name: they would allow broadband companies to provide a “fast lane” for content providers willing to pay a “commercially reasonable” fee. The FCC’s public comment period opens on May 15. Related: if the Comcast-Time Warner merger is approved, “the combined company’s footprint will pass over 60% of US broadband households.”
• A belated tax tip for artists: emigrate to Mexico. Or, for those committed to staying in the US of A, consider launching a worker cooperative as a means of upping income while maintaining time for artistic pursuits. For those on the collector side, there’s always lending your new purchases to a museum in Oregon, Delaware or New Hampshire first.
• Several record companies have filed suit in New York against Pandora to secure royalties under state law for the use of recordings made before 1972, which are not protected by federal copyright. Sirius was targeted by a similar lawsuit last fall.
• Classical musicians may now have a harder time leaving and re-entering the United States thanks to a ban on ivory meant to protect African elephants.

MUSICAL CHAIRS

• Grant Oliphant, former Pittsburgh Foundation leader, will begin a new role as president at Heinz Endowments this June.
• Also in June, the Canada Council for the Arts will welcome its new CEO and president Simon Brault. Brault was previously vice-chair of Canada Council’s board before moving to the National Theatre School Montreal, and will serve in his new position for a five-year term.
• Michael Kaiser, a man who wears many hats, will add another one in co-chairman of IMG Artists, which will also involve managing a new cooperation between IMG Artists and DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland.
• Jonathan Fanton, former president of the MacArthur Foundation and of the New School, has been named President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Former president Leslie Cohen Berlowitz resigned last July in the wake of a scandal over her compensation and qualifications.
• Lorin Dunlop will join the M. J. Murdoch Charitable trust this June as Program Director. Most recently, Dunlop was responsible for public safety grant programs of the Oregon Criminal Justice System.

ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS

• PonoMusic, a new high-def digital audio business, raised $6.2 million on Kickstarter to become the third-best-funded project in the site’s history. Neil Young, who started Pono to provide a higher-quality alternative to current digital formats, set the initial goal at $800,000.
• Yet another contender is trying to elbow its way into the crowdfunding game: Crowdrise, a new(ish) platform dedicated exclusively to nonprofits, just received an additional $23 million in financing.
• The Walter & Elise Haas Fund, working together with the Foundation Center and Mission Minded, has developed an open-source, free solution that any grantmaking entity can use to make its grantmaking data searchable, publishable, sharable, and fully accessible. You can see “Open hGrant for WordPress” in action on the Haas site.

IN THE FIELD

• The San Diego Opera has outlined a new fundraising strategy to avert closure and announced a meeting on Monday of its 850-person membership. It’s been a bumpy ride: half of the 58-member board has resigned; a new chair, Carol Lazier, has taken over and personally pledged $1m to save the organization; general and artistic director Ian Campbell has been placed on indefinite leave; and protests by unions and members have added financial and legal complications. The opera’s plan includes a new $1m crowdfunding campaign with a deadline of May 19; it is actually only one of several San Diego cultural institutions that have been shuttered or are imperiled.
• A closer look at the end of the Trey McIntyre Project.
• A bid by a group of philanthropic organizations to buy out Pittsburgh’s failed August Wilson Center for African American Culture was dropped, with the foundations claiming a preference on the part of the Center’s court-appointed receiver for a commercial developer.
• New York City is facing a sudden rash of failing institutions. The Incubator Arts Project is closing, citing — you guessed it — difficulties raising revenue. The Brecht Forum, a Marxist educational and cultural space, is buckling under the weight of a lawsuit for back rent. And Manhattan’s legendary Canal Street art supply store Pearl Paint has shut its doors and is mourned.
• Is an arts-centric Coursera in our future? Barry Hessenius decries the state of professional development in arts administration and calls for a virtual “one stop shop” of on-demand courses, articles, and networking/mentoring opportunities.
• A handful of arts organizations have been experimenting with a lesser-known organizational structure called the “disregarded entity,” which may offer non-profits a more flexible alternative to independence on the one hand and fiscal sponsorship on the other.
• In The Foundation Review, authors Gary Cunningham, Marcia Avner, and Romilda Justilian of the Northwest Area Foundation note declining philanthropic investment in communities of color and make a pointed call for foundation leaders to commit to reducing racial inequality. And across the pond, British comedian Lenny Henry is leading an effort to secure better representation for minorities on the BBC.

BIG IDEAS

• National Arts Strategies’s Sunny Widmann suggests arts organizations create their own Skunk Works® divisions — originally conceived by Lockheed Martin and not as stinky as the name suggests — to nurture innovate programs and practices.
• We hear a lot about the intersection between creative placemaking and gentrification, but is dealing with it just a matter of saying hi to your neighbor and identifying your privileges? At The Atlantic Cities, Daniel Hertz suggests that if we really care about gentrification, we should be paying a lot more attention to housing policy.
• Global inequality of wealth is at a 100-year high, with the infamous 1% owning half of the planet’s wealth, according to a hot new book by French economist Thomas Piketty. One consequence: “professionals have now been priced out of the [art] market and it’s shifted more toward investment bankers.”
• Barry Hessenius is looking for the next set of big ideas – and the people behind them – with another edition of the Arts Dinner-vention. Nominations are due May 15.

RESEARCH CORNER

• A music psychologist found that introducing random repetition into a piece of music makes it more appealing – and makes people think it was more likely to have been composed by a human being.
• Research suggests literary fiction can help short-circuit ethnic stereotypes.
• A new paper examines the intersections of the arts and health via case studies from Cleveland on interventions including art therapy and the artistic design of healthcare facilities.
• The NEA is out with a new report on the Education Leaders Institute Alumni Summit, a five-year effort on the part of the NEA to strengthen arts education policies at the state level. The Endowment’s Arts Education director Ayanna Hudson discusses the report in the context of the agency’s new strategy.
• A new center at Stanford will focus on meta-research in the medical sciences and examine how much publication bias — which raises questions about all research fields, including the arts — really is a problem.
• The Pew Research Center has published a new report on demographic and generational trends in America. The findings themselves are what you might expect – our population is aging, becoming more diverse, and moving away from religion; immigration and interracial marriage are on the rise; and Democrats and Republicans are at odds – but the presentation brings these and other trends to life.
• Seen any good movies at the theater lately? Probably not, according to new data on film reception by month of release as aggregated by Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. The numbers show that the summer and holiday seasons have the best pickings. Don’t believe it? You can play around with the data yourself.

Director & CEO, Canada Council for the Arts

The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 “to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts.” To fulfill this mandate, the Council offers a broad range of grants and services to professional Canadian artists and arts organizations in dance, music, theatre, visual arts, writing and publishing, media arts and integrated arts.  It also promotes public awareness of the arts through its communications, research and arts promotion activities.  The Canada Council Art Bank, the Killam Program of scholarly awards, and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO are administered through the Council.

The Council is looking for a visionary leader who can guide and mobilize the organization to successfully implement the objectives laid out in its 2011-2016 Strengthening Connections Strategic Plan. With an exceptional ability for cooperating creatively and effectively with a highly committed Board of Directors in accomplishing the mission of the organization, the selected candidate should have an enviable reputation in the Canadian cultural community, based on the quality of past achievements and superior professional integrity.

No deadline listed. Salary is $210,600 to $247,700 (in Canadian dollars, of course). The Council is also looking for a Secretary-General for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.

Program Associate and Software Developer, Fractured Atlas

Fractured Atlas is seeking a full-time Program Associate. This position will provide administrative support for our core member programs and services. It is an entry-level position that involves a great deal of front-line customer service. We have over 30,000 artists in our membership nationwide who come to us daily for guidance, assistance and support.

Deadline: January 15 for the Program Associate position and none listed for the Software Developer. The PA position pays $40k.

Executive Director, Communications Network

Over the past two years, the Communications Network Board – composed of communications leaders from the nation’s top foundations – developed and approved a strategic plan designed to take the Network to the next level.  Building on a string of successful years in membership, fundraising and programming, the Network seeks to maintain its core strength among its foundation-based membership while gradually expanding to draw in leading nonprofit communication professionals.  We envision an organization that becomes a hub of excellence in the realm of nonprofit communications – an important constituency not presently served by existing networks – and that draws on the experience and commitment of communications professionals working not only for foundations, but for other leading nonprofits.

No deadline. An interesting setup where the ED works from anywhere with the support of an association management firm in Naperville, IL.

Program Manager, Newman’s Own Foundation

Newman’s Own Foundation is currently seeking a smart and dynamic professional to serve as its first Program Manager to develop and lead these two exciting programs within the Encouraging Philanthropy focus area. Reporting to the Foundation’s Managing Director, the Program Manager will play an integral role in building and implementing every aspect of these programs, enabling the Foundation to bring the organization’s commitment to philanthropy to life. This is a fantastic opportunity for a visionary with experience creating, managing and driving high impact programs forward.

No deadline.

Social Media Strategy Researcher and Consultant, Philanthrogeek

Philanthrogeek is hiring! We are looking for an established or aspiring social media professional to work with our team on an exciting new contract with a major foundation. This is a part-time (approximately 20 hours/week) contract position for February and March of 2014. Our new business is growing, and the right person can grow along with us, starting with this opportunity.

Deadline: Hurry up, because it’s tomorrow, January 13! Not an arts gig per se, but your would-be boss is on the boards of the National Association for Media Arts & Culture and the Seattle chapter of the Awesome Foundation. Plus, the “major foundation” in question is indeed major, maybe even (ahem) the major-est one there is.

Special Projects Associate, Foundation Center

As a member of the Glasspockets team, the Special Projects Associate is responsible for helping to create Glasspockets’ content and blog coverage of transparency and accountability in the philanthropic sector. Working closely with the Manager of Glasspockets, his/her responsibilities include canvassing a range of foundation web sites and media outlets for news of interest to Glasspockets audiences; writing and formatting blog posts; developing proposals for Glasspockets support, and working with other members of the Glasspockets team to enhance and update the Glasspockets web site. As a member of the San Francisco team, the Special Projects Associate is also responsible for assisting the Director of the SF Office with proposal development, reports to donors, and other special projects as assigned.

No deadline. The job is part-time, 15 hours a week.

The biggest news on federal support for the arts is a lack of news. Following the 16-day shutdown in early October, the federal government was reauthorized at last year’s budget levels (post-sequester) until January 15. Which means we get to do this all over again in just a month and a half! Woohoo!

Congress has had its share of squabbles over NEA funding in recent years, but it remains remarkably steadfast in its support for the National Gallery of Art. It increased the Gallery’s federal appropriation by a whopping 70 percent between 2001 and 2011– not exactly a kind decade for arts funding. The secret to the National Gallery’s success? The original act of Congress that required the federal government to “provide such funds as may be necessary for [its] upkeep . . . administrative expenses and costs of operation.”

Meanwhile, in a decision some are hailing as a “huge victory for online innovation,” a federal judge ruled that Google’s scanning of more than 20 million books counts as “fair use” under copyright law – meaning, among other things, that the company need not compensate writers or publishers for making very short excerpts available on the Web. The Authors Guild plans to appeal.

Finally, the U.S. has lost its voting rights at UNESCO, two years after ceasing payment of dues, then 22% of the organization’s budget. National Security Adviser Susan Rice called the outcome shameful, urging Congress to amend the law that bans support of organizations that recognize Palestine as a nation-state. The withdrawal of voting rights is also automatic under UNESCO rules, but it may still endanger the U.S.’s applications for World Heritage status for sites like Poverty Point in Louisiana and Spanish missions in San Antonio.

STATE AND LOCAL

According to Jay Dick of Americans for the Arts, the results of the off-year election contests in Virginia, Boston, St. Paul, and Dayton, OH, among other places bode well for the arts, with several new pro-arts officials taking power. In New York City, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio acknowledged the importance of the arts to the city by including several arts leaders in his newly-appointed transition committee. In other Big Apple news, the City Council held a public hearing on a proposed bill that would require the Department of Cultural Affairs to develop a cultural plan by 2015. Advocates believe this could coordinate cultural resources across agencies, increase available resources, and help keep artists in the increasingly-expensive city.

In other local election news, after fifteen years of attempting to find private funding for a performing arts center, the Myrtle Beach arts community won a victory at the polls this month when 54% of residents supported higher property taxes to raise the necessary $10 million. The City Council must still decide to undertake the project, but now “the rubber has met the road.”

The Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, despite having its budget slashed to the bone in the most recent budget session, has been approved for $560,800 in federal matching funds from the NEA after losing out on that match for two years. The restored federal match unlocked further funding from Kansas’s regional arts agency, the Mid-America Arts Alliance. It’s unclear how the most recent budget shenanigans will affect the situation with the NEA. To raise additional funds, the Commission is trying an arts license plate scheme to replicate the success of a similar initiative pioneered in California. Speaking of California, that state’s Arts Council managed to get a donation check box back on income tax forms for 2013, although the name has been changed from the “Arts Council Fund” to “Keep Arts in Schools Fund.”

INTERNATIONAL

Our friendly neighbor to the north has made it a lot harder for American musicians to perform in small venues. The Canadian government recently established a new fee and permit system for musicians and performing artists visiting from outside of country. Interestingly the fees apply only to artists seeking to perform in bars or restaurants – and both the artists and the hosting establishment have to pony up the funds.

Across the Atlantic, Scotland deserves major props for a) unveiling its first national Youth Arts Strategy (with £5m of funding to boot);  b) releasing aforementioned strategy as a graphic novel; and c) offering open feedback sessions to arts professionals and interested public as a precursor to the April 2014 release of Creative Scotland’s 10-year strategic plan and funding program. The new initiatives coincide with a significant staff restructuring at the agency. Meanwhile, the UK as a whole has just relieved producers of the burden of health-care contributions for entertainers they employ, though it is not yet clear whether this will lead to higher salaries for artists, larger production budgets, or simply smaller losses for backers. Shocker alert: producers and Equity feel differently on the matter.

Speaking of British arts agency planning documents, Chris Unitt went through the just-released second edition of Arts Council England’s strategic framework to see where digital technology fits in. There’s a heavy emphasis on using digital tools to reach new (i.e. international) audiences; less about using them to create new work or collaborate with other artists.

Australians have elected a new government to be led by Coalition, the country’s mainstream conservative party. George Brandis, arts spokesman for Coalition, has announced the party’s arts platform, which condemns an alleged tendency to reward “inwardness, mediocrity and political correctness” and emphasizes excellence, integrity, and artistic freedom. (Under the recent Labor government, arts industries in Australia had been receiving bipartisan support with a broad, positive impact on cultural production.) Brandis claims that the country should return to funding excellence in the arts, criticizing the Labor party for using arts to advance a social agenda.

Not to end on a down note, but freedom of expression difficulties continue in the Middle East. Qatari poet Mohammed Al-Ajami’s 15-year prison sentence for reciting on YouTube a poem celebrating the Arab Spring was upheld by the country’s Supreme Court, although his family can make a final appeal to Qatar’s Emir. Despite pressure from the international community, Al-Ajami is being held in solitary confinement as a potential insurgent. And in Egypt, comedian and talk show host Bassem Youssef, considered the country’s closest analogue to Jon Stewart, had his show suspended after just one episode amid alleged pressure from the country’s new military government.

Under the direct supervision of the Director of Arts Disciplines Division, the Head of the Theatre Section manages the successful delivery of large and complex programs and activities; leads a staff of twelve employees (includes eight direct reports); develops, administers and monitors the Section’s budget; develops policies,  programs and initiatives to enhance Canada Council’s role in the development of Canada’s artists and arts organizations; consults with and evaluates the needs of artists and arts organizations; monitors and evaluates the effectiveness and completeness of existing programs; promotes and ensures fair and equal access to programs by all qualified artists and arts organizations; contributes to the strategic planning as well as short- and long-range development of the Canada Council; develops and maintains strong working relationships with a broad and diverse group of stakeholders; and performs other related duties.

Deadline: September 11, 2013. Salary range is $104,600-123,000 (in Canadian dollars of course).

Director of International Data Relations, Foundation Center

The new Director’s responsibilities include increasing the Center’s data on international foundations through the cultivation of new and existing partnerships. As many countries lack data infrastructure or government mandated reporting, strategic partnerships with philanthropic associations and networks will be necessary to meet the Center’s goals. Tasks will include researching the climate of philanthropy in targeted regions, developing strategic data partnerships, optimizing systems for collecting and storing data in multiple languages and currencies, and structuring international data in a way that can be aggregated, compared, and researched. The Director will also be expected to work closely with colleagues across the Center and throughout the global philanthropic sector to ensure international perspectives are woven into the Center’s taxonomy and data structures. Innovative problem solving and strategic thinking are essential for success in this position.

No deadline.

More than nine months after former chair Rocco Landesman announced he was stepping down, the search for a new National Endowment for the Arts chairperson has stalled – just in time for the fall budget debates to ramp up in earnest. Sphinx Organization founder and president Aaron Dworkin confirms in the article that he was one of the candidates considered for the position earlier this year. Former NEA Senior Research Officer Joanna Woronkowicz tells us not to worry about the delay. Meanwhile, remember that kerfuffle last year about how Kickstarter was on track to provide more funding for the arts than the NEA? Well, not that this is a surprise, but by now it’s actually happened.

The United States cut off its support of Unesco in 2011 after the international cultural agency recognized the Palestinian Authority as a member nation. The measure was required by U.S. law, but was never supported by the Obama administration, which is now trying its darndest to be supportive of Unesco anyway.

STATE AND LOCAL

At long last, we have had a good year for state arts agency funding. With the economy rebounding and the pall of uncertainty lifting over state budgets, a number of arts councils have managed to claw back a measure of compensation for the dramatic cuts endured over the last four years, though there is still a long way to go. State arts budgets in the aggregate are up nearly 11% or $30 million, the largest nominal dollar increase in over 13 years. Notable success stories from this fiscal cycle include:

• Texas, whose Commission on the Arts got nearly double its appropriation from last year;
• Delaware, which received $1.6 million for a new Arts Trust Fund to provide general operating support for large institutions;
• Arizona, which eked out $1 million in general fund appropriations for its Commission on the Arts for the first time in three years;
• Florida, continuing its climb back to relevance with $5.7 million in new funding, mostly from line items;
• Michigan, also continuing a remarkable climb back from near-death with the second year in a row of multi-million-dollar increases;
• and South Carolina, whose arts commission defeated a gubernatorial veto for the fourth time in four years and on top of that got a hefty 52.4% increase.

California arts advocates did not succeed in dramatically changing the landscape for the California Arts Council, but at the last moment Assembly Speaker John Perez ensured a nearly $2 million increase to the agency’s coffers, bringing California out of the cellar as the cheapest state supporter of the arts on a per-capita basis. Other states with notable increases included Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Utah, and Vermont.

Not all the news was good for state arts advocates, though. The Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, only a year after coming back from being the first state art agency to be vetoed out of existence, has now been slashed almost entirely to the bone again with a paltry appropriation of $200,000, the lowest in the country. Arts councils in Tennessee, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Connecticut, West Virginia, and Wyoming also endured double-digit cuts.

In other state news, a tale of two tax policies: Rhode Island is eliminating taxes on the sale and purchase of artwork, while North Carolina is introducing a new 4.75% “privilege tax” for “admission charges to any live performance or event, any movie screening, any museum, cultural site, garden, exhibit, art show or guided tour.” The North Carolina tax applies to both nonprofit and commercial groups but carves out a number of confusing exemptions for certain festivals, state-supported museums, etc.; basically it sounds like terrible legislation. With that kind of environment, it will be interesting to see if the state extends its sunsetting film tax credit beyond 2014.

INTERNATIONAL

My goodness, the blows just keep coming for arts funding in England. The cuts to Arts Council England over the past few years were bad enough, but it turns out that local funding for the arts will fall another £124 million next year, even though local government budgets in general are up!  Better to be an artist in Britain than Portugal, however, which eliminated its ministry of culture two years ago and shows what happens when you pull the rug of government funding out from under a society that has no tradition of private philanthropy.

The giganta-budget West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in Hong Kong is running into trouble, with construction costs (surprise!) almost double the amount originally planned. The authority has decided to postpone seeking an additional $3.2 billion (I told you it was giganta-budget) payment from Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, presumably until things are in better shape.

Three profiles of new/new-ish culture heads: in Canada, Shelly Glover is settling into her new role as Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages; in France, embattled French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti presides over $3.2b in government spending on culture, which is down 2.8% from last year. France also has gone ahead and ended the “three strikes” provision of its copyright enforcement policy. Finally, Ines Abdul-Dayem is the new culture minister for Egypt. She has quite a story: earlier this year, she was dismissed from her post as head of the Cairo Opera House along with many other cultural officials by Alaa Abdel-Aziz, the man she is now replacing. In June, though, “artists stormed the Ministry of Culture and began an open-ended sit-in to demand the removal of the [now former] minister and the revocation of his decisions.” Shortly thereafter, following the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi, Abdel-Aziz resigned his position.

Central Calgary’s Main Historic Street – photo by flickr user Stephen Colebourne

(This essay was originally written in my role as an outside consultant to the city of Calgary’s cultural plan. For this entry, I was asked to reflect on the possibility of developing a collective impact model for the arts in Calgary. You can read all of my contributions to that process here.)

Through its #yycArtsPlan process, Calgary has the opportunity to pursue what may be the first full-fledged collective impact model in the arts. Will it take the reins?

Collective impact is a term coined by John Kania and Mark Kramer of the consulting firm FSG Social Impact Advisors in 2011. In a nutshell, the concept is this: the social sector is best positioned to accomplish real change through centralized, strategic, and coordinated action, rather than through decentralized and isolated interventions that can often work at cross purposes. This seemingly obvious insight is fleshed out in substantial detail in Kania and Kramer’s original collective impact article as well as many follow-up publications. Kania and Kramer outline five essential elements of any collective impact initiative, as follows:

Since the publication of the original article, collective impact mania has swept across the North American nonprofit sector. And yet, of the collective initiatives that have sprung up in response to this wave of interest, not one so far has specifically focused on the arts. This gap opens up an opportunity for Calgary to blaze a new trail yet again, but in doing so local leaders should be mindful of how collective impact differs from run-of-the-mill collaboration and consider the barriers that have kept the arts sector from fully embracing collective impact until now.

Collective Impact: A Giant Leap Forward

Some of the requirements of the collective impact model may seem familiar to arts leaders at first glance. For example, it’s true that most large metropolitan regions in the United States and Canada benefit from a municipal or regional arts council, whether structured as a government agency or independent organization, and that these entities are the obvious candidates to provide the “backbone support” ingredient of the collective impact recipe. Likewise, cultural planning efforts (such as Calgary’s) aspire to create a shared vision around priorities and goals, much in the same way that collective impact requires a “common agenda.”

Nevertheless, even in the most collegial and infrastructure-rich arts communities, there are some key ways in which collective impact raises the bar for coordinated action. A major weakness of many cultural plans is that, once the document is written and the funded process for convening stakeholders has come to an end, it is difficult to sustain energy and motivation to implement the resulting recommendations. The three elements of collective impact not mentioned in the previous paragraph – shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, and continuous communication – are all about providing this missing link.

We should not underestimate the extent to which a fully implemented collective impact model represents a radical departure from the status quo. Collective impact is about more than just collaboration when it’s convenient and working together on isolated projects that happen to lend themselves to shared action. Collective impact requires the full commitment of all participants to a concrete set of goals, and alignment toward making those goals a reality through whatever means are most appropriate. It requires participants – including the so-called “backbone organization” leading the effort – to put the goals, not themselves, first. Jeff Edmondson, leader of perhaps the highest-profile collective impact model, Cincinnati’s Strive Network, puts it this way (emphasis mine):

…[C]ollaboration is often one more thing you do on top of everything else.  People meet in coffee shops or church basements to figure out how to do a specific task together and in addition to their day job.  Collective impact becomes part of what you do every day. It is not one more thing because it is truly about using data on a daily basis – in an organization and across community partners – to integrate practices that get results into your everyday contribution to the field.

Arts-Specific Challenges to the Collective Impact Model

So why is it that the arts haven’t more rapidly embraced collective impact as a strategy? I can think of a number of possible reasons, ranging from the practical to the philosophical. On the practical side, the arts are an under-resourced field generally. And within the arts, unlike other areas of the nonprofit sector, philanthropic dollars tend to flow most readily to direct service delivery (i.e., local institutions and ensembles) rather than large infrastructure organizations (i.e., the arts equivalent of the American Cancer Society or UNICEF). As a result, arts practitioners and funders alike often find themselves making do with shoestring budgets that don’t easily accommodate the level of staff attention needed by a collective impact initiative. Furthermore, the arts are not as well integrated with the rest of the nonprofit sector as other cause areas such as education, the environment, and social services, and thus have been slow to pick up on similar trends in the past.

I do believe, however, that the practical barriers to collective impact can be overcome given sufficient motivation to do so. I’m more interested in what I see as philosophical barriers: reasons why arts stakeholders may feel resistance to collective impact due to a perceived conflict with their values. I will go through each of these perceived conflicts and discuss why I feel that they need not be conflicts at all.

Formulating the Problem

Kania and Kramer define a common agenda as follows: “Collective impact requires all participants to have a shared vision for change, one that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions.” Note that vision under discussion here involves solving a problem. This is one reason why the arts often don’t fit in easily with other nonprofit causes: what problem is being solved, exactly, by the Calgary Stampede or the EPCOR CENTRE? The arts are usually best presented as an opportunity rather than a problem: an opportunity for human beings to express themselves to the fullest and for others to witness, experience, and take part in that expression. Fortunately, the language of economics gives us a way of drawing an equivalence between problems and opportunities in the form of opportunity costs. By neglecting to take an opportunity available to us, we miss out on it, and that is a problem if it leads to a worse outcome. Thus, while the problem-solving language of collective impact may feel somewhat alien to arts stakeholders, conceptually it should not stand in the way of forming a shared agenda for the arts.

Measuring the Unmeasurable

Collective impact’s emphasis on shared measurement systems is not just about measuring progress towards a goal – it’s about holding participants accountable for moving a vision forward into reality. Otherwise, vague conceptualizations of the road ahead leave open the potential for multiple and self-serving interpretations of how far we have to go, or if we’re even still on the right path.

The arts, however, have a particularly fraught relationship with measurement and data. One explanation lies in the resource challenges described above – measuring things takes time, money, expertise, and effort, and arts organizations are often stretched for all four. But I believe there’s another factor at play as well, which is that many in the arts simply bristle at the idea of their work being reduced to a number or a statistic. They have seen quantitative data being misused in other contexts, and are afraid the same thing could happen to them. And besides, how can you express the pure joy of creation in a bar graph?

These concerns are understandable. But a truism of measurement is that if it matters at all, it can be measured. That doesn’t mean that measurement is always easy–but the tools we have available to us for research are remarkably flexible and adaptable to almost any situation. It’s applying them in a scientifically valid manner that is the challenge. So-called “intangibles” are very much measurable, and people have been measuring them for centuries. If the arts really are healing souls and changing lives, that is going to show up in the data if the right data is being collected.

It’s important to note that, in order for a collective impact model for the arts to work in Calgary, the #yycArtsPlan process will need to get much more specific about defining concrete data points to associate with the values articulated in the cultural plan. Right now, the plan articulates five goals, some of which readily lend themselves to quantification (“every Calgarian under 18 has the best possible opportunity for arts participation and education”), and some of which don’t (“create a new postcard of Calgary!”). Regardless, it is agreement on these common goals and ongoing tracking of the associated measures that will create the environment of accountability needed to see the vision through.

Diversity vs. the Borg

Critics of collective impact have enjoyed comparing the model to the Borg on Star Trek: The Next Generation: “Resistance is futile.” The reference conjures up an image of faceless robot-like entities that have no individuality, but are instead controlled by some unseen “hive mind.” Such a nightmare vision seems antithetical to the values of the arts, which celebrate diversity, variety, and above all, individual expression. Wouldn’t a collective impact model, with its shared goals and need for structure, interfere with the essence of what the arts are all about?

Actually, I don’t think it needs to – if that model is implemented well. Collective impact means that everyone is working towards the same goals, but contrary to a common misconception, it does not mean that everyone is doing the same things. Just as a homemade meal tastes no less delicious if one cook chops the vegetables while another marinates the meat, collective impact implies a division of labor among participants that nevertheless are all committed to a common goal. Thus, it’s not a problem for one organization to focus on presenting classics of the Western canon while another creates opportunities for immigrants while yet another celebrates the creative achievements of our brightest four-year-old minds – as long as they all understand precisely how their work fits in to the broader puzzle of a creative Calgary and can make decisions accordingly.

Looking Ahead

Much work still needs to be done before Calgary will truly be ready to take on the first arts collective impact effort. And yet Calgary has already made great strides in building a supportive environment for this sort of collective action. In addition to firming up the will and buy-in among local participants for moving forward, Calgary arts leaders will need to translate the #yycArtsPlan’s goals into clear, quantifiable targets that the entire community can rally behind. They will need to set up structures for regular communications among relevant parties and shared data and knowledge networks that directly relate to the vision’s targets. And they will need to define a set of mutually reinforcing activities that the existing arts community can map on to, pinpoint what gaps lie between the current reality and the desired outcomes, and formulate specific strategies to close those gaps that take maximal advantage of the community’s assets. It’s going to be an ambitious ride, and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

For my second essay responding to the #yycArtsPlan process, I thought I would focus on the last paragraph of the “Summary of Vision Statements from the January 26 Summit”:

The vision of our attendees is that by 2023, Calgary will be a major artistic centre in Canada, in terms of the work it creates and the training it provides, promoting both excellence and access. It will be a city where everyone understands the true value of the arts as an essential part of a well-rounded life—where the arts include everyone, and everyone includes the arts.

It’s a beautiful sentiment, expressed with impressive concision. But the central insight I’d like to offer here is that everyone is a lot of people. Are arts supporters in Calgary truly prepared to extend the olive branch of creativity and expression to every single one of their neighbors? And is it even possible to do such a thing without radical changes to the status quo?

Let’s separate the statement into its component parts. What is needed for the arts to include everyone? As noted in my previous essay, this inquiry will be helped enormously by first asking who is not currently served by the arts, and why. I don’t know the local context in Calgary well enough to answer that question definitively, but if things are at all similar to the situation in the United States, we can guess that relatively underserved populations might include poorer Calgarians, recent immigrants, people without a university degree, and people with disabilities, to name a few. This is not to say, of course, that nobody fitting those descriptions is active in the arts, but rather that if we’re looking for people who are not included by the arts, those are probably good characteristics to start with. Remember, the mandate here is to include everyone, not everyone in theory or everyone as long as it’s convenient for us.

The good news is that it’s likely there are already organizations in Calgary and environs with a specific mission to serve these populations and expand the audience for the arts. And again, if things are anything like they are in the States, they probably aren’t getting the kind of support that higher-profile organizations designed to position Calgary within the national and international arts community do. Which makes sense, in a way: after all, one of the basic realities of a market economy is that it is easier to serve some consumers than others, and so if efficiency is a goal, the consumers that are harder to serve (because they live far away from everyone else, for example) will be more likely to get left out.

At the same time, switching focus to include everyone need not require all arts organizations to change their missions or think only of the lowest common denominator. Just as a complex orchestral program or abstract expressionist art might be intimidating to someone with no previous exposure to these art forms, an introductory dance class is likely to feel limiting for someone who has professional training in ballet. A healthy and truly inclusive arts ecosystem affords opportunities to participate and get involved at various levels that are appropriate to the wildly diverse interests and capacities seen in the population as a whole. I would submit, however, that the efforts of a government-funded “backbone” organization such as Calgary Arts Development might be most productively focused on filling the gaps left by the market economy and private philanthropy in providing said opportunities, whatever they may be.

It seems to me that the second part of the vision, that everyone includes the arts, is rather more difficult to realize. Because now you’re not just talking about reallocating some resources and perhaps creating some new programs, but a wholesale attitude adjustment on the part of an entire population over whom artist, organization, and government alike have limited influence.

You may recall that I talked about ArtsWave in Cincinnati in my previous essay – remember, this was the community-funded grant-maker that re-envisioned its grant-making in response to research revealing a new way of framing the arts as a public good. ArtsWave has supported this strategy not only through funding, but also by taking a central role in communicating the value and relevance of the arts to the general public via this new frame. Besides placing media stories in mainstream sources like local television and newspapers, the organization regularly sponsors both ongoing and special events designed to be visible, extremely accessible, and highly participatory. Two examples of this kind of programming were a Paint the Street event near the ArtsWave office and a flash mob-style “Splash Dance” in the central business district. Both of these events offered citizens opportunities not only to witness the final product (in a centrally located, public place), but also to participate directly in its creation. And with no admission charge in either case, of course.

But these kinds of efforts can only take one so far. Ultimately, we can’t rely solely on democratization of access to change attitudes, because if attitudes are already set, the opportunity to participate in something in which one has no interest is not going to mean much. Instead, we need to dig deeper to understand the motivations and experiences of people who aren’t especially friendly towards the arts, the people who currently act as a barrier to the desired reality, and make some inferences about what could catalyze a shift.

We can start to get a clue to this by reading the bios and statements of the participants in the Citizens’ Reference Panel. It’s probably a stretch to call this a truly random sample of the population, even though great lengths were taken to reach outside of the traditional arts community, since the process represented a significant time commitment and there was likely substantial selection bias observed in the people who chose to participate. Nevertheless, we can pick up clues from the participants’ stories as to how “regular people” can and do relate to the arts in their lives. For example, take a look at these profiles:

Chris Pryce

I’m a firefighter for the City. I am originally from Ontario, where I went to the University of Western Ontario. My father has been a professional artist (he’s a painter) since I was born. I have been involved in martial arts since childhood and have started taking acting classes over the past few years. I also pencil sketch and study psychology and sociology in my spare time.

Mark Sutter

I am family man and father of two young children. Professionally, I am an Alberta Land Surveyor and the manager of an office in Calgary. I have a great love for the outdoors and enjoy escaping to the mountains at any time. Although the arts do not play a prominent role in my life I see value and opportunity for my family. Although very small, I wish to leave an imprint on helping make this city great for all citizens.

Pamela Hansen

I was born and raised in central Alberta. My parents were mixed farmers, raising livestock, hay and grain. My first school was Happy Hill, a one-room school where the teacher taught kids from grade one to grade nine. I got to school riding a pony called Tarbaby. My mom offered me a chance to attend Banff School of Fine Arts, but I did not feel I could make a living as an artist. I chose business machines training instead. In 2002, I came to Calgary to start a new life with my daughters Jessie and Adrienne and granddaughter Shea. While caring for aging relatives, I became isolated, with few connections beyond my family. It is my intention to expand my relationship to art and begin painting. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to connect with and be of service to my community.

Stephen Kohan

I am the father of two boys in elementary school, live in the suburbs, coach minor hockey, and own a minivan and two motorcycles. I’ve been married to the same wonderful woman for 17 years and she still can’t properly explain how I managed to pull that off — so I’ve wisely stopped asking. My interest in the arts likely stems from a musical upbringing — I play guitar (somewhat, and rarely) and took drama in High School (in classes and outside the 7-Eleven along with everyone else) and ended up with a degree in English literature from the University of Calgary. I’ve worked in the Litigation Management Branch of Aboriginal Affairs Canada, in varying capacities, for 20 years.

What strikes me about these peripheral connections to art is how often they involve a) relationships with other people (whether existing or aspirational), b) the direct practice of art (not just appreciation), and c) sustained exposure at a young age, in approximately that order of importance. How well is Calgary’s current arts infrastructure set up to support these kinds of connections?

To inform this inquiry more broadly, I believe it would be instructive to study the plentiful research literature on social movements. While not an expert in that subject, I can’t help but note that in the United States, we are in the midst of one of the most dramatic societal shifts in recent memory: the rapid drive towards widespread acceptance of gay marriage over the past 10 years. This movement will likely be analyzed to death in the coming years and decades, but speaking as an observer, it seems that a few key factors have been crucial in leading to social change:

• Popular conception of marriage and the wedding as a joyful event – specifically, an event in which we are happy for someone else;
• The lived experience of seeing the country “experiment” with gay marriage, first in Massachusetts and later in other states, and the lack of obvious harm to heterosexual marriages as a result;
• The enormously successful “It Gets Better” campaign, which took full advantage of viral platforms and social networks to put a human face on the struggles of gay teens;
• Acceptance and advocacy on the part of Hollywood, starting with Ellen DeGeneres and continuing with gay characters written into popular sitcoms like “Modern Family”;
• The increased visibility of gay and lesbian individuals encouraged, in part, by the previous factors: more teens and adults coming out sooner, to more people, in more social contexts;
• And finally, and most importantly, the impact of the above in helping more people to realize that someone they know is gay and that they want good things for that person – like the “warm glow” of a wedding and marriage to the person they love.

There are a lot of potential lessons in the above, but two stand out to me as particularly important:

• The need to integrate the unfamiliar into the familiar: people were motivated to support gay marriage when being gay became something they could fit into the context of their daily lives and existing relationships, habits and identity. Christine Cheung’s observation that Alberta “spent more than half of its cultural spending ($1.8 billion) on ‘home-entertainment services and equipment’” is perhaps relevant here.
• The power of the younger generation to motivate change: realizing that one is gay is something that typically happens during adolescence, which enabled gay marriage supporters to take advantage of the separate social networks that exist among that age group. Consistently, polls in the United States find that support for gay marriage is highly stratified by age group, with young adults overwhelmingly in favour. And in turn, the adoption of gay marriage as a cause célèbre by young adults has influenced attitudes among older generations, at least if anecdotal evidence is to be believed. Universal arts education is often cited as a potential salve to the arts’ ills, but I think it needs to go beyond that – indeed, the arts need to be seen as an integral part of a healthy society by this critical group of young adults in order to motivate real, long-lasting change.

Expanding the frame of the arts to include everyone is a challenging goal, to say the least. But I do believe it is achievable, if accompanied by the right strategies and a willingness on the part of arts advocates to be somewhat flexible about the real meaning and essence of “the arts.”