Photo credit: EKG Technician Salary

Title:  Nonprofit organizations and the Intersectoral division of labor in the arts

Author(s): Paul J. DiMaggio

Publisher: Yale University Press (in The Nonprofit Sector: A research handbook)

Year: 2006

URL: https://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap/WP30-DiMaggio.pdf

Topics: Nonprofit arts sector, commercial arts sector

Methods: Analysis of economic census data, literature review

What it says: The article explores the division between nonprofit and commercial organizations within particular sub-fields within the arts. DiMaggio primarily uses data from the 1997 US Economic Census, which collects data on tax exempt (nonprofits and public) and taxable (for profit) entities in multiple categories. DiMaggio acknowledges several limitations of this data set, most notably that it tends to exclude or underestimate small or unincorporated arts organizations as well as those embedded within larger institutions like universities. DiMaggio relies on the data set despite these drawbacks, since he believes that it is the single best source to determine how arts activities are divided between the for profit and nonprofit arts sectors in the United States.

DiMaggio’s analysis finds that art and history museums are primarily non-profit. Within the performing arts, he finds that fields with the longest history of prestige and recognition as high art (symphonies, resident theatres, operas) tend to adopt non-commercial form while other less prestigious fields (popular music, dinner theatre) tend to adopt commercial status. Fields that have recently gained respect from critics and scholars, such as ethnic dance or Jazz, contain either a mix of organizations of both types, or skew toward the commercial. Overall, the majority of the categories DiMaggio examines are largely dominated by tax exempt organizations.

The author reviews three theories frequently cited in the literature to explain this division between nonprofit and commercial structures, or more specifically the dominance of the nonprofit form in the majority of many arts fields.  The first theory is market failure, or the idea that certain arts activities are not feasible as commercial enterprises and so can only thrive with private or public subsidies (Baumol and Bowen’s landmark work on cost disease in the performing arts is cited). DiMaggio points out that cost disease explains why subsidy is needed, while theories about collective or public goods, or goods which have benefits that accrue beyond those who utilize them, help explain why subsidy is made available.

The second group of theoretical approaches that DiMaggio examines are industrial-organizational in nature. These theories focus on the specific characteristics about the nonprofit organizational form that make it a well-suited for artistic endeavors. DiMaggio discusses literature focused on  variable demand for products, with some patrons willing to pay high amounts to subsidize the availability of the arts product (this “demand” is met by accepting donations from individuals) while  another segment of patrons with less interest or ability to pay have a drastically lower price point and contribute via ticket sales.)  He also discusses “club theory,” which discusses how the governance models of nonprofits are particularly suited to a small group seeking to ensure that their aesthetic sensibility is privileged over business needs. He also discusses theories positing that nonprofit status is useful for organizations in order to signal their commitment to artistic excellence and thereby attract and retain high caliber artists.

Finally, DiMaggio turns to historical and political analyses, which he identifies as an important addition to the theoretical explanations listed above. DiMaggio describes the establishment of nonprofit cultural organizations like museums and symphonies in the 19th century by elites, and then the slow diffusion of this model to other geographic areas as well as additional disciplines like opera or theater. DiMaggio states that, by the mid-20th century “the contours of the intersectoral division of labor in the arts were well defined. All that remained was to fill them in.” According to DiMaggio, this began to happen through the arts funding and field building programs led by the Ford Foundation, as well as the establishment of the NEA and other public funding sources. Public funding also served to broaden the range of arts activities likely to receive institutional subsidies, to include new types of activities like photography or ethnic dance. DiMaggio posits that the availability of private or public subsidies may have made organizations pursuing these activities more likely to be established as or become nonprofits. DiMaggio also references larger demographic shifts that made Americans more educated and prosperous, which in turn created a wider audience for more serious art forms. DiMaggio suggests that these three historical analyses, taken together, provide a solid overall explanation for the intersectoral divisions that appear in his data analysis.

DiMaggio concludes his paper by exploring patterns in the data not accounted for by these theories which also serve as potential areas for further research. He leads with a discussion of efficient boundaries, or tendencies  of organizations to form different types of employment relationships, i.e. long term employment relationships or shorter term contracts with workers (in this case artists). He notes that nonprofit organizations tend to dominate in fields which pursue long term employment arrangements, both in the arts and other sectors. DiMaggio suggests that for those types of organizations that gained an early foothold within the system of philanthropic support as it was being built, the nonprofit form provided an opportunity for managers and artists to limit risk. In fields without this longstanding access to grant support, DiMaggio notes that managers limit risk by decoupling presenting  and artistic activities, while many artists limit risk by subsidizing arts activities through alternate employment, or day jobs.

Next, DiMaggio raises the question of whether cost disease can be addressed in the future, citing recent methods to lower costs within some traditional disciplines, such as delivering symphony music through technological means. Finally, he returns to the importance of arts organizations and programs embedded within universities, churches, and other larger organizations as well as unincorporated organizations and hybrid organizations, which combine characteristics of multiple forms. DiMaggio recognizes that these groups are not fully accounted for in the theories in the article but make up a significant portion of arts activities. He also discusses the division of labor between the public and private sectors, noting that there are few arts fields where public and commercial institutions compete.

DiMaggio’s final question is this: Does organizational form matter? How does it affect the actions of decisions made by organizations? He notes that while there are numerous comparative studies on the differences between nonprofit and commercial organizations for fields like healthcare and education, these are few such studies related to cultural organizations. This means that case studies and theory provide the only available set of literature.

To conclude, DiMaggio highlights larger changes that may affect the sectoral division of labor in the arts going forward. He discusses demographic changes such as new waves of immigration that will lead to a boom in arts activities presenting and furthering the cultures of immigrant groups. These organizations may adopt the nonprofit or the commercial form. He also discusses the eroding boundary of high and popular culture and a gradual erosion of ideologies which privilege European culture over other forms. These trends could lead to future growth areas. He also notes the erosion of clear boundaries between nonprofits and commercial organizations, as many nonprofits are adopting language and practices from the commercial world, and embracing modes of distribution or business endeavors previously seen as too market-based. Lastly, DiMaggio discusses the disruption that new technologies are likely to produce. He predicts that these technological shifts may result in some services currently provided by arts nonprofits shifting to commercial arts firms and vice versa.

What I think about it: DiMaggio’s use of intersectoral division of labor as a framework to examine the contours of the arts sector proves to be a rich investigation, as evidenced by the number of critical arts issues that come up in his theoretical exploration of this one data set. While there are issues inherent in the data used for his analysis, DiMaggio fully acknowledges these limitations and takes time to explain how they may limit his sector analysis and where they may point to further research. DiMaggio’s literature review is particularly helpful since it combines theories and approaches from economics, organizational theory, and history.

What it all means: While Createquity understands that organizations as such are not a prerequisite for a healthy arts ecosystem, they can be important factors in the success of the ecosystem. DiMaggio acknowledges the influence that organization types have on the arts sector while refraining from assuming a  default or obvious form for organizations. Instead of letting the current boundaries within the arts sector frame his inquiry, DiMaggio probes them, and in the process identifies multiple avenues of inquiry that may be able to provide insight into critical major arts issues.

“People of color(s)” by darwin bell

Title: Shaping a triple-bottom line for nonprofit arts organizations: Micro-, macro-, and meta-policy influences

Author: Wyszomirski, Margaret Jane

Publisher: Cultural Trends

Year: December 2013

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09548963.2013.817645#.VuRi_fkrLIU

What it says: The article provides a recounting of the evolution of NEA policies since its founding in 1965 and those policies’ impacts on the nonprofit arts sector. Wyszormirski describes how major NEA policies were conceived and implemented by NEA Chairs in response to political or societal pressures as well as perceived deficiencies in the U.S. arts ecosystem. As these agency-wide policies were gradually integrated into the grant making culture of the NEA and the work of arts organizations, a standard set of metrics for organizational performance emerged: a triple bottom line including financial sustainability, artistic vitality, and recognized public value. The author notes that the original NEA legislation did refer to each of these “bottom line” metrics but the integration of these metrics into the arts nonprofit system was a result of the priorities and improvisations of each NEA chair, as opposed to an overarching plan.

The author states that wide adoption of each of these three metrics happened in an ad hoc and incremental manner, with matching grants and peer panel review as the instruments. As a result of interactions between grantees, panel members, NEA staff, and other funders, these metrics became standard for all arts NGOs, whether or not they were grantees of the NEA. The author also notes that policies combining multiple goals exist in other arenas, and specifically mentions terminology of the “triple-bottom line” of profit-making, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability described in business management literature. On financial sustainability, Wyszomirski puts the NEA at the center of the gradual consolidation of standards. Wyszomirski recounts how the NEA’s understanding of its financial role changed over time from providing direct support, such as a 1966 emergency grant to the American Ballet Theater, to funding that encouraged the ability of nonprofit arts organizations to maintain financial stability. Wyszomirski says that this evolution resulted in the financial sustainability “bottom line” for the arts sector.

Wyszomirski describes three different evolutions of the NEA’s position on artistic merit. In the first phrase, the NEA innovated by departing from an elitist definition of excellence to welcoming a broader range of art forms. Subsequently, the NEA pursued policies that emphasized promoting experimental work by being the funder of last resort. Lastly, the culture wars period from 1989 to 1997 put pressure on the ideal of experimental work. The result was a move by the NEA to link community “buy-in” to the concept of artistic value.

The article notes that the public benefit “bottom line” was present in the NEA’s founding legislation but evolved to become more important and more prominent over time. Wyszomirski says the NEA had always valued both the intrinsic and the instrumental benefits of the arts but describes a shift toward instrumentalism in arts policy in response “to threatened funding reductions and the culture wars” following the 1980s. The study goes through the history of NEA work in arts education and more recently “creative placemaking” activities. Wyszomirski stresses that, after the late 1990s, NEA chairs have pushed instrumental arts activities that produce visible public benefits – activities that enable advocacy efforts of the NEA and the larger arts advocacy community.

What I think about it: The study explains the interplay of different mechanisms that create and disseminate arts policy through the NEA and arts nonprofits in a persuasive way. The assertion that the evolution of standards was driven by ad hoc policy responses, rather than as part of a policy master plan or theory of change, remains important to bear in mind for those who seek to shape arts policy in the future. The aphorism “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy” springs to mind. The study includes an assertion that when the NEA chair did not lead on overall policy development for the arts sector, outside actors, such as foundations, took the lead and drove policy. Wyszomirski states that, with the beginnings of the culture wars, “the NEA…was in no position to articulate macro-policy” and “the next reframing of this [financial sustainability] bottom line as a search for sustainability came from private foundations outside the NEA.” However, the study provides less texture on influences and competing or complimentary ideas from these other actors. This paper leaves open the potentially vital question of how private foundations and other non-governmental actors have formed arts sector policy.

What it all means: There is an underlying implication in the study that the arts community ultimately got to the right overall mix of these three bottom lines, even if Wyszomirski stresses that the exact balance will remain in flux. In the future, however, debates over the instrumental versus intrinsic value of the arts, the diversity in the arts, and the mix of nonprofit versus for-profit arts may impact the definitions of financial sustainability, artistic vitality, and recognized public value. Further analysis and research is needed on how other actors, especially private grant makers, are shaping the benchmarks for success in the arts ecosystem in the U.S. Understanding the mechanism for defining success in the arts remains important to Createquity’s investigation on the capacity to create change.

In the past fifteen years, the number of nonprofit theater companies in the United States has doubled while audiences and funding have shrunk. Neither the field nor the next generation of artists is served by this unexamined multiplication…There has been tremendous collective buy-in to what has become a fossilized model.

—Rebecca Novick, theater director and arts consultant

Then hear out Voice 2:

We communities of color are still trying to understand the mainstream nonprofit culture, with all its unwritten rules and regulations. We are trying to be better nonprofit players. We have to, because the game is not going to change any time soon, and those communities who don’t know the rules or who don’t practice enough are left behind… We have no choice.

—Vu Le, executive director of Rainier Valley Corps

Stop and reflect on Voice 3:

I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with our sector’s be-all-and-end-all focus on the needs of the nonprofit arts… The sector has grown bigger without getting richer.

—Bill Ivey, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts

See if you agree with Voice 4:

Funding organizations really do roll their eyes these days, when yet another nonprofit, pops up with its hands out. Reality: no one is gonna pay your tab.

—Misha Penton, opera singer, theater artist, and artistic director of Divergence Vocal Theater

Opinions about the nonprofit arts model—the fundamental legal and business structure in which arts nonprofits in the United States work—are as numerous and varied as 501(c)(3)s themselves. But one thing all of these quotes take for granted is the existence of the model itself. While that system may seem “fossilized” to some, the truth is that most arts nonprofits today are younger than most of our parents. The boom of arts nonprofits has been a relatively recent phenomenon, and it came about thanks in large part to a handful of individuals who intentionally put it into motion.

Graphic by Shawn Lent and Katherine Ingersoll for Createquity. See endnotes for additional detail on sourcing.

The story of the nonprofit model is part of the broader heritage of nonprofits, and follows a similar trajectory. A combination of intentional interventions and societal factors led to a massive expansion of the nonprofit sector in the United States in the middle of the 20th century, both in terms of size and portion of overall economic activity. Nonprofit expenses and assets actually outpaced the economy between 1994 and 2004 primarily thanks to the growth of hospitals, health organizations and private colleges. In 2012, there was 1 nonprofit for every 175 Americans.

Despite such a boom, life inside the current arts ecosystem is not all it could be. Createquity’s mission is to identify the most important issues in the arts and what we can do about them, but a crucial barrier to executing on that premise is the sector’s limited capacity to create change. While the 501(c)(3) arts model offers infrastructure that, in theory, combines artistic aspiration with public accountability, the decentralization and limited scope of government policy make large-scale, systemic change in the sector difficult to accomplish. Yet Createquity’s long-range goal is to do exactly that, or at the very least to catalyze it.

One of the things that I pray for is that people with power will get good sense, and that people with good sense will get power…

—Dixie Carter as Julia Sugarbaker

To accurately predict how change can happen in the arts ecosystem, it would help to understand how change has already taken place in our arts 501(c)(3) genealogy. Specifically, we want to know whether individuals or organizations can truly and intentionally marshal change, or if a cloudy mix of circumstances is responsible for where we are today. Has transformation in the arts sector historically been calculated and choreographed, or organic and inadvertent?

It turns out that a narrow time period starting in the mid-1950s and ending in the late 1970s presents clear examples of deliberate and broad action, precipitating one of the most extensive changes in the arts ecosystem: the spread and embrace of the nonprofit model as a mechanism for cultivating and promoting the arts and culture within the United States.

But first, some time travel is in order.

THE ARTS ECOSYSTEM’S EARLY DAYS

The modern tax code, including the arts 501(c)(3) status we know today, was established in 1954, but its roots stretch back much farther. Several of our nation’s first theaters and museums were built before the American Revolution, but voluntary associations in this colonial period (as well as in the freshly independent years following the war) were limited by the strong role of the church and emboldened by the lack of federal authority over them. The landmark 1819 Supreme Court decision of Trustees of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward further constrained the government’s power to intervene in private charitable organizations and set protection for incorporated endowments, including the few for arts institutions.

From the Met to the Hull House, arts participation in 19th century America was shaped by class division. Urban wealthy elites, their formal governing sway slipping away in a democratic society, established private organizations to advance the greater good—and to preserve their class status. In the wake of civil war and the arrival of nearly 12 million immigrants, Americans formed mutual aid societies and unions, but also private schools, libraries, social clubs, and a scattering of non-commercial museums and symphony orchestras.

Donations from wealthy individuals were the most important source of support, and policymakers in the late 1800s introduced the country’s first statutory references and implementation of tax exemption for charitable organizations. In 1889, a certain Mr. Andrew Carnegie published “Wealth,” an essay pressing other tycoons to join him in donating considerable percentages of their fortunes for the good of society, including the arts and humanities. Years later, historians would credit Carnegie with conceptualizing what is now the modern philanthropic foundation.

“The Immigrants,” by Luis Sanguino in Battery Park – photo by flickr user k31thw

Even so, through the rip-roaring early part of the 20th century, the dominant vehicle for performing arts enterprises, from jazz clubs to theater ensembles, was the commercial sole proprietorship. As the socioeconomic gap became a socioeconomic crater, philanthropic support for arts nonprofits remained limited and highly localized. Coming out of the Great Depression and WWII, national foundations like Carnegie’s were primarily setting their sights on educational goals.

All the while, countless early arts pioneers, renegades, and boat rockers had the ambition to innovate on the local level, and many eventually saw the fruits of their efforts spread to varying degrees. But it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that the stage was set for sweeping transformation for the arts at the national level.

A MAN ON A MISSION

There are people who more than others constantly see themselves between past and future, …both in their own lives and in the history of mankind. And I’m one of those persons.

—W. McNeil Lowry

In the early 1950s, an executive named William McPeak participated in a study group for the Ford Foundation, which was exploring potential new structures and priorities as it prepared to become the largest foundation in the world. McPeak was pushing Ford to include the humanities in its vision for the future. One of his confidants during that struggle was W. McNeil “Mac” Lowry, a civilian journalist with the Washington bureau of Cox Newspapers who had been McPeak’s colleague at the Office of Wartime Information. Ford ultimately decided against funding the humanities when it expanded its scope from serving Detroit to focusing on social justice nationally and internationally, moving its office to New York City, but McPeak was hired as Ford’s Associate Director in 1953 and he brought Lowry on board as his assistant.

Two years into his tenure, Lowry was promoted to Program Director for Education and started suggesting ad hoc humanities grants under this education arm. They were small and few, and they were accepted. He also began writing policy papers and advocating internally for the creation of a large, full-fledged arts and humanities funding arm. This proposal was bold and unprecedented for any foundation at the time. With persistence and McPeak’s partnership, a mere four years after joining the foundation, Lowry was named director of its newly minted Division of Humanities and the Arts.

Lowry aimed to leverage Ford’s dollars and influence toward a grand vision of a robust arts field across the United States, but he started with a more tangible and comprehensible project: an inventory of the field conducted through interviews with artists and arts stakeholders, which would subsequently inform the decision on the part of Ford’s trustees whether to make the program permanent.

ripple effect – photo by flickr user Judy van der Velden

Lowry knew that his audience didn’t initially take his project very seriously. But as his assistant Marcia Thompson put it, it quickly became clear that the trustees “were not only entertained but were enormously interested in the field.” Lowry later said of his thinking,

It was not any secret to me what the little start of that program in 1957 might mean on a national basis… It’s just, you couldn’t divulge it because it was still dream and plan… This work is… a little bit like casting a stone in a puddle, but precisely which stone and precisely which puddle and for precisely which effect [is] the real creative part of it.

He and Thompson began by giving themselves the task of creating a directory with the names and contact information of every art critic and artist they could find around the country. Long before digital spreadsheets or the Internet, this was a hefty self-assignment. A former journalist with a history of telling it like it is, Lowry was willing to question loyalties and cliques. For example, he worked to extend professional arts opportunities outside major metropolitan areas even though several Ford trustees with connections to prominent New York institutions pushed back. He, along with associate director Edward F. D’Arms, traveled the country to speak with artists and stakeholders at over 175 arts companies. Lowry’s was a personal approach which gave him strong buy-in and trust from people who were actually engaged in arts work; he preferred direct correspondence with prospective grantees, including the likes of James Baldwin and Tom Stoppard. Lowry synthesized this mountain of data with more formal knowledge from economics and policy to begin to design the functions of Ford’s arts program.

Columbus, Ohio’s State Capitol from the Air (1957) – photo by flickr user Sent from the Past

Choosing to start with theater as his first arts discipline, Lowry used his new directory to send out a wide call for proposals, looking for groups (many of which were either sole proprietorships or amateur projects at the time) that seemed ready for the next step in professionalization. The focus was on smaller organizations outside the big cities because he did not want to see “money that could go to artists and artistic directors or to their outlets put in bricks and mortar.” With an investment of $9 million in 1961, the Ford Foundation had gathered steam for what would become the regional theater movement. After seven years of commercial operation, Zelda Fichandler transformed DC’s Arena Stage into one of the country’s first nonprofit theaters, primarily to receive a grant from the Ford Foundation.

One of Lowry’s primary aims was to increase the amount of professional performing arts activity in the country, but he wanted to be inclusive whenever possible. He had intended to fund a black theater when he launched the program in 1957 but was unable to locate a promising black artistic director able to get a new theater up and running. A couple years after Martin Luther King Jr. inspired the country with his dream of integration, a playwright named Douglas Turner Ward wrote an editorial in the New York Times about the need for a black theater, supporting disenfranchised artists, managers, writers, and designers. Lowry read the article and contacted Ward immediately. Shortly after, with a Ford grant of $434,000 ($3.3 million in 2016 dollars), Ward, producer/actor Robert Hooks and theater manager Gerald Krone would establish the Negro Ensemble Theatre Company in 1965.

Lowry got artists out of their comfort zones and towards professionalization, and was well aware of the consequences of him doing so. As he describes it,

[artistic producers] had to think about ‘where does this move us to the next phase?’…They took on costly activities that they had ignored before…. So they were stretched. And some of them were even shrewd enough to say in advance of a grant, ‘You’re going to stretch me, aren’t you?’ I’d say, ‘Yes, I’m sorry, that’s an inevitable consequence of this.’”

Under his direction, arts grants now required matching dollars for the first time and arts grantees were pushed to improve their marketing practices. For example, he directly supported Danny Newman, the press agent at Chicago Lyric Opera, to evangelize the subscription model to performing arts organizations across the country.

Lowry’s legacy also stretched entire segments of the performing arts. During his tenure, Ford invested $19.5 million to help build 17 resident professional theaters between 1962 and 1976, and was the first American foundation to fund dance on a large scale ($22.5 million from 1957-1973). Ford’s largest arts investment over this time was the Symphony Orchestra Program ($80.2 million). Lowry retired from his position as Vice President at Ford in 1974, and passed away in 1993.

Mac Lowry could easily be labeled one of the nonprofit arts sector’s most significant figures of all time. No exaggeration. Lincoln Kirstein, co-founder of the New York City Ballet, described Lowry as “the single most influential patron of the performing arts that the American democratic system has produced.” By changing the financial incentives for artists, he directly helped to create an entire field of professional, nonprofit performing arts institutions. Thanks to Lowry, Ford became not only the first foundation to fund arts institutions on a large scale (making $249.8 million worth of arts grants 1957-1973, or nearly $2 billion in today’s dollars), but also the largest nongovernmental funder of the nonprofit performing arts.

In this position, the Ford Foundation was able to exert considerable influence on the sector. Bill Ivey notes that “the ‘Ford model’ remains the gold standard shaping intervention in America’s arts system.” Decades later, Ford is 5th on a list of the top 25 arts funders, which underscores how the number of foundations interested in the arts has grown over time, and the strength of Lowry’s legacy in philanthropy.

At the Ford Foundation, Lowry had been given wide latitude to try new things, with a significant amount of money. His success had always been boosted by internal support from McPeak, but in 1966 Ford welcomed one of its more liberal presidents, McGeorge Bundy, who came to Ford from the Johnson administration and his “Great Society” programs. Under Bundy’s leadership, Ford was an instigator of public-private philanthropy and Lowry was able to connect to the subsidy argument of federal support for the arts. Lowry later reflected that “a pervasive effect of the Ford program was the enlightenment that began to spread not only about the importance of nonprofit artistic enterprises, but more precisely their justification for subsidy.”

Lowry and his colleagues were able to ride a wave of public support and concern while acknowledging and working with, not against, broader political agendas. To Createquity, this insight seems critical to understanding why monumental change could take place when it did, and it raises the question of how such transformation could be possible in our current polarized political climate.

THREE ARTS PRESIDENTS AND A NANCY

With standoffs with Vladimir Putin and strikes at orchestras, theaters and beyond dominating modern newsfeeds, it is difficult to imagine a contemporary POTUS declaring the arts as a diplomatic weapon against Russia or sending the Secretary of Labor to personally mediate a dispute between a major arts institution and its workers. Yet in the late 1950s and early 1960s, that is exactly what happened.

As Lowry’s influence at Ford evolved, so did the operative role of the federal government in the arts. President Eisenhower, a Republican, advocated in his 1955 State of the Union address for the establishment of a Federal Advisory Commission on the Arts. This was cultural cold war: as one artistic director put it, “Eisenhower spoke of a lack of achievement in the cultural sphere: Who did we have to export in terms of ballet, opera and theatre companies? How could we compete with Russia, which had such a rich cultural spectrum of performing arts?”

Bolshoi Ballet Theatre in Moscow – photo by flickr user appaIoosa

Although Eisenhower was all talk and little action on the arts and no formal advisory body was created during his two terms, he did have one major accomplishment: the passing of the National Cultural Center Act of Congress in 1958, which would set the stage for the founding of a certain, prominent national performing arts center on the Potomac River thirteen years later.

Two years later, John F. Kennedy won the election with a party platform that included a brief mention of “a federal advisory agency to assist in the evaluation, development, and expansion of cultural resources.” Although he didn’t have a cultural agenda, the Kennedy Administration would be the one to finally elevate cultural policy to a national priority.

During his first year as President, Kennedy had the White House taking direct action in the arts. When the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 led a strike against The Metropolitan Opera during his first year in office, Kennedy sent Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg to arbitrate the salary dispute that had halted the current production season. While serving as the mediator in his office, Goldberg suggested that government funds be used to help settle the Met’s $840,000 debt (that would be more than $6.6 million federal dollars today used to bail out a private arts institution); it’s a safe bet today’s Congress would not get behind that.

Possibly influenced by Jacqueline Kennedy’s love for the arts, President Kennedy expanded his public support, saying, “The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is very close to the center of a nation’s purpose . . . and is a test of the quality of a nation’s civilization.” In contrast to Eisenhower’s cold war logic, Kennedy’s policy vision would position arts and culture as sources of national hope and solidarity, continuing to push toward both a national center and a federal agency for arts and culture.

President Kennedy was active in the arts right up until his shocking murder in Dallas. In 1963 alone, he emphasized the importance of national recognition of the arts in a speech at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College; established the Advisory Council on the Arts (not appointed until after his death); and commissioned a report by August Heckscher, director of the Twentieth Century Fund and his special consultant for the arts, on the relationship between the arts and the Federal government.

Together, these resources laid the foundation for the ultimate achievement in linking federal government to arts and culture, the signing of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johnson chose Roger Lacey Stevens, a Broadway producer who had led the fundraising efforts for the National Cultural Center (later renamed The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), as the NEA’s first Chairman and Special Assistant on the Arts.

NEH Chairman William Adams tours the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library exhibits – photo by the LBJ Foundation on flickr

Following Stevens’s brief inaugural tenure as NEA Chairman, Nancy Hanks (not the mother of the 16th President of the United States, for whom she is descended and named), was selected to head the search for his successor. After several prominent figures had turned the position down, Hanks herself was appointed by President Nixon in 1969; according to Stevens, “they were looking for some women for jobs.” She was a Southern Republican and a Duke University graduate who began her career as a DC receptionist and later gained White House experience as assistant to Nelson A. Rockefeller and his arts programs. Afterward, while on staff at The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Hanks published the influential report, The Performing Arts: Problems & Prospects (1965). By the end of the 1960s, she had both been named president of the Associated Council on the Arts (ACA) and diagnosed with cancer. She chose to remain unmarried and without children; she would later be deemed the mother of a million artists.

Amidst the burgeoning feminist movement, Hanks took the reins of a then-nascent NEA with grander aims for the agency. In her first six weeks at the helm of the NEA, she personally spoke to 200 Congressmen to advocate for her proposal to double the budget and to secure future appropriations for the nation’s bicentennial, which was more than six years ahead. Hanks was a sagacious power; her office became a lobbying machine.

She battled her cancer quietly while strongarming Congress, protecting NEA political territory, and preempting controversies for the agency. In 1970, when the NEA budget faced the ax, Hanks and her assistant individually cornered over 100 Congressmen and succeeded in swaying their votes. Julia Butler Hansen, a Democrat from Washington State and chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee during that term, said she needed to see letters from constituents to be convinced, so Hanks somehow got a form letter onto every theater seat in the country and, within a few weeks, had thousands of them into Hansen’s mailbox. When artists won prestigious prizes, Hanks would send out letters to the Representatives of their home states, reminding them that “good artists do not just happen.”

Hanks put a large emphasis on grants to institutions, which helped to make arts funding a bipartisan issue since many wealthy board members of symphonies and museums were Republicans like her. The concept of public subsidy for the arts was sold as a cure for the “cost disease” endemic to nonprofit arts organizations. Revenue and private donations alone could not support the sector, she believed; the income gap must be filled.

With an art-for-all-Americans ethos, Hanks supported a plentitude of smaller nonprofit arts organizations in newly funded areas such as crafts. Additionally, Hanks played an instrumental role in establishing the Arts Council of Americas to unite the more than 50 community arts councils already in existence and in expanding the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies in order to have a well-funded state council in every state and territory in the U.S. Much of the NEA’s funding was designated to run through these state councils.

Later in her tenure Hanks authorized the NEA Challenge Grants, which demanded matching contributions to leverage investment from the private sector. This was a strategy similar to those of the Ford Foundation in the 1960s and the Johnson Administration’s War on Poverty.

Before Hanks, the NEA was more of a figurehead organization with a modest budget; by 1976, it was the largest institutional funder of the arts in the country. In brief, she was the savviest operator in the NEA’s history. She served two terms as the NEA chair until her resignation in 1977, and she died of her cancer six years later at age 55. A mere three weeks after her passing, President Reagan (whose economic policies were threatening the existence of the NEA and NEH at the time) signed a law renaming NEA and NEH’s erstwhile home, the Old Post Office, in Washington, D.C. the Nancy Hanks Center.

Go to Theatre Week, 1922 – photo by Washington State Library

HOW LOWRY AND HANKS CHANGED THE ARTS NONPROFIT SECTOR FOREVER

Neither Lowry nor Hanks saw themselves as artists (Hanks said her only art form was “needlepoint typewriter covers”; others said that it clearly persuasion), yet both were passionate in building towards a new arts vision for America, supporting and connecting artists nationwide. They were willing to defy the expectations and design of their jobs in order to create financial and structural support for artists. Both traveled the country for the cause; Lowry to discover promising artistic directors, and Hanks to advocate on their behalf.

Their combined legacy was to establish the current shape of the nonprofit arts sector and its mechanisms of funding. Importantly, both the Ford Foundation and the federal government brought vast new resources to the arts funding table, and directed those resources almost exclusively to nonprofit arts organizations. In doing so, not only did Lowry and Hanks catalyze the arts 501(c)(3) boom, they created the common practice of matching grants, the growth and coordination of local arts agencies, the use of grant panels, the rise of grantwriter-as-paid-employee in arts institution, and more. The influence of each can be seen in the geographic spread of infrastructure to support the arts across the country — regional theaters, dance companies, and symphony orchestras in Lowry’s case, and arts councils in Hanks’s.

They engineered the initial professionalization of the field. Publications and conferences, like those of the Theatre Communications Group which Lowry first convened, declared and disseminated best practices. The effect of these deliberate acts was characteristic of the organizational ecology concept of “legitimation”: as a particular type of organization becomes more accepted, it is established more and more frequently. By the mid-1970s, the nonprofit was set as the expected and dominant legal structure for new arts organizations.

We approached this research wanting to learn how change happens; we didn’t intend to dwell on whether the change has been good or bad. That said, there are several aspects of the arts ecosystem in America today that seem to have been shaped by from the transformation fostered by Lowry, Hanks, Kennedy, and others in the middle of the 20th century.

There is more, more, more

The timing of the boom differed by discipline, but all disciplines saw sustained growth when they began to embrace the nonprofit structure. Overall, despite government funding cuts, Reaganomics and the culture wars, the leveling of private funding, and periodic recessions since the 1980-90s, the number of arts nonprofit organizations has shown continued, though slowing, growth.

What does that growth tell us about the number of people being served by these organizations, or about the amount of art available in general? We know that as the nonprofit arts sector grows it employs more individuals; however, it is unclear whether more artists are getting paid to make art, or if there are more opportunities for artists to work as administrators, or whether more money is going to hire arts managers and educators.

Did the increase in the number of arts organizations contribute to higher levels of arts attendance? Several reports show increased activity in certain disciplines during the 1960-1980s, but it is unclear whether the number of arts products/activities actually increased, or if it was just that more arts experiences were made professional or formal in ways that allowed them to be counted.

What we do know is that as the growth of the sector appears to have yielded more opportunities and inclination for people to experience the arts. For example, there have been rising rates of spending on arts experiences in relation to total leisure spending, which can be attributed to the fact that increased institutional grant support opened up new markets.

Opportunities for (nonprofit) arts participation are available across the country

Before Lowry and Hanks, almost all professional performing arts companies were in New York City and other metropolitan hubs on the East Coast, but the geographic spread of institutional funding starting in the 1960s has supplied arts, especially performing arts, outside of major metropolises into towns where the arts are not as commercially viable. During Hanks’s tenure, NEA grants found their way into all 50 states and six U.S. territories. Analysis by the NEA performed in both 1982 and 1992 on the division between nonprofit and commercial performing arts companies showed that nonprofit organizations represented higher percentages of the sector in areas that were not centers for commercial performance.

American art is now much more than Eurocentric symphonies, museums and theaters

The notion that we should remove barriers to access of the arts is now widely accepted and seems to be a legacy of Hanks’s ethos. During the 1970s-1990s, the boomers worked to democratize the arts: careers, patronage and participation. The sector’s expansion started in the professional performing arts but then grew to support a broader range of genres and disciplines, and it’s likely that this has made a stronger mix of cultural products available to society today. Although Lowry’s early efforts were focused on professional theater, music, and dance, once the funding infrastructure was in place and the category of nonprofit arts was established, the momentum provided by the new structures and incentives fostered demands to support other artistic disciplines, and, later, the inclusion of a broader range of artistic endeavors.

“Heard” by Nick Cave, Grand Central Terminal, March 2013 – photo by flickr user j-No

The U.S. arts ecosystem is still striving for equity

Although more resources are available to support cultural activity since before the nonprofit arts sector boom, the nonprofit system seems to have benefited European cultural traditions more than others, and white artists more than artists of color. It has legitimately been observed that arts genres that have been accepted as high culture for longer periods have adopted the nonprofit form in greater numbers, whereas cultural forms that have more recently come to be seen as important have been more likely to be commercial. In 1979, only 4% of NEA grant funds were going to black arts organizations, almost exclusively through its Expansion Arts initiative. In 1994, Elizabeth Broun, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, was appalled to realize that “for 135 years after the founding of the federal art collections in 1829, no work by a black American was represented in the nation’s holdings.”

It seems that movement toward true equity in the nonprofit arts sector has been weak, slow, incomplete, or put in the hands of large institutions as part a community engagement trickle-down scenario. Issues of equity in funding, leadership and audiences by race, gender, disability, etc. have manifested differently in different disciplines, but important questions linger on whether the growth of the nonprofit sector has brought with it a growth of inequality.

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

The story of Lowry and Hanks is the story of the establishment. They were two individuals who, welcomed into institutions of wealth, power, and (white privilege), adroitly navigated those spaces in a mission to do good across the arts sector. Yet as more and more arts nonprofits sprung up over generations, the metrics they established spread like a gospel of the arts, not recognizing the full array of cultural expression people were already employing. It seems safe to assume that white cultural traditions were more robustly promoted and supported by Lowry, Hanks and their allies, which is why it is important to note other schismatics who were integral to further developing and supporting the arts, to problematizing the relationship between nonprofit and commercial artmaking, to diversifying access and opportunity in the field, to utilizing technology, and to increasing popularity and new audiences for the arts. Influencers and moments of change like these will be explored in upcoming Createquity features.

Many of the sector’s successes, as well as its intractable issues, stem from the dominance of the nonprofit arts model which was driven by those formative actions in the 1950s-1960s. Lowry and his peers deliberately sought to create a healthier arts ecosystem by strengthening and professionalizing arts institutions. Yet the question is worth asking whether most institutions, thus professionalized, tend to prioritize their own preservation. Createquity’s definition of a healthy arts ecosystem asserts that “To the extent that any element within the infrastructure is unwilling or unable to put the goal of improving people’s lives in concrete and meaningful ways first, it’s acting as a drag on the system’s capacity to change for the better. We see this problem manifesting in a number of ways, including the reluctance of cultural institutions to prioritize the interests of the ecosystem as a whole ahead of their own prosperity…” Will future changemakers be the ones who, like Lowry, are able to prioritize the entire arts ecosystem over their own institutions?

This is just the first of many articles on the capacity to create change in the arts ecosystem. We invite you to get involved in this journey by joining us for a #CreatequityAsks Twitter chat on how change happens on March 17th from 7:30-8:30pm Eastern.

Add to Calendar: Outlook – Google – Yahoo – Outlook.com – Apple Calendar

Graphic: The Boom in U.S. Nonprofits / The U.S. Arts Nonprofit Growth Spurt

Reliable longitudinal data on the size of the nonprofit arts sector is difficult to come by for this period. In his 1984 essay, “The Nonprofit Instrument and the Influence of the Marketplace,” Paul DiMaggio turns to founding dates of nonprofits arts organizations to demonstrate this early boom in the sector. He points out that of the 165 theatres in TGC’s Theatre Profiles IV, 87 percent were founded after 1960. He cites data in an article by Leila Sussman which examines the dance companies listed in a 1979 issue of Dance Annual and finds that 89 percent had been founded in the preceding 10 years. DiMaggio also cites a survey of New York State arts organizations, undertaken by the National Research Center for the Arts in 1975, wherein 54 percent of theatres, 58 percent of musical groups, 91 percent of dance companies, 90 percent of visual arts organizations, and 84 percent of local arts agencies had been founded in the 1960s and 70s (this data is not included in our graphic above). He also cites statistics from “national sample of art museums” that says that more than a third of them did not exists before 1960. Our data on operas and folk arts organizations is taken from other sources. In a 1993 book, James Heilbrun provides statistics on organizations in a number of disciplines. He cites data about “All Opera” companies from Central Opera Service, with 648 operas listed in 1970, and 1285 listed in 1990. Information about folk arts organizations comes from an NEA report published in 1996 about nonprofit folk arts orgs. Of 23 organizations included in the report, 19 had been founded since the 1960s.

1. Throughout the early periods of the American arts ecosystem, numerous individuals and groups had great influence, including:

• James Smithson and his $500,000 bequest to the United States of America to found the Smithsonian Institution.
• John Jay, a lawyer who rallied elites to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which would grow to have the largest endowment of any American cultural institution.
• The sociedades mutualistas formed by Mexican Americans starting in the 1870s, in which traditional arts were prominent activities much like the mutual aid societies established by African, Asian, and European Americans.
• Jane Addams, the first American woman and second woman ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, who launched a social settlement in Chicago where the arts were infused into the pursuit of social reform and wellbeing.
• Actors Equity Association (AEA), a social club turned labor union, founded “…not [as] a revolutionary body with anarchistic tendencies. / rather, a clearing house for a freer exchange of thought between artist and manager…” (Actors Equity Magazine 1915).
• Alain LeRoy Locke, the first African American Rhodes Scholar, who by bringing together artists with publicity and patronage such as that of businessman Julius Rosenwald, is part of a cohort to spearhead the Harlem Renaissance, a movement for black self-determination and cultural affirmation.
• The creators of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and Act of 1935 protecting Native American cultural products and heritage.
• The nation’s first local arts councils such as the Quincy, Illinois Society of Fine Arts and the Winston-Salem Arts Council, a case of the arts utilized by the local Junior League as a distraction from racial issues in the South.

2. Looking at the rate of consumer spending on performing arts experiences (a somewhat problematic proxy for arts engagement, but one of the only ones available for some earlier period) sheds some light on how Americans’ participation rates have changed over time. In their landmark 1966 book Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, economists Baumol and Bowen point out that even though it was popular in the press at the time to describe a cultural boom, the actual rate of spending on performing arts activities fell 25% between 1929 and 1963 when corrected for population growth, inflation, and economic growth, while spending on other cultural goods like sound recordings and sports grew during that time. A 2001 book by Heilbrun, The Economics of Arts and Culture, takes a similar tactic, looking at consumer spending on the performing arts as a percentage of total disposable income, effectively controlling for rises in the latter. There is evidence that the “cultural boom” that Baumol and Bowen had not found evidence for in the early 60s, was taking place from 1975 and 1990. In that period, the percentage of disposable income spent on the performing arts experienced a turn-around and began to rise. Heilbrun says, “After reaching a low of less than 7 cents per $100 of DPI [Disposable personal income] in the mid-1970s, consumer spending on the performing arts rose to 9.1 cents per $100 in 1980 and 13.4 cents in 1990… between 1975 and 1990 consumer expenditure on the performing arts increased almost exactly twice as fast as DPI.” (21) In fact, it rose even faster than the percentage of spending on motion pictures and sporting events. Heilbrun posits that this is a result of the subsidies made available in the 1950s and 1960s through the nonprofit ecosystem. These funds enabled to the creation (or expansion) of nonprofit arts institutions outside of major cities, where large numbers of arts organizations were not supportable by consumer spending (or even local wealthy patrons) alone. The new participation opportunities these groups offered met “latent demand” in these new geographic areas. Heilbrun does note that rising ticket prices are likely also a part of this overall increase in spending, especially after 1985.

3. Researchers sometimes examine the division between nonprofit and commercial activity in the arts as a way to isolate the effects of nonprofit status. In both 1982 and 1992 the NEA performed such an analysis on performing arts organizations. Within the list of states with higher rates of commercial performing arts activities, it’s easy to recognize the influence of industries which do not depend on reaching local audiences, like the music and film industries in Nashville Los Angeles. Even commercial hubs which do provide person experiences like Las Vegas and New York, are made possibly and marketed toward large numbers of tourists. These numbers demonstrate that the nonprofit infrastructure has been an important factor when it comes to providing live artistic experiences in areas without a large influx of travelers.

4. In his 2006 study “The Intersectoral Division of Labor in the Arts,” Paul DiMaggio looks at the division of nonprofit and commercial arts by discipline, using data from the US Economic Census from 1997. One striking divide is between disciplines that have been historically considered more prestigious like museums and orchestras (almost entirely nonprofit), and disciplines that are more recently recognized for their artistic merits like jazz and ethnic dance (more predominantly commercial). While one could make the argument that jazz and ethnic dance are inherently more commercially viable, it seems more likely that they are in fact, inherently more difficult to find subsidy for within the nonprofit infrastructure. Dimaggio does note that the creation of the NEA and other state and local government funding sources did help to expand the narrowness of the early funding efforts in the 1960s, though the predominance of high culture in the nonprofit sphere remains.

5. The vibrant yet flawed nonprofit arts ecology we have today exists thanks to individuals and groups who have challenged, spread, diversified, and redefined the sector in the last half century. Some of these agents of change include:

• Claudine Brown, Assistant Secretary for Education and Access for the Smithsonian Institution, former director of the National African American Museum Project and the arts and culture program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and former instructor to many of today’s “managers at art, history, natural history, science and children’s museums throughout the country.”
• Judith Jamison, who alongside others brought financial stability to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater through increased funding, novel corporate agreements, and a 50th anniversary campaign that grew the endowment to $50 million, carrying forward Ailey’s visionary company which “changed forever the perception of American dance.”
• The politically motivated, important artists of the Black Arts Movement (1965-1975).
• John Goberman, creator and executive producer of Live from Lincoln Center. “We have discovered that television, far from undermining live performances, whets the viewer’s appetite for more” (NEA Annual Report 1980).
• The Apollo, which switched to nonprofit status in 1991.
• Karen Finley, Tim Miller, Holly Hughes, and John Fleck aka the “NEA Four” who filed suit when their NEA grants were vetoed in 1990, even after passing peer-review panels. The case caused the NEA to eliminate grants to individual artists in 1994.
• Asian Women’s Giving Circle, the first and largest giving circle in the nation led by Asian American women, promoting grassroots philanthropy.
• Claire Lomax Esq., CEO of the Lomax Family Foundation, one of the nation’s leaders in black philanthropy.
• Franny Armstrong who in 2004 was one of the first artists to use an online donation system for her work, a feature film entitled The Age of Stupid.
• Dr. Robert Gumbiner who left the Museum of Latin American Art with a $25 million endowment upon his death in 2009.

FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, J. (1993, June 7). W. McNeil Lowry Is Dead; Patron of the Arts Was 80. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/07/obituaries/w-mcneil-lowry-is-dead-patron-of-the-arts-was-80.html

Bennett, J. T. (2016). Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class. Transaction Publishers.

Binkiewicz, D. M. (2009). Directions in Arts Policy History. Journal of Policy History, 21(4), 424–430.

Blau, J. R. (1991). The Disjunctive History of U.S. Museums, 1869-1980. Social Forces, 70(1), 87–105. http://doi.org/10.2307/2580063

National Center for Charitable Statistics. (2015) Business Master File.. Retrieved January 3, 2016, from http://nccsweb.urban.org/tablewiz/bmf.php

Bogaert, S., Boone, C., Negro, G., & Witteloostuijn, A. van. (2014). Organizational Form Emergence A Meta-Analysis of the Ecological Theory of Legitimation. Journal of Management, 0149206314527129. http://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314527129

Burns, J. S. (1975). The Awkward Embrace: The Creative Artist and the Institution in America (1st edition). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Chartrand, H. H. (2000). Toward an American arts industry. The Public Life of the Arts in America, 22–49.

Cherbo, J. M., & Wyszomirski, M. J. (2000). The Public Life of the Arts in America. Rutgers University Press.

Clayton, Lord. (2015). Arts & America: 1780-2015. In Arts & America (pp. 1–36). Americans for the Arts.

Cultural economics: the arts, the heritage and the media industries. Volume 2. (1997).

DiMaggio, P. J. (1984). The Nonprofit Instrument and the Influence of the Marketplace on Policies in the Arts. In The Arts and Public Policy in the United States (pp. 57 – 99). Prentice-Hall.

DiMaggio, P. J. (2006). Nonprofit organizations and the intersectoral division of labor in the arts. In W. W. Powell & Ri. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). Yale University Press.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Anheier, H. K. (1990). The Sociology of Nonprofit Organizations and Sectors. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 137–159.

O’Quinn, J. (2005). Going National: How America’s Regional Theatre Movement Changed the Game. Theatre Communications Group. Retrieved from http://www.americantheatre.org/2015/06/16/going-national-how-americas-regional-theatre-movement-changed-the-game/

Gray, C. M., & Heilbrun, J. (2000). Economics of the Nonprofit Arts. The Public Life of the Arts in America, 202.

Hall, C. (1983, January 10). Nancy Hanks’ Gentle Persuasion. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1983/01/10/nancy-hanks-gentle-persuasion/b6b3b39e-7505-404b-9732-75e29a2baee5/

Hall, P. D. (2001). “ Inventing the Nonprofit Sector” and Other Essays on Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Nonprofit Organizations. JHU Press.

Hall, P. D. (2005). Historical perspectives on nonprofit organizations in the United States. The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, 2, 3–38.

Hall, P. D. (2006). A historical overview of philanthropy, voluntary associations, and nonprofit organizations in the United States, 1600–2000. The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, 2, 32–65.

Hammack, D. C. (2002). Nonprofit Organizations in American History Research Opportunities and Sources. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(11), 1638–1674. http://doi.org/10.1177/0002764202045011004

Hanks, N. (1965). The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects. Rockefeller Brothers’ Panel Report on the Future of Theatre, Dance, Music in America. Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund. Retrieved from http://images.library.wisc.edu/Arts/EFacs/ArtsSoc/ArtsSocv03i3/reference/arts.artssocv03i3.rockefeller.pdf

Heilbrun, J., & Gray, C. M. (1993). The economics of art and culture: an American perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heilbrun, J., & Gray, C. M. (2001). The Economics of Art and Culture (Second). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ivey, B. (2005). America needs a new system for supporting the arts. Chronicle of Higher Education, 51(22), B6–B9. Retrieved from www.vanderbilt.edu/curbcenter/cms-wp/wp-content/uploads/Ivey_New_Approach_to_Funding_the_Arts.pdf

Kreidler, J. (1996). Leverage Lost: The Nonprofit Arts in the Post-Ford Era. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 26(2), 79–100. http://doi.org/10.1080/10632921.1996.9942956

Lowry, W. M. (Ed.). (1984). The Arts and Public Policy in the United States. The American Assembly.

Maier, F., Meyer, M., & Steinbereithner, M. (2014). Nonprofit Organizations Becoming Business-Like A Systematic Review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. http://doi.org/10.1177/0899764014561796

McCarthy, K. D. (1984). American Cultural Philanthropy: Past, Present, and Future. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 471, 13–26.

McNeil Lowry, W. (2003). The Arts and Philanthrophy: Motives that prompt the philanthropic act. GIA Reader, 14(3). Retrieved from http://www.giarts.org/article/arts-and-philanthrophy

Nadel, N. (1977, September 22). Nancy Hanks Leaving Mark on the Arts. The Pittsburgh Press, p. A18. Pittsburgh, PA.

Nancy Hanks Facts. (n.d.). In YourDictionary. LoveToKnow Corporation. Retrieved from http://biography.yourdictionary.com/nancy-hanks#7JDbVG307utbjwsS.99

National Endowment of the Arts. (1998). Count of Performing Arts Organizations Up by Over 30 %, 1987 – 1992 (Research Division Notes No. 62). Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/62.pdf

National Endowment for the Arts. (1998). The Performing Arts Spread Out: Geography of Performing Arts Organizations, 1992 (Note # 63). Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/63.pdf

National Endowment of the Arts. (2013). Birth and mortality rates of arts and cultural organizations (ACOs), 1990-2010. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Research-Art-Works-Harvard.pdf

Novick, R. (2011). Please, Don’t Start a Theatre Company! Next Generation Arts Institutions and Alternate Career Paths. GIA Reader, 22(1). Retrieved from http://www.giarts.org/article/please-dont-start-theater-company

O’Neill, M. (2002). Nonprofit Nation: A New Look at the Third America. John Wiley & Sons.

Peterson, B. (1996). The changing faces of tradition : a report on the folk and traditional arts in the United States /. Washington, DC : National Endowment for the Arts.

Powell, W. W., & Steinberg, R. (2006). The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook. Yale University Press.

Ragsdale, D. (2011, May 16). L3C Cha-Cha-Cha. Retrieved from http://blog.americansforthearts.org/2011/05/16/l3c-cha-cha-cha

Saxon, W. (1983, January 8). NANCY HANKS DEAD AT 55; HEADED NATIONAL ARTS GROUP. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/08/obituaries/nancy-hanks-dead-at-55-headed-national-arts-group.html

Straight, M. (1988). Nancy Hanks, An Intimate Portrait: The Creation of a National Commitment to the Arts (1st edition). Durham N.C.: Duke University Press Books.

Sussmann, L. (1984). Anatomy of the Dance Company Boom, 1958-1980. Dance Research Journal, 16(2), 23–28. http://doi.org/10.2307/1478719

Wyszomirski, M. (1999). Philanthropy and Culture: Patterns, context, and change. In Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America (pp. 461–479). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Wyszomirski, M. J. (2013). Shaping a triple-bottom line for nonprofit arts organizations: Micro-, macro-, and meta-policy influences. Cultural Trends, 22(3/4), 156–166. http://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2013.817645

GIF Animation Photo Credit

LC-USZC4-6410: American Revolution. Evacuation of Boston by the British, by National Museum of the U.S. Navy https://flic.kr/p/sxjuD6

Confederate Possession in Civil War America by Victoria Wynn https://flic.kr/p/vVPyXJ

“U.S. Is Voted Dry.” by Thomas Cizauskas https://flic.kr/p/Cfa2Cd

Dance to the Duke by StudioMONDO https://flic.kr/p/pv3Ddh

Harlem club map from 1930s detail by Rik Panganiban https://flic.kr/p/8toWkh

Fairfax Bomber Factory worker on B-25 by Sms_S https://flic.kr/p/DJDzc5

1950s wood panel on a Ford Country Squire by Mr. Gray https://flic.kr/p/DumSR5

“Brooklyn Graffiti / Dumbo Arts Center: Art Under the Bridge Festival 2009” by See-ming Lee

Title: Leverage Lost: The Nonprofit Arts in the Post-Ford Era

Author(s): John Kreidler

Publisher: The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society (republished in Grantmakers in the Arts Reader)

Year: 1996

URL: http://www.giarts.org/article/leverage-lost

Topics: Nonprofit sector, arts philanthropy, arts sector history

Methods: Historical analysis and review

What it says: In Leverage Lost, John Kreidler examines the history of the nonprofit arts sector and distinguishes between three eras: the Pre-Ford Industrial Revolution (to 1957), the Ford Era (1957 – 1990), and the Post-Ford Era (1990 – publication of the article in 1996). The first stage is characterized by individual proprietorships as the dominant model for arts creation and growth in public participation in arts. Kreidler ties this growth to several large scale changes taking place in American society, including the rise of public education, increasing prosperity, demographic shifts towards a larger and more urban population, increased leisure time, and changes in societal values towards greater public expressiveness. Kreidler also notes that arts production in this era and the next was enabled by the willingness of artists to work for less compensation than professionals in other sectors. Towards the end of this period, new technologies like film and television increased the competition faced by live performance groups and high art organizations began to adopt the nonprofit model, primarily funded by a mix of ticket revenues and donations from individuals.

Kreidler’s analysis of the period from 1957 to 1990 focuses on the arts grantmaking strategy of the Ford Foundation, led by vice president W. McNeil Lowry. The Ford Foundations’s entry into arts grantmaking took place against the backdrop of the cold war, and the growing sentiment that America needed cultural products of higher quality to complement its economic and political might. Ford made investments designed to revitalize major arts institutions, enhance arts schools, establish and advance regional nonprofit arts organizations, and create national arts service organizations. The Foundation used a strategy of matching grants and time-limited funds designed to leverage additional arts funding from other sources. Kriedler identifies Ford’s strategy, and its subsequent adoption by other institutional funders around the country, as the main catalyst of the massive growth of the non-profit arts sector in this era. The article also notes that staff from the Ford Foundation also played in a role in advocacy for the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts, which uses similar leverage strategies in its own grantmaking to this day.

In Kreidler’s view, The Post-Ford Era (1990 to publication of Leverage Lost in 1996) is characterized by rising labor costs within the sector and an inevitable end to the growth of institutional arts funding. Kreidler attributes the decline in cheap labor to the increasing salary needs of arts professionals as they age, as well as higher earnings expectations of younger workers.These reversals, accompanied by apparently decreasing demand for the services of nonprofit arts organizations, lead Kreidler to ask whether the nonprofit arts model is viable for the long term. He predicts an eventual decline in available funding and subsequent numbers of arts nonprofits, with small and medium sized organizations hit hardest.

What I think about it: A piece of well-informed commentary rather than a rigorous research study, Kreidler’s article puts the current system of nonprofit arts funding into needed historical context, reminding us how recently it was developed, and that the conditions that led to its rapid growth are not necessarily permanent. Kreidler constructs his historical narrative around the importance of a single actor, the Ford Foundation, which is compellingly articulated if not conclusively proven.

His description of trends in the current era seem to be based mostly on personal experience and observation, and are also deeply specific to the particular moment the article was written. Many of the major reversals in factors like leisure time, prosperity, and societal values he touches upon have not come to pass to the extent that he predicts. None of this detracts from the value of providing historical context for the sector, or from Kreidler’s main point that the strategies and conditions that successfully jump started the growth of nonprofit arts movement will not necessarily be sustained indefinitely.

What it all means: Kreider’s historical analysis and his discussion of the nonprofit arts sectors as a dynamic system make this a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the future of the arts in America. While not all of his commentary on trends in the mid-90s remains relevant, the major questions he raises about the future of the nonprofit model and the ability of the funding community, or any central actor, to exert leverage on the scale of the Ford Foundation in the 1950s remain central to health of the arts ecosystem.

Card Catalog 2 by Megan Amaral

Createquity is looking for resources about the increase in support and recognition available to artistic disciplines and traditions pursued by artists or communities of color, within the last 50 years in the US.

Arts institutions and organizations that constitute the core of the formally recognized “cultural sector” were–and continue to be–dominated by euro-centric artists and art forms. While this bias still persists, the definition of what counts as art, and what is deemed worthy of study and support by formal institutions, appears to have expanded considerably over the past 50 years.

Createquity is investigating this shift as part of our larger project on the history of change in the arts ecosystem, with an emphasis on the role of changemakers. A few of the questions we will be exploring in this research process are:

• How much has the amount of monetary support and recognition available for these activities changed from the 1950s – today?
• Who are some of the most important changemakers from within these artistic communities who have organized to increase the visibility of their work and their peers?
• How did they gain attention or resources for their activities beyond the norm for their time?

We would appreciate any suggestions you have about resources or topics we should explore. You can respond here, or write to us directly at info@createquity.com. A couple of the resources already on our list are below, to provide an idea of what we are looking for.

Marta Moreno Vega. (1993). Voices from the Battlefront: Achieving Cultural Equity. Trenton, N.J: Africa World Pr.

Matlon, M. P., Ingrid Van Haastrecht, & Kaitlyn Wittig Mengüç. (2014). Figuring the Plural: Needs and Supports of Canadian and US Ethnocultural Arts Organizations. Chicago, IL: Plural.

Holly Sidford. (2011). Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

Books! by Kirrus

Happy New Year, Createquity Insiders! We are starting the year off productively with plans to launch two feature articles later this month. We’re also in the process of choosing our next research investigations. Stay tuned. And now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Television Watching and Wellbeing

We are putting the pieces together on our feature article for TV and wellbeing and clarifying our takeaways from our review of the literature. Here is the full list of sources we’ve reviewed thus far for the forthcoming article:

Bowman, S. (2006). Television-viewing characteristics of adults: correlations to eating practices and overweight and health status. Preventing Chronic Disease, 3(2). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16539779

Bruni, L., & Stanca, L. (2008). Watching Alone: Relational goods, television, and happiness. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 65(3-4), 506–528. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268106002095

Cardwell, S. (2014). Television Amongst Friends: Medium, Art, Media. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 9(3), 6–21. Retrieved from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/manup/cstv/2014/00000009/00000003/art00002

Dempsey, P., Howard, B., Lynch, B., Owen, N., & Dunstan, D. W. (2014). Associations of television viewing time with adults’ well-being and vitality. Preventative Medicine.

Dunstan, D., Barr, E., Healy, G., Shaw, J., Balkau, B., Magliano, D., … Owen, N. (2010). Television viewing time and mortality: the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study (AusDiab). Circulation, 121(3), 384–91. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20065160

Guetzkow, J. (2002). How the Arts Impact Communities: An Introduction to the Literature on Arts Impact Studies (Working Paper Series No. 20). Taking the Measure of Culture Conference: Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. Retrieved from https://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap/WP20%20-%20Guetzkow.pdf

Gupta, V., Nwosa, N., Nadel, T., & Inamdar, S. (2001). Externalizing behaviors and television viewing in children of low-income minority parents. Clinical Pediatrics, 40(6), 337–41. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11824177

Harlow, B. (2015). Staying Relevant in a Changing Neighborhood: How Fleisher Art Memorial is Adapting to Shifting Community Demographics (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). New York, NY: Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Staying-Relevant-in-a-Changing-Neighborhood-How-Fleisher-Art-Memorial-is-Adapting-to-Shifting-Community-Demographics.pdf

Harlow, B., & Cox Roman, C. (2015). Someone Who Speaks Their Language: How a Nontraditional Partner Brought New Audiences to Minnesota Opera (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). New York, NY: Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Someone-Who-Speaks-Their-Language.pdf

Harlow, B., & Heywood, T. (2015a). Getting Past “It’s Not For People Like Us”: Pacific Northwest Ballet Builds a Following with Teens and Young Adults (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Getting-Past-Its-Not-For-People-Like-Us.pdf

Harlow, B., & Heywood, T. (2015b). Opening New Doors: Hands-on Participation Brings a New Audience to a Clay Studio (Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences). New York, NY: Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Opening-New-Doors-Hands-On-Participation-Brings-a-New-Audience-to-The-Clay-Studio.pdf

Hendriks Vettehen, P., Konig, R. P., Westerik, H., & Beentjes, H. (2012). Explaining television choices: The influence of parents and partners. Poetics, 40(6), 565–585. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X12000605

Hoang, T. D., Reis, J., Zhu, N., Jacobs, D. R., Launer, L. J., Whitmer, R. A., … Yaffe, K. (2015). Effect of Early Adult Patterns of Physical Activity and Television Viewing on Midlife Cognitive Function. JAMA Psychiatry. Retrieved from http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2471270

Horvath, C. W. (n.d.). Measuring Television Addiction. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48(3). Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15506878jobem4803_3?journalCode=hbem20#.Vji50KL88gg

Jacobs, J., & Peacock, S. (2014). Editorial: “The Liveliest Medium”: Television’s Aesthetic Relationships With Other Arts. Critical Studies in Television, 9(3), 1–5. Retrieved from https://www.icahdq.org/pubs/Calls/liveliestmedium.asp

Jakes, R., Day, N., Luben, R., Oakes, S., Welch, A., Bingham, S., & Wareham, N. (2003). Television viewing and low participation in vigorous recreation are independently associated with obesity and markers of cardiovascular disease risk: EPIC-Norfolk population-based study. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 57(9), 1089–96. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12947427

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2006). Would You Be Happier if You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion. Science, 312(5782), 1908–1910. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/content/312/5782/1908.short

Kataria, M., & Regner, T. (2011). A Note on the Relationship Between Television Viewing and Individual Happiness. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 40(1), 53–58. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535710000892

Lampard, A., Jurkowski, J., & Davison, K. (2012). Social-cognitive predictors of low-income parents’ restriction of screen time among preschool-aged children. Health Education & Behavior: The Official Publication Of The Society For Public Health Education, 40(5), 526–30. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23239766

Lee, B., & Lee, R. S. (1995). How and Why People Watch TV: Implications for the Future of Interactive Television: Implications for the Future of Interactive Television. Journal of Advertising Research, 35(6). Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/242362719_How_and_why_people_watch_TV_Implications_for_the_future_of_interactive_television

Livingstone, S. (1998). Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation (Second). Routledge. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=0iIbwhcu1r4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

McCoy, C. A., & Scarborough, R. C. (2014). Watching “bad” television: Ironic consumption, camp, and guilty pleasures. Poetics, 47, 41–59. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X14000576

Muennig, P., Rosen, Z., & Johnson, G. (2013). Do the Psychological Risks Associated with Television Viewing Increase Mortality? Evidence from the 2008 General Social Survey – National Death Index dataset. Annals of Epidemiology, 23(6), 355–360. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662979/

Robinson, J. P., & Martin, S. (2008). What do Happy People Do? Social Indicators Research, 89(3), 565–571. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11205-008-9296-6

Romer, D., Jamieson, K. H., & Aday, S. (2003). Television News and the Cultivation of Fear of Crime. Journal of Communications, 53(1), 88–104. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2003.tb03007.x/abstract

Rosenstein, C. (2005). Diversity and Participation in the Arts: Insights from the Bay Area. The Urban Institute. Retrieved from http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/311252-Diversity-and-Participation-in-the-Arts.PDF

Schneider, L. (2013). A Note on Income Aspirations, Television, and Happiness. Kyklos, 66(2), 301–305. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/kykl.12022/abstract

Shuval, K., Gabriel, K. P., & Leonard, T. (2013). TV Viewing and BMI by Race/Ethnicity and Socio-Economic Status. PLOS. Retrieved from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0063579

Simons, N. (2015). TV drama as a social experience: An empirical investigation of the social dimensions of watching TV drama in the age of non-linear television. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 40(2), 219–236. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/279280934_TV_drama_as_a_social_experience_An_empirical_investigation_of_the_social_dimensions_of_watching_TV_drama_in_the_age_of_non-linear_television

Stevens, L. K. (1996). Motivating opera attendance : comparative qualitative research in 10 North American cities, 1996. Washington, D.C.: ArtsMarket Consulting. Retrieved from http://www.worldcat.org/title/motivating-opera-attendance-comparative-qualitative-research-in-10-north-american-cities-1996/oclc/35633527

Sussman, S., & Moran, M. B. (2013). Hidden addiction: Television. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(3), 125–132. Retrieved from http://www.akademiai.com/doi/pdf/10.1556/JBA.2.2013.008

Thompson, D., Matson, P., & Ellen, J. (2013). Television viewing in low-income latino children: variation by ethnic subgroup and English proficiency. Childhood Obesity, 9(1), 22–8. Retrieved from http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/chi.2012.0113

Uslaner, E. M. (1998). Social Capital, Television, and the “Mean World”: Trust, Optimism, and Civic Participation. Political Psychology, 19(3), 441–467. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3792173

van der Goot, M., Beentjes, J. W. J., & van Selm, M. (2015). Older adults’ television viewing as part of selection and compensation strategies. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 40(1), 93–111. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/277930457_Older_adults_television_viewing_as_part_of_selection_and_compensation_strategies

Wheeler, K. S. (2015). The relationships Between Television Viewing, Behaviors, Attachment, Loneliness, Depression, and Psychological Well-Being (Undergraduate Honors Thesis). Georgia Southern University, Georgia. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/honors-theses/98/

World Health Organization. (2012). Social Determinants of Health and Well-Being Among Young People.

Xu, J., Forman, C., Kim, J. B., & Van Ittersum, K. (2014). News Media Channels: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Mobile Phone Usage. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 97–112. Retrieved from http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jm.13.0198

History of Change in the Arts Ecosystem

We are also in the writing stage of our feature article exploring the history of change in the Arts Ecosystem. Here are the additional sources we reviewed in January for the forthcoming article:

Bogaert, S., Boone, C., Negro, G., & Witteloostuijn, A. van. (2014). Organizational Form Emergence A Meta-Analysis of the Ecological Theory of Legitimation. Journal of Management. http://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314527129

Burns, J. S. (1975). The Awkward Embrace: The Creative Artist and the Institution in America (1st edition). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Hanks, N. (1965). The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects. Rockefeller Brothers’ Panel Report on the Future of Theatre, Dance, Music in America. Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund. Retrieved from http://images.library.wisc.edu/Arts/EFacs/ArtsSoc/ArtsSocv03i3/reference/arts.artssocv03i3.rockefeller.pdf

National Endowment for the Arts. (1998). The Performing Arts Spread Out: Geography of Performing Arts Organizations, 1992(Research Division Note No. 63). Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/63.pdf

National Endowment of the Arts. (1998). Count of Performing Arts Organizations Up by Over 30 %, 1987 – 1992 (Research Division Note No. 62). Retrieved from https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/62.pdf

Novick, R. (2011). Please, don’t Start a Theatre Company! Next Generation Arts Institutions and Alternate Career Paths. GIA Reader, 22(1). Retrieved from http://www.giarts.org/article/please-dont-start-theater-company

O’Quinn, J. (2015). Going National: How America’s Regional Theatre Movement Changed the Game. American Theatre. Retrieved from http://www.americantheatre.org/2015/06/16/going-national-how-americas-regional-theatre-movement-changed-the-game/

Ragsdale, D. (2011, May 16). L3C Cha-Cha-Cha. Retrieved from http://blog.americansforthearts.org/2011/05/16/l3c-cha-cha-cha

Photo by Steve Hanna

History of change in the arts ecosystem

In December and early January we focused on reviewing resources uncovered in our initial literature search which provide a history of the larger nonprofit sector, as well as assembling data from multiple of these sources on the size of the nonprofit arts sector at different periods. We also returned to our original interviews with change makers in the arts sector for insights on the causes of this particular shift, and put out a call to our readers for additional resources which attempt to identify its most important drivers or weigh those drivers’ relative influence.

Here are a few additional resources we have reviewed this month that were not part of our original literature search.

Anderson, J. (1993, June 7). W. McNeil Lowry Is Dead; Patron of the Arts Was 80. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/07/obituaries/w-mcneil-lowry-is-dead-patron-of-the-arts-was-80.html

Blau, J. R. (1991). The Disjunctive History of U.S. Museums, 1869-1980. Social Forces,70(1), 87–105. http://doi.org/10.2307/2580063

Clayton, L. (2015). Arts & America: 1780-2015. In Arts & America (pp. 1–36). Americans for the Arts.

Heilbrun, J., & Gray, C. M. (2001). The Economics of Art and Culture (Second). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lowry, W M. (2003). The Arts and Philanthrophy:  Motives that prompt the philanthropic act.GIA Reader, 14(3). Retrieved from http://www.giarts.org/article/arts-and-philanthrophy

National Endowment of the Arts. (2013). Birth and mortality rates of arts and cultural organizations (ACOs), 1990-2010. Washington, D.C. Retrieved fromhttps://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Research-Art-Works-Harvard.pdf

For our examination of the expansion of the nonprofit arts sector, we have continued to prioritize and review resources identified in our initial scan of the literature (shared in our September research update) as well as a few additional sources:

DiMaggio, P. J. (2006) Nonprofit organizations and the intersectoral division of labor in the arts. In W. W. Powell & Ri. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). Yale University Press.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Anheier, H. K. (1990). The Sociology of Nonprofit Organizations and Sectors. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 137–159.

Lowry, W. M. (Ed.). (1984). The Arts and Public Policy in the United States. The American Assembly.

Wyszomirski, M. (1999). Philanthropy and Culture: Patterns, context, and change. In Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector in a Changing America (pp. 461–479). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Wyszomirski, M. J. (2013). Shaping a triple-bottom line for nonprofit arts organizations: Micro-, macro-, and meta-policy influences. Cultural Trends, 22(3/4), 156–166. http://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2013.817645

TV and wellbeing

For our next feature article following up on the findings from “Why Don’t They Come?,” we’ve been exploring the relationship between television viewing habits and wellbeing. Below is the latest draft of our internal report sharing findings from the literature reviewed thus far on this topic.

How good or bad is watching TV?

Is watching television associated with lower utility levels or life satisfaction than not watching television?

The evidence on whether television is good or bad is mixed and largely depends on what we think is most important for determining wellbeing. There is somewhat strong evidence to suggest that television is bad for physical health, depending on how credible we think the claim is that television causes obesity and other poor health outcomes, but more mixed evidence on whether it is bad for subjective wellbeing.

Evidence that television is bad for physical health:

• Associations with a more sedentary lifestyle, which is in turn associated with health problems. The relationship between obesity and television in children is an area of particular concern in the literature.
• Television may “crowd out” other, more social activities that are associated with higher life satisfaction
• In some older people (according to a qualitative interview-based Dutch study with older Americans) television is a “compensation” strategy for development and growing older, meaning that it takes the place of other, more meaningful activities as a coping mechanism for losing loved ones and losing abilities to participate in other activities.
• Television is associated with an increased risk of obesity and mortality not entirely explained by an increased tendency toward a sedentary lifestyle. Even among relatively healthy adults who meet the recommended level of daily physical activity, there is an increased tendency toward higher waist circumference and other indicators of poor health outcomes.

Evidence that television is not bad for life satisfaction and utility:

• Some authors suggest that people use television as a point to socialize, even with changes in technology and habits related to watching television
• Most of the interviewees in the Dutch qualitative study on selection and compensation reported that they selected watching television instead of using it as a compensation strategy to make up for things that they can no longer do.
• In contrast to evidence showing that television displaces more social activity and thus causes lower life satisfaction, when considered as a watching television vs. not watching television binary, two papers showed that watching television leads to higher life satisfaction than not watching television. This might be related to a basic level of income or comfort associated with having a television vs. not having a television.

Why do people with lower incomes and education levels tend to watch more TV than people with higher incomes and education levels?

We found several studies that consider the impact of higher television viewing on health outcomes in subgroups with higher levels of poverty than the rest of the population. These studies did not theorize why people of lower incomes tend to watch more television, but we might be able to draw some logical conclusions based on their discussions.

• People with lower incomes and less education are more likely to be unemployed and thus have more time to watch television
• Watching television is relatively inexpensive and more easily available to people
• Television doesn’t require advance planning, and thus might be more accessible to people who have more unpredictable schedules (like people who don’t know their work schedules far in advance)

With regard to the relationship between addiction and poverty, we found some strong agreement that television addiction exists, but little to suggest that it is tied to poverty. Several studies consider television, addiction, and its psychological implications, and the current consensus seems to be that television addiction does exist. One study found weak, not statistically significant evidence that less educated people showed more tendency to describing their television habits in a manner consistent with addiction to other substances. Further, these studies reference that people with one type of addiction are more likely to have other types of addictions. We could not find evidence or considerations of the magnitude of the problem of television addiction.

Do people with lower incomes and education levels watch different kinds of programming on TV than people with higher incomes and education levels? And does the type of programming make a difference with respect to how good or bad TV is for you?

We still can’t find any evidence on television type and its correlation with income or education level. We found one study that looked at how people justify the type of television they watch to themselves (in particular “bad” TV), which may vary by self-identified class. Another qualitative study considered how people make the choice to watch particular television programs, and found that childhood family and current household influences were strong determinants of what people choose to watch. If people are influenced by their parents’ television choices and if people at certain income levels tend to watch a genre of television, this might mean that those choices tend to carry on through generations.

The literature on how genre of television influence or are correlated with certain personality traits or behavior is a bit of a rabbit hole. For example, some types of television may create political biases, shape purchasing behavior, or increase aggression, depending on the type of television that people watch.

Since we know that low-SES people are more likely to watch television according to survey data, it is likely that they receive more of the negative impacts. There is a good portion of the literature devoted to how narrative techniques used in television are used to discuss race, class, and gender, and other literature devoted to how those discussions affect audiences. This literature is largely qualitative and discusses critical theory and theories of communication and how they relate to television.

Other literature suggests that it is likely that people are directly affected by what they watch on television and that it informs the way that they think about themselves. These studies draw on both empirical methods (public opinion polling, survey research, examining the effects of violent television on children’s behavior through direct observation), as well as critical theory about television and audience interpretation. According to Sonia Livingstone, author of several books and articles related to the effects of media consumption, “Psychologically it does not seem plausible that our assumptions, images, and knowledge of the world portrayed by television can be strictly separated from our assumptions, images, and knowledge of everyday life.”

Are people with different education/income levels more likely to derive different levels of utility from watching television?

We have found nothing to suggest that this might be the case, except for some evidence of a potential social desirability response in survey or interview responses among more educated people about television.

One study considered how increased hours spent watching television might exacerbate poor health outcomes for low income and some racial demographics, but did not find statistically significant evidence. Another way of thinking about differing impacts might be that since lower income people tend to watch more television, they are more at risk for poor health outcomes as a group.

How do the benefits or harms of watching television compare to those of attendance at arts events?

People who write about television and other activities seem to agree that relationship building, making connections within a community, and finding activities and work that are personally fulfilling are important components of meaningful activities. From what we’ve read about why people do or don’t attend arts events, it seems like people attend arts events do so because they fit all of those criteria (people like going with friends, go because they find them meaningful or enjoyable, and use them to feel connected to their communities). However, there is certainly some variation that underlies why and how people participate in arts events that might make attending arts events less beneficial for some people.

Television, on the other hand, probably fills some of these criteria for some people, but not for everyone. For example, in a study of elderly people on whether television is a choice among a set of meaningful events or whether they use television to take the place of events they can no longer participate in, some used it to compensate for losses and some selected it as a meaningful, fulfilling activity.

What makes poor and less-educated adults less likely to be interested in attending arts events, and should we be concerned about this lack of interest?

What do we know about why non-interested non-attendees are uninterested in attending arts events?

We looked at studies primarily from the Wallace Foundation explaining why groups of people systematically do not attend arts events, and found the following themes:

• Their friends don’t go. If people don’t have friends to go with them or don’t feel included in the activities happening at the opera, they are less likely to attend
• They feel excluded from arts organizations, or feel that they can’t relate to arts organizations’ content or productions
• Less available arts education among lower income people might make lower income people less interested in attending arts events.

Does the greater propensity of low-SES people to watch television rather than attend arts events typically reflect a conscious choice, a lack of awareness, or something else? If a choice, what’s behind that choice?

From studies that consider how making choices influences watching television:

• Some evidence to suggest that people watching television make a conscious choice to watch television from a set of meaningful activities, though not for everyone
• Strong evidence that household factors, such as spousal preference, children’s preference, parents’ preference, and friends influence television viewing choices
• Some evidence showing that people watch television because of social aspects related to discussion and shared viewing

While we could not find studies that explored the choice between television and arts events specifically, since television occupies a significant portion of time for Americans, it’s likely that some people are making the choice to watch television instead of attending an arts event, just as some are choosing to watch television instead of going grocery shopping.

“Qualitative research step by step” by Sam Ladner

This month we looked more closely at the idea of television addiction and the choices that people make with regard to their television viewing. The literature appears to agree that television addiction does exist, and that it describes a particular set of behaviors that resemble drug or alcohol addiction. We found that television choices are influenced by a variety of external factors, and the way that people justify or explain their television viewing to others is also affected by outside influences. The research indicates that for some people, television is a fulfilling activity that they actively choose from a set of other activities, but for others, television takes the place of other activities that would be more meaningful to them.

Gupta, V., Nwosa, N., Nadel, T., & Inamdar, S. (2001). Externalizing behaviors and television viewing in children of low-income minority parents. Clinical Pediatrics, 40(6), 337–41. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11824177

Hendriks Vettehen, P., Konig, R. P., Westerik, H., & Beentjes, H. (2012). Explaining television choices: The influence of parents and partners. Poetics, 40(6), 565–585. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X12000605

Horvath, C. W. (n.d.). Measuring Television Addiction. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48(3). Retrieved fromhttp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15506878jobem4803_3?journalCode=hbem20#.Vji50KL88gg

Lampard, A., Jurkowski, J., & Davison, K. (2012). Social-cognitive predictors of low-income parents’ restriction of screen time among preschool-aged children. Health Education & Behavior: The Official Publication Of The Society For Public Health Education, 40(5), 526–30. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23239766

McCoy, C. A., & Scarborough, R. C. (2014). Watching “bad” television: Ironic consumption, camp, and guilty pleasures. Poetics,47, 41–59. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X14000576

Simons, N. (2015). TV drama as a social experience: An empirical investigation of the social dimensions of watching TV drama in the age of non-linear television. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 40(2), 219–236. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/279280934_TV_drama_as_a_social_experience_An_empirical_investigation_of_the_social_dimensions_of_watching_TV_drama_in_the_age_of_non-linear_television

Sussman, S., & Moran, M. B. (2013). Hidden addiction: Television. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(3), 125–132. Retrieved from http://www.akademiai.com/doi/pdf/10.1556/JBA.2.2013.008

Thompson, D., Matson, P., & Ellen, J. (2013). Television viewing in low-income latino children: variation by ethnic subgroup and English proficiency. Childhood Obesity, 9(1), 22–8. Retrieved from http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/chi.2012.0113

Van der Goot, M., Beentjes, J. W. J., & van Selm, M. (2015). Older adults’ television viewing as part of selection and compensation strategies. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 40(1), 93–111. Retrieved fromhttp://www.researchgate.net/publication
/277930457_Older_adults_television_viewing_as_part_of_selection_and_compensation_strategies

Xu, J., Forman, C., Kim, J. B., & Van Ittersum, K. (2014). News Media Channels: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Mobile Phone Usage. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 97–112. Retrieved from http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jm.13.0198

We also began conducting phone interviews with adults of low socio-economic status to investigate why people make the choices they do when it comes to watching television vs. attending arts events. This qualitative information will help us to flesh out the preliminary conclusions we arrived at in our feature article “Why Don’t They Come?” So far the interviews have been quite revealing in terms of what types of programs people like and deem relevant, as well as identifying barriers to entry or participation. We are currently seeking more interviewees, so if you or someone you know is above the age of 25 and has achieved some college or less, please email info@createquity.com with the subject line “TV Watcher” and we will be happy to schedule a 30 minute phone interview. In exchange for your/their time we can offer a small sum.

Meanwhile, we continued our bibliographic research on the history of change in the arts ecosystem in two areas: the expansion of the nonprofit arts sector and technological change and the arts. Given the breadth of the topics we’re addressing in these reviews, we’ve started to narrow our focus somewhat by prioritizing certain turning points, trends and developments, based on our preliminary review of the available literature. In the expansion of the nonprofit sector we are focusing on the are the growth of private and public funding for arts nonprofits since 1950 and professionalization within the nonprofit arts sector. We are currently prioritizing and reviewing resources that were added to Zotero last month during our initial scan of the literature. In the technology area, our research has focused primarily on music this month. New additions to our Zotero library in this area include:

Aguiar, Luis, and Bertin Martens. “Digital Music Consumption on the Internet: Evidence from Clickstream Data.” Digital Economy Working Paper. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, 2013. tp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC79605.pdf.

Albright, Dann. “The Evolution of Music Consumption: How We Got Here.” MakeUseOf, April 30, 2015. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-evolution-of-music-consumption-how-we-got-here/.

Bahanovich, David, and Dennis Collopy. “Music Experience and Behaviour in Young People 2009 and 2011.” University of Hertfordshire’s Music and Entertainment Industries Research Group.

Bert Weijters, Frank Goedertier. “Online Music Consumption in Today’s Technological Context: Putting the Influence of Ethics in Perspective.” Journal of Business Ethics 124, no. 4 (2014): 537–50.

Beuscart, Jean-Samuel, and Thomas Couronné. “The Distribution of Online Reputation: Audience and Influence of Musicians on MySpace.” Proceedings of the Third International ICWSM Conference (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence), 2009.

“Edison Research Conducts First Ever Share of Ear Measurement For All Forms Of Online And Offline Audio – Edison Research.” http://www.edisonresearch.com/edison-research-conducts-first-ever-share-of-ear-measurement-for-all-forms-of-online-and-offline-audio/.

Huang, Chun-Yao. “File Sharing as a Form of Music Consumption.” International Journal of Electronic Commerce 9, no. 4 (July 1, 2005): 37–55.

“IFPI DIgital Music Report 2015: Charting the Path to Sustainable Growth,” 2015.
Madden, Mary. “The State of Music Online: Ten Years After Napster.” Pew Research Center, June 15, 2009. http://www.pewinternet.org/2009/06/15/the-state-of-music-online-ten-years-after-napster/.

Midem, and Nielsen. “The Hyper‐fragmentedworld of Music: Marketing Considerations and Revenue Maximisation,” 2011. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2011/hyper-fragmented-world-of-music.html.

Morris, Jeremy Wade. Selling Digital Music, Formatting Culture. Univ of California Press, 2015.
Nielsen. “2014 Nielsen Music U.S. Report,” 2014.

O’Hara, Kenton, Barry Brown, and Michael Bull, eds. “Investigating the Culture of Mobile Listening: From Walkman to iPod.” InConsuming Music Together: Social and Collaborative Aspects of Music Consumption Technologies. Springer Science & Business Media, 2006.

Prior, Nick. “The Rise of the New Amateurs: Popular Music, Digital Technology and the Fate of Cultural Production.” https://www.academia.edu/354591/The_Rise_of_the_New_Amateurs_Popular_Music_Digital_Technology_and_the_Fate_of_Cultural_Production.

Suskind, Alex. “15 Years After Napster: How the Music Service Changed the Industry.” The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/06/15-years-after-napster-how-the-music-service-changed-the-industry.html.

Tavana, Art. “Democracy of Sound: Is GarageBand Good for Music?” Pitchfork, September 30, 2015. http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/9728-democracy-of-sound-is-garageband-good-for-music/.

Tschmuck, Peter. “Is Streaming the Next Big Thing? – What Consumers Want | Music Business Research.” https://musicbusinessresearch.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/is-streaming-the-next-big-thing-what-consumers-want/.

Voida, Amy, Rebecca E. Grinter, and Nicholoas Ducheneaut. “Social Practices around iTunes.” In Consuming Music Together: Social and Collaborative Aspects of Music Consumption Technologies, edited by Kenton O’Hara and Barry Brown. Springer Science & Business Media, 2006.

Witt, Stephen. How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy. New York: Viking, 2015.

———. “The Man Who Broke the Music Business: The Dawn of Online Piracy.” The New Yorker, April 27, 2015.http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-broke-the-music-business.