As those of you who have been following Fractured Atlas closely may know, we’ve been working on some innovative technological solutions for aggregating and analyzing data about the cultural sector for the past couple of years. This effort is taking myriad forms at the moment, but probably the most comprehensive manifestation is our cultural asset mapping software, Archipelago.

As originally designed for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in connection with the Bay Area Cultural Asset Map (BACAM), Archipelago seeks to shed light on the following questions about the cultural sector:

• Who’s making art?
• Who’s engaging with it?
• Where is it happening?
• How is it made possible?

This post will focus on how we’ve gone about addressing the first of these questions.

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From the beginning, we’ve taken what we call an “ecosystem approach” to the question of identifying actors in the arts universe and the relationships between them. I’ve been thinking about arts ecosystems for a number of years now, ever since I sketched out my first interpretation of one while on the beach in the summer of 2008. Many renditions that I’ve seen since have featured in one fashion or another some key players: nonprofit arts organizations, funders, government, for-profits, artists, and audience members.

Those elements are clearly important, but the reality is that the arts ecosystem is far more complicated. It includes social service agencies, churches, and others that might provide arts programs. It includes not just for-profit firms that present arts programming directly, but also the companies that manufacture shoes for the ballet dancers, sell the strings for the guitars, and design the postcards for the show. It encompasses a huge range of patron roles from major donors and Board members, to passersby taking in a work of public art or ambient sound installation, to people who experience the arts only in their own homes. Arguably, it even includes Google, Facebook, Staples, and the IRS – entities with which almost every arts organization interacts, even if those entities are not arts-specific at all.

How do we make sense of such a vast collection of interrelated forces? The short answer is that we can’t – at least not yet with total accuracy and comprehensiveness. But with more and more types of data becoming available all the time, not just in the cultural sector but in every aspect of life, we can at least get a start. Archipelago represents an effort to draw as much of the ecosystem as possible together in one place so that it can be picked apart, analyzed, and put together again in all of its kaleidoscopic complexity.

One of the classes of data we collect is everybody’s favorite, nonprofit arts organizations. Organizations are, in many ways, at the center of the data model created by Archipelago. They carry with them information about their location, finances, and programming, publicly available through the IRS or for research purposes through the Cultural Data Project. They are connected with cultural facilities such as those available for rental through NYC Performing Arts Spaces or any of our other spaces databases around the country. They are the recipients, and sometimes the givers, of grants to support the arts. They have relationships with audience members, artists, and other organizations.

Naturally, one of the first questions that arose during development was “what counts as an arts organization?” Organization data from the IRS comes with a set of codes to identify what an organization does. Using a system called NTEE (short for the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities), the codes are designed to provide a detailed level of information about organizational activities. The easy thing to do, of course, would be to use the NTEE classifications provided with the IRS data to define which organizations count as arts-related – and indeed, this appears to be the default approach for most professional research conducted in the sector. However, we soon realized that doing so would miss a lot of organizations that perhaps aren’t primarily arts organizations, but are still relevant to the arts ecosystem – such as universities, radio stations, foundations, even churches. (A recent report from the Irvine Foundation noted that, remarkably, more than a quarter of the organizations listed in the California Cultural Data Project were not represented among a broader list of nonprofits with arts-related NTEE codes.)

We call organizations that touch the arts without primarily focusing on them “arts-relevant” to distinguish them from straight-up arts organizations. Through conversations with administrators and local arts council heads, we’ve heard a number of times that arts-relevant organizations play an indispensable role in local creative communities, particularly in more rural areas. An inspection of arts grants given out by the funders in our database reveals the same thing: social service agencies, community centers, environmental organizations and the like abound.

Since we knew we wouldn’t really be able to answer the question “who’s making art?” if we didn’t include these arts-relevant organizations, it seemed important to work with as robust a data set as possible. Not only that, but we wanted Archipelago to be capable of adjusting how it responds depending on the nature of your query: did you want to know about just the organizations that we would consider “arts organizations,” or did you want to know about all of the organizations that touch the arts community, regardless of their primary focus?

To do this, we developed a set of algorithms and strategies to identify a large set of potential arts and arts-relevant organizations from the IRS data. Cross-checking each organization’s listing against its website, Form 990 information, calendar listings, and any other information we could find, we assigned our own categorizations to each organization, employing a three-level classification system as follows:

1. Is it primarily an arts organization?
2. In which discipline(s) does the organization have any relevance?
3. With which discipline(s), if any, does the organization primarily identify?

After considering several classification systems, we elected to go with a very simple set of six disciplines: dance, film/video/media, literary arts, music, theater, and visual arts. This was a purposefully practical schema: these categorizations (or their equivalents) appear with remarkable consistency in actual field resources, such as our own Spaces database, Chicago Artist Resource and its offshoots, and many arts council and service organization websites.

These six disciplines became the measuring stick for determining whether an organization whose focus was not primarily the arts belonged in our database. If an organization, no matter what it was, had some meaningful intersection with the world of music or film or any of the others, then by definition it deserved to be included. If an organization was interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary in nature, rather than assign it a vague “multidisciplinary” category, we simply marked each discipline in which it was relevant.

Take the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco, for example. I’m sure it’s hardly the first organization that comes to mind when you think of the arts community. And yet they are not only in the database, but they are in there marked with all six disciplines.

And why is that? It’s because they offer programming in each of those six disciplines. Check out their website, and you can see that, in fact, nearly a third of the activities they offer through their club network are arts-related!

While this approach was labor-intensive compared to just lifting the list directly from the IRS, it has afforded Archipelago tremendous analytical flexibility. If we want to perform statistical analysis just on arts organizations without having our numbers skewed by schools and YMCAs, we can limit our set just to primary arts organizations. But if we want to see the entire nonprofit dance ecosystem plotted out on a map, we won’t have limited ourselves to the usual suspects. It’s a whole new way of conceptualizing who belongs in the conversation about the arts, and it takes us one step closer to representing the full arts ecosystem in all of its diverse glory.

(cross-posted from the Arts Marketing Blog Salon on ArtsBlog)

In my last post, I talked about one reason that arts marketers are becoming increasingly important to the cultural ecosystem. Here, I’m going to talk about another – though I’m warning you, this one is going to be a bit of a downer.

ArtsJournal’s Doug McLennan has written and spoken extensively about the implications for arts institutions of the face that we live in an era of infinite choice: suddenly, and within a very short period of time, the quantity and variety of aesthetic experiences that are available to us has exploded beyond all recognition. In their Green Paper on digital infrastructure for the creative economy, Fractured Atlas, Future of Music Coalition, and the National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture pointed to the role of “disintermediation” in making this phenomenon possible, defining it as “the fracturing of the system of bottlenecks and gatekeepers that controlled some of the major means of production, distribution and access to audiences.” More than ever before, it is possible for content creators (and their marketers) to have meaningful, direct interaction with consumers dispersed across diverse cultures, geographies, and social networks. For those just seeking to break in for the first time and who don’t need a mass market to stay afloat, this change is nothing short of inspiring: an opportunity to reach audiences faster and with less interference from tastemakers than could ever have been possible otherwise. For more established institutions with networks of artists and professional staff to support, however, the ramifications range from mixed to terrifying, as the sudden rush to enter the marketplace brought on by these lowered barriers creates unprecedented competition for consumer attention and dollars.

We are transitioning into an era when the most valuable scarce resources for marketers are no longer best real estate and time slots (i.e., for advertising), but rather passion and time. To compete, say, in an online contest like Pepsi Refresh does not require much in the way of capital investment – but you are not going to get anywhere without a whole lot of staff capacity (whether paid or not) to tend to the campaign, and a deep base of “true fans” who are willing to go to bat for your cause again and again and bring others on board. The Holy Grail for marketers these days, of course, is when fans become so invested in the artist or institution that they derive intrinsic pleasure and fulfillment from working to support it – and from connecting with and broadening the circle of people who feel the same way. In theory, it creates a virtuous, self-sustaining cycle that just leads to greater and greater opportunity as long as that relationship with the fans can be maintained.

What this rosy picture doesn’t take into account, though, is that if everybody is after the same goal of deep and broad engagement with lots of people, the collective rush to reach audiences may well be unsustainable. Much like the cow herders in the old story of the tragedy of the commons, it is in the rational economic interest of individual artists and institutions to develop and exploit the resources available to the greatest extent possible, even though it may be in the long-term interests of the community as a whole to scale back a bit. As a result, we are at risk of overtaxing and draining the very fans who are so important to the arts’ success. We’ve seen this kind of fatigue already with the aforementioned online contests; arts patrons participating in Chase Community Giving found themselves overwhelmed with requests to vote for this organization or that, and the meaningfulness of any one action or request suffers as a result. But such contests are only the latest nexus for what is becoming an increasingly fraught problem for consumers and marketers alike. Quick poll: how many email newsletters are you subscribed to, and how many of you have filters or other procedures set up to ensure that you essentially never have to read them?

As it happens, I am currently reading through a study that examined (among other things) competitive interactions between performing arts organizations – in this case, between symphony orchestras and opera companies in the same city. The study found that fundraising expenditures by one organization was statistically correlated with lower contributed income for the other organization the following year, holding other factors constant. Perhaps more troubling, the study also found that fundraising expenditures at larger symphonies did not pay for themselves.

The problem becomes yet more acute when one remembers that arts organizations are not the only ones – and certainly not the ones with the most resources – who face it. We are competing not just with each other, but with mass media, sports, restaurants, manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, auto insurers, etc. – all trying desperately now to create the same kind of time-intensive, passion-dependent audience engagement with the same people we’re trying to reach. It’s one thing to be a mere consumer of many different kinds of products. But can one be a “true fan” for Old Spice Guy, the Geico Caveman, Mad Men, Kings of Leon, the Social Network, and the theater company down the street all at the same time–all, perhaps, while trying to get attention for one’s own creations?

As we come together for a convention to celebrate the efforts we make to reach audiences and share tips on how to do it, it’s worth remembering that the people who are on the other end of our communications are ultimately the ones who decide whether we succeed or fail. Our job is to make people aware of the product and encourage them to give it a chance. At that point, however, it’s up to the art itself to work its magic. Because if it doesn’t, they won’t lack for other ways in which they could spend their time instead.

The most important decision I ever made at Fractured Atlas was our late 2001 shift from a curatorial strategy to a wide open one. By accepting that I lacked the vision or wisdom to reliably identify the next Jackson Pollack or even Richard Foreman, I democratized our whole approach to supporting the arts community. The new goals were about leveling the playing field by providing resources and tools that reduced the likelihood that real talent would be squashed by bad luck or poor access to vital services. Ultimately Fractured Atlas helps our industry’s “market forces” function more effectively by limiting the often significant impact of non-artistic factors (e.g. healthcare, funding, technology).

Here’s what a functioning artistic marketplace doesn’t look like: in 2005, the heyday of my experimental rock band Capital M, I booked a total of nine gigs at well-known small clubs such as the Knitting Factory, the Bowery Poetry Club, and the Zeitgeist Gallery up in Boston. To give you a bit of context, my band has some serious firepower in its lineup, musicians who have played with the likes of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Bruce Springsteen, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. These concerts included the release party for our debut CD, a CMJ Music Marathon concert, and the 21st Century Schizoid Music Festival, and included appearances with Elliott Sharp and Todd Reynolds among others.

Our revenue from these concerts averaged less than $65 a night. Take out the show at the Zeitgeist, which is misleading because we had to rent the space in order to play there, and the average is closer to $40. That’s $6.67 for each of the six members of the band. But wait! In order to prepare for these gigs, I had to rent rehearsal space at an average cost of $86 per show. So rehearsal expenses alone were enough to put the band underwater without subsidy, and that’s not even considering equipment, recording expenses, publicity, or anything else. In total, the band cost about $7,000 that year and took in less than $600 in concert revenues.

After 2005, I changed Capital M’s business model to one in which we played fewer concerts, but the concerts we did play included an annual World Premieres Extravaganza for which I conducted extensive fundraising. For the second World Premieres Extravaganza at Tonic in April 2007, I received grants from Meet The Composer and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund which enabled me to pay each band member a respectable fee of $300 and (thankfully) still break even. All that donor largesse, however, didn’t do much for Tonic; the venue closed forever less than two weeks later.

Our experience with this system is by no means unique. All presenters within the arts ecosystem, even nonprofit ones, must develop programming based on a blend of artistic considerations and market considerations. The problem is that some of the best art is, by its very nature, anti-market. Jazz guitarist Marc Ribot has written a must-read essay on the plight of small independent music venues in New York City, a number of which have failed or been forced to move in the last several years. In it, he diagnoses the problem:

”Do It Yourself” is a lovely idea, one which leaves its believers with a comforting sense of control over their destiny. the only problem is that when the “It” is running a business capable of treating musicians fairly and the “Yourself” is the musicians themselves, it doesn’t work, for the same reason that kibbutzes haven’t globally replaced private farming, food co-ops haven’t replaced supermarkets, housing co-ops haven’t (as their original proponents theorized) provided massive havens of low income housing and workers co-ops haven’t replaced private industry: Businesses need capital. People who work gigs for a living, by definition, don’t have it.

Without capital, venues either eventually fall back on the old strategies of musician exploitation, abandon new music priorities, fail or all three. If those venues are ‘artist run’, the only difference is that we get to exploit ourselves. Hooray for progress.

Ribot reveals that the reason jazz has survived at all in this country is largely thanks to subsidies from across the pond.

In truth, our belief that the market could fund new music was always as illusory; European touring, heavily state subsidized, has been the real economic motor of experimental jazz/new music for decades, the light at the end of the tunnel of months of scarce and/or poorly paid NYC gigs. […]

I’ve spent close to two months a year on tour in Europe since 1984, playing over 1,000 gigs. For years, I’ve asked presenters how their funding was structured. I was often surprised at the answers: even some of what I thought were private clubs were in fact administered by jazz or new music societies or co-operatives. The European gigs were almost always subsidized: usually by the city or state government completely donating the performance space itself.

Note the method of intervention here taken by European governments. Rather than directly subsidizing Ribot’s ensemble and those like it, they instead lowered the costs for the organizations that present the ensemble, enabling those organizations to pay Ribot a decent artist’s fee. This, to me, is a key element of a sane and sustainable artistic marketplace.

The basic elements of cultural production are the creator, the performer, the producer, and the presenter. In our current arts funding system, different public and private donors might be providing assistance at any and all points along this chain. It’s extremely haphazard, and it can lead to bizarre juxtapositions like the same musicians getting paid $600 one night at Merkin Hall and $6 the next night at Zebulon, or one composer receiving a $5,000 commission in connection with the premiere of a new piece at a concert and another composer receiving zilch for another premiere at the same concert.

Wouldn’t it be simpler if all performers could have a reasonable expectation of getting paid by virtue of being booked at a venue that programmed noncommercial work? So that the only thing the ensemble would have to worry about is proving their artistic worth and relevance to the curator, rather than whether they can afford to go deeper into debt in hopes of greater exposure? For this to happen, arts funders would need to focus their resources on lowering the cost of cultural production and distribution for everybody, rather than trying to pick and choose who gets the spoils. In other words, they would outsource the curatorial role to those who do it for a living: bookers, artistic personnel, and artistic directors. It’s almost like giving a mini-regranting program to each presenter, and endowing them with the autonomy to dole out the funds as they see fit.

In the context of my writing on philanthropy, the idea of enabling a self-functioning and self-regulating artistic marketplace has one important implication: namely, that funders would not worry so much about the quality of the art that they’re funding. That sounds counterintuitive and scary to a lot of donors, but if you think about it it makes some sense. Funders are not necessarily in the best position to judge artistic quality, relative to other people who might be able to do the same. Unless they’re ready to commit to sending staff to performances every night, listening to every CD and watching every video that comes in through the door whether solicited or not, and generally pounding the pavement scouting new talent, they’re not going to be in that position. (This is why many already partially outsource this expertise by regranting funds to discipline-specific service organizations and/or convening rotating peer review panels to make the decisions.) Most importantly, arts funders wield a disproportionate amount of power due to the resources they hold, yet the aesthetic tastes of their staff, no matter how well-informed, are no less subjective than anyone else’s.

By funding artistic systems instead of artistic producers, funders can distribute those resources to a much broader network of informed decision-makers, each of whom will make their own judgments about the artistic merit of individual players on the scene. Their aggregated decisions, awarding this date to that band and that residency to this performer and so on, collectively represent the artistic marketplace of which I speak: a marketplace in which the currency of trade is respect from one’s peers rather than the ability to draw a big-spending crowd.

I’ll end with this quote from the Marc Ribot essay that I linked to earlier. I think it nicely sums up the importance and potential of thinking about the arts in this way.

The idea behind European public arts subsidies, the reason why NYC jazz/new music artists for at least the last 40 years have played Paris, Cologne and Zurich many more times than they’ve played Hartford (and how many have ever played Des Moines?) is a doctrine called “the European cultural exception”, a set of government policies based on the concept that, even within a market economy, art/culture is to be treated differently from other commodities.

This concept asserts that some music deserves to exist even if the market says it doesn’t. That the best string quartet isn’t necessarily the one that plays the most TV commercials. That the best composer isn’t necessarily the one George Lucas picks to score his film. That the best band isn’t always the one most favored by a large radio network’s advertisers. […]

That enough Europeans have chosen to value this social benefit, to codify these values into law and fund the laws into being…is why about half the music I care about exists.