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Learning from Cleveland

By Brian Hinrichs, Blogging Fellow / / Comments [1]

“How do we build the audiences of tomorrow?” The Cleveland Foundation and EmcArts recently posed that enormously challenging question to 12 Cleveland-based arts organizations as part of the Engaging the Future Program. The resulting audio postcards offer a fascinating range of responses, as one would expect from a group that includes museums, orchestras, dance groups, and community arts centers. Yet, while specific approaches may vary, the overarching narrative reveals that arts organizations trying to reach new audiences face many of the same challenges and more often than not are coming to similar conclusions. Here’s a look at some of the emerging trends and themes from the Cleveland audio postcards.

Change Starts at Home

Almost universally, the Cleveland interviewees cited the need to make audience development an internal, company-wide focus. It’s not just a marketing or programming thing, an administrative or artistic thing: reaching new audiences requires total organizational commitment. At Karamu House, that meant making outreach top-of-mind for everybody from “janitors to board members.” After moving to a new location, the Cleveland Play House decided to view audience development as an extension of every position. Verb Ballets implements the idea quite literally, with each company dancer assigned a personalized discount code to help recruit new audience members.

The recognition that audience engagement extends beyond the marketing department arises from changes impacting organizations across Cleveland and the nation. Numerous companies cited declining subscription sales and increasing single ticket sales. Engaging first time or sporadic buyers requires more than just a newspaper ad or brochure mailing. The solutions are still works in process, but some Cleveland companies are finding success with programming culturally relevant works, subsidizing tickets, and creating meaningful experiences beyond the artistic encounter. Acknowledging the very notion of a “work in process” is central, too, as change and positive growth require time, investment and openness to experimentation.

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Co-Creating With College Students Entices Younger Audiences

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Leave a Comment

Above, listen to the story of the Beck Center for the Arts’s new approaches to building the audiences of tomorrow.  This is one of 12 Audio Postcards about arts organizations generating new approaches to engaging younger and more culturally diverse audiences as participants in Engaging the Future, a program of EmcArts and the Cleveland Foundation.

Beck Center for the Arts was founded in 1933 in Lakewood Ohio as a community theater, but Artistic Director, Scott Spence, says “about 13 years ago we started to modify that, realizing that if we were going to be artistically competitive we would really have to take a step away from that model.”

Their audience is typical of other theaters, say Spence, “fairly white-bread… affluent, educated.” As they entered the Engaging the Future program, the Beck Center was asking itself about how “to find out where tomorrow’s audiences are coming from.” In particular, Spence was interested in engaging younger audiences.

In considering new approaches, Spence’s philosophy was “you’ve got to look under every rock and figure out how can I make what I do better? How can I invite other people to the dance?” This kind of new thinking led to a partnership with Baldwin Wallace, a local college with an acclaimed musical theater program.

Victoria Bussert, Director of the Music Theater for Baldwin Wallace College says, “I was looking for another experience that our students could have, specifically, working off-campus” and a partnership with Beck Center was a natural fit. Together, the Beck Center and Baldwin Wallace put together a production of Spring Awakening that was staffed by the Beck Center and cast with students from Baldwin Wallace.

The resulting production was a success for both. Spece says “25% of our huge gross was from student tickets. That tells you something is working.” Bussert was thrilled to be able to offer her students a professional experience during their time on campus. “I don’t know of another collaboration that exists this way,” she says, “ between a higher academic institution and a professional theater.”

By joining forces, the Beck Center and Baldwin Wallace created an experience that was authentically meaningful to both the students and audience. Spense says, “I think we can continue to make some magic together — I’m really excited.”

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NextGen QuickPoll Results!

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Comments [4]

In March, we conducted a “Quick Poll” for next generation leaders in the arts.  And now we’re back with the results!

Perhaps the most striking finding was that 80% of next generation leaders who self-reported working in highly innovative organizations see their organization as “one they’d want to move up in,” as compared to only 38% in non- or slightly innovative organizations.  With the high rate of turnover emerging as a major resources sinkhole, this points to an important possible relationship between the adaptive capacity of organizations and employee retention.

We also found that next generation leaders at highly innovative organizations were four times as likely to report seeing their ideas implemented and twice as likely to report bringing their “whole self” to work as opposed to “just a part.”  Next generation leaders at highly innovative organizations were also nearly five times more likely to report that their organization has “meaningful ways for employees to invest in themselves” than non- or slightly innovation organizations.

While this “Quick Poll” was not comprehensive enough for scientific analysis, we hope these results will add fuel to the fire that says investing in next generation leaders is essential to a culture of innovation and, ultimately, to weathering the difficult conditions facing arts organizations right now.  Read on for an explanation of our methodology and our full results.

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Doug Borwick on Community vs. Audience Engagement in Cleveland

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Leave a Comment

Below is an excerpt of a post on Doug Borwick’s excellent blog Engaging Matters in reaction to our Stories from Cleveland: Audio Postcards.

“Last week, Karina Mangu-Ward from EmcArts contacted me asking if I would review their Audio Postcards featuring the audience engagement efforts of arts organizations in Cleveland. Harried though I was in preparing for the trip, I agreed to do so as soon as time allowed. I’m glad I did.

Watching those short descriptions of the work of 12 organizations helped clarify for me some of the issues I have had around the word engagement. In the recent past, I have written several times here about audience development, audience engagement, and community engagement. And at least some commenters have taken me to task about the words and phrases used.

Let’s acknowledge that many of us (most especially me) have deeply held convictions about what these words mean or, more accurately, should mean. There is also an issue about how they are understood outside of the world of professional marketers and community engagement activists. That’s a subject for another post.

Listening to EmcArts’ capsule videos helped capture for me an important distinction between audience engagement and community engagement. Simply put, the former maintains the arts organization at the center of the process. The latter puts community improvement at the center with the arts and the community as partners working toward that end. For me, audience engagement is outreach; its end result is more attendees: expanded “reach.” Community engagement is focused on developing partnerships, deep ones; its end result is trust and understanding from which expanded reach can be pursued.”

Read the full post here.

Innovation in the Arts: An Interview with Karina Mangu-Ward

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Leave a Comment

Below is an excerpt of an interview that appeared on Social Velocity’s blog on Friday, May 11th.  Many thanks for Nell Edington for the great questions!

“In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Karina Mangu-Ward. Karina is the Director of Activating Innovation at EmcArts a social enterprise for innovation and adaptive change across the arts sector. She leads the strategy and development of ArtsFwd.org, an interactive online platform where arts leaders can learn from each other about the power of adaptive change and the practice of innovation. Her interest is in bringing adaptive capacity and innovation from the margins of dialogue in the arts sector to the center.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: ArtsFwd is about encouraging and profiling innovation in the arts. But innovation is such a loaded and overused word, what does it mean to ArtsFwd and what do you think is true innovation?

Karina: Innovation is definitely a buzzy word, so we try to be careful about how we use it. ArtsFwd is a project of EmcArts, a non-profit that works with arts organizations across the country to strengthen their adaptive capacities and advance the practice of innovation. So we’re primarily concerned with organizational innovation, which EmcArts has defined as instances of organizational change that: 1) result from a shift in underlying assumptions, 2) are discontinuous from previous practices, and 3) provide new pathways to creating public value.

So we’re not talking about creativity, which is more of an individual pursuit, or inspiration, which is about a momentary spark. The stories we tell on ArtsFwd are about organizations working to build their capacity to adapt to a rapidly shifting environment through the process of innovation, which requires a cross-functional team working together over a sustained period of time to develop, test, and optimize genuinely new approaches.”

Read the full interview here.  

Can 55 Year-Olds Be Younger Audiences?

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Leave a Comment

Above, listen to the story Apollo’s Fire’s new approaches to building the audiences of tomorrow.  This is one of 12 Audio Postcards about arts organizations generating new approaches to engaging younger and more culturally diverse audiences in Engaging the Future, a program of EmcArts and the Cleveland Foundation.

Apollo’s Fire is a period instrument ensemble that recreates the experience of Baroque-era music in intimate concerts. The music was originally performed “in the presence of royalty,” says Board President Kemp Smith and tends to attract an older audience. “There are a lot of gray hairs,” Kemp reports.

The ensemble is popular with audiences and regularly sells out mid-sized church venues, which are ideal for creating the Apollo’s Fire experience. But selling out can also make growth a challenge. Adding to the challenge is that the ensemble’s musicians fly in from around the country for each performance, making it difficult to cultivate new audiences through an education program.

As a result, Paul Jarrett, Managing Director, says he’s looking for innovative new ways to grow. “Historically we’ve thought of ourselves as a Northeast-Ohio-based organization,” Jarret says, “and it’s really only been recently that we have begun to explore the potential for geographic expansion.”

According to Jarrett, Apollo’s Fire is at a crossroads. “We are trying some new venues this year that we have not been in before. And it’s not just a new venue but then it’s a different community. “ And every venue they visit, Jarret says, is another opportunity to establish “a more permanent presence in another geographical location.”

Unlike some of the other groups participating in the Engaging the Future program, their new strategies are not focused on a typical young and diverse audience. “The demographics we have currently are what we would expect for what we do,” says Jarret. “I think there’s a stereotypical image of what a younger audience looks like, but for Apollo’s Fire that might be building our 35-55-year-old demographic.”

In terms of cultural diversity, their outlook is practical. Kemp Smith, Board President, says “I’m not sure that any of these initiatives lead to a younger audience. Performing dead white composers is going to appeal, almost necessarily to the same kind of an audience.”

Their goal is world-class performance and an authentic period music experience. The difference, according to Smith, “is that [today] you don’t have to be royalty” to enjoy it.

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Why Engagement Should Be Every Arts Staffer’s Job

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Leave a Comment

Above, listen to the story of the Cleveland Play House’s new approaches to building the audiences of tomorrow.  This is one of 12 Audio Postcards about arts organizations generating new approaches to engaging younger and more culturally diverse audiences as participants in Engaging the Future, a program of EmcArts and the Cleveland Foundation.

Founded in 1915, the Cleveland Play House was America’s first regional theater.  In selecting a season, Associate Artistic Director Laura Kepley, says, “We look for plays that are contemporary in style and substance, that resonate with our community.”

After 86 years in another location, in the fall of 2011, the Play House moved to Playhouse Square in the heart of downtown Cleveland.  The move was motivated, in part, by wanting to connect with younger and more diverse audiences – the audiences of tomorrow.  Kepley says,

“Cleveland Play House is in the middle of a huge transformation, so that we can be in a place that is sustainable.”

According Corey Atkins, Artistic Associate, “The thing that’s been exciting about down here is that were seeing a much more multi-generational audience.”  The move was a joint partnership between Cleveland State University and Playhouse Square, so the new location is one block from Cleveland State University’s main campus, and according to Atkins “We’ve also seen a really great uptick in the number of people who work here downtown, who will end their workday, go grab a drink, and come see a show.”

In light of these changing conditions, one of their adaptive challenges has been to rethink their relationship to subscribers. Since the move, Kepley says, “While we continue to have subscribers that number dropped off a little bit, but we have doubled our single ticket sales.  So that’s really exciting for us, but that also presents new questions.”  This led the Play House to question their old way of doing things.  As a result, she’s asking, “How do we engage these people who may not be signing on for a whole season of work but who may just be coming to one or two titles that appeal to them?”

One of the responses they’ve tested out is the Show Plus program, which is a “series that targets certain populations — students, young Clevelanders in their 20s and 30s, and then the LGBT community and allies” by offering “a pre-show party and an after-party, and oftentimes a chance to Q&A with the actors as well.”  So far, the results have been encouraging.  “We’ve been really pleased at the diversity of backgrounds, of races, of gender, that have attended,” says Atkins.

Beyond new strategies, the team at the Cleveland Play House is also exploring ways of changing their underlying culture.  Kepley says,

“One of the things that we’re doing differently, and it’s really exciting, is that we have organization-wide started thinking about engagement.  It’s not just one person’s job, it’s not just one department’s job, it’s everybody’s job.”

The result of the move and this new way of thinking has been transformative.  Kepley says “There’s a saying that when you pack, you don’t want to take anything that’s not working.  So in this transformation, we’re not bringing the things that don’t work or the things that no longer work.”

Related posts:

Stories from Cleveland: Engaging the Audiences of Tomorrow

By Piama Habibullah, Online Producer, EmcArts / / Comments [1]

The Cleveland Foundation has partnered with EmcArts through the Engaging the Future program to work with 12 Cleveland cultural institutions that range from the Museum of Contemporary Art to Karamu House as they generate innovative approaches for engaging younger and more diverse audiences.

Too often, ground-breaking strategies and advances remain isolated within individual organizations, unknown by the wider arts field. It is part of EmcArts’ vision to move the dialogue around innovation from the margins to the center of our discourse in the arts. This partnership provides a unique opportunity to share with you fresh thinking and courageous experimentation these 12 organizations are working on in order to address the challenge of change.

To explore their journeys so far, we’ve created 12 short audio postcards about their starting conditions and current priorities, featuring images from each group with audio narration. Stay tuned for updates on ArtsFwd.org as the stories evolve.

We hope you’ll watch and share your reactions.  Are you facing the same challenges in your city?  What trends do you see emerging?  What new strategy might you try in your organization?

Watch all 12 audio postcards


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Questions about the Innovation Lab for Museums? Get Answers.

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Leave a Comment

Innovation Lab for Museums Deadline

The deadline to apply for the Innovation Lab for Museums is fast approaching. Proposals are due Monday, May 14, 2012. Download the RFP here.

If you have questions about the application process or would like someone at EmcArts to review your draft application, here’s how:

  • IN-PERSON CONSULTING: Liz Dreyer, Manager of National Programs, and Richard Evans, President, will be conducting in-person application clinics and answering questions at the American Association of Museums Annual Conference on April 30th and May 1st. If you would like feedback on your draft application, you must submit it by Friday April 27th. Email Liz at ldreyer@emcarts.org to schedule an appointment and to submit your draft. Slots are filling fast.
  • BY PHONE: Melissa Dibble, Managing Director, will be conducting 30-minute phone consultations through next Friday May 4th. If you would like Melissa to give you feedback on your draft application, you must submit it by Tuesday May 1st. Email Liz at ldreyer@emcarts.org to set up your appointment and submit your draft.
  • ONLINE RESOURCES: For more on the Innovation Lab for Museums, you can read Highlights from Round 1 Applications, download summaries of Round 1 selected projects, finalists, and 11 other applications, read the Center for the Future of Museum’s blog post about Tips for a Successful Application.

Happy applying!

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How Boise Became Dancers’ Home Sweet Home

By Brian Hinrichs, Blogging Fellow / / Comments [3]
Trey McIntyre Project dancersa the Morrison Center

Dancers Ashely Werhun, John Michael Schert, and Chanel DaSilva field student questions.

When the internationally renowned contemporary dance company the Trey McIntyre Project (TMP) needed a permanent home in 2008, they chose Boise, Idaho, a place where they felt they could thrive artistically while building a new type of community-integrated organization. Many in the industry thought they were crazy. But the city of Boise has since become TMP’s greatest cheerleader and inspiration, leading to a 2010 New York Times headline, “Dancers Adopt a City and Vice-Versa”. Executive director and principal dancer John Michael Schert has led the charge in creating a company uniquely engrained in its community, with over 40 local partnerships and educational initiatives, inspiring Boise to declare the company its official Economic Development Cultural Ambassador.

In a recent conversation with John Michael, we discussed the creative thinking and hard work behind TMP’s big move and recent innovations. Most young companies seek to emulate what’s proven successful elsewhere, but a clearly defined value system has led John Michael and artistic director Trey McIntyre to forge something almost entirely new. They’re constantly asking the hard questions about purpose and place that usually only come up in times of crisis at larger institutions. The result is a nimble, forward-looking organization. TMP is generating revenue in unique ways (drinks named after dancers at a local bar, an arts and healthcare initiative at the St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital) and actively re-defining the role of the arts in Boise, all the while maintaining the grueling schedule of an in-demand touring company. It’s ambitious work by any standards, and here’s what John Michael had to say about it.

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On Michael Kaiser and Engaging Audiences

By Richard Evans, President, EmcArts Inc. / / Comments [9]

Last week, Michael Kaiser wrote in The Huffington Post on Engaging Audiences. He suggested that the field’s recent focus on this topic was ironic, as it’s a well established part of arts organizations’ missions. Presuming the emphasis derives from loss of audiences, Michael asked why this is happening, urged a focus on older audiences as well as younger, and noted the importance of tailoring strategies to “audience types.”

It seems to me that Michael is right about one thing: what he calls “audience engagement” is undergoing a “resurgence” in the arts. But I don’t think what we’re seeing now is just a fashionable reinvention of an old concept. The old concept is embedded in Michael’s language of “target groups” and “audience segments” who are “visiting the arts.” This approach has the rapid monetizing of previous non-attenders as its bottom line.

By contrast, what I’m seeing through my work at EmcArts with organizations across the country is the emergence of largely new, and substantially innovative, approaches to how people participate in arts experiences, with arts professionals serving as mediators of those experiences. Indeed, those at the forefront of this movement no longer use worn phrases like “audience engagement.” Instead, they describe the pursuit of broader reciprocal relationships with community members – expressive relationships created through, and embodied in, art.

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Can We Break the Glass Ceiling of Arts Leadership?

By Eleanor Whitney, Blogging Fellow / / Comments [7]

And the advantages of being a woman arts administrator? Image by the Guerrilla Girls

In each art and cultural nonprofit I have worked for, whether a museum, film, artist services or art education organization, the staff has been overwhelmingly female.  However, the directors and heads of departments have been predominantly male.  The clear gender imbalance seems almost too mundane to point out, but for a sector that prides itself on creativity, new ideas, and respecting different viewpoints, the lack of women in leadership roles in the nonprofit arts has become a serious point of contention for me. While there are important and influential women in high positions in arts administration, such as Emily Rafferty, the first woman President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vishaka Desai, President and CEO of the Asia Society, women are not equally represented at senior level positions or on the boards of arts organizations.

Certainly, this has little to do with women’s qualifications for the job. In terms of higher education, women have eclipsed men. According to the New York Times, as of September 2011, “Women earned about two-thirds of the graduate certificates awarded in 2009-10, as well as 60 percent of the master’s degrees and 52 percent of the doctorates,” though the article does not mention specifically which fields.  read more…

Introducing the Spring 2012 ArtsFwd Blogging Fellows

By Karina Mangu-Ward / / Leave a Comment

I’m very pleased to introduce Brian Hinrichs and Adrianne Russell as our newest Blogging Fellows.  You’ll be seeing regular posts from them from now until mid-July.  This past Friday, I hosted our kick-off conference call with the fellows and Richard Evans to talk more in depth about the principles that undergird EmcArts and the content on ArtsFwd.  Both Brian and Adrianne had great questions and brought some fantastic post ideas.  I’m looking forward to seeing their contributions to the site.  Welcome to you both!

Brian Hinrichs

Brian Hinrichs grew up playing the cello and began transitioning to the administrative side of arts organizations in college. He is interested in innovation through programming and technology, and believes strongly in the power of connecting audiences to the process of creating new works.  Brian is currently an MBA candidate at the Bolz Center for Arts Administration in Madison, WI, where he works as a graduate project assistant for the Pro Arte Quartet and is researching the impact of composer-in-residence programs at American symphony orchestras. Previously, he was the director of marketing and community engagement at Madison Opera. As a Fulbright Fellow to Thailand in 2007-08, Brian explored the emerging classical music scene in Bangkok with an eye for organizations and composers fusing traditions. A 2007 graduate of Colgate University, he is originally from Bay Shore, NY. Follow @classicalive

Adrianne Russell HeadshotAdrianne Russell is a passionate culture fan with a background in visual, literary and performing arts. She is interested in how arts organizations can leverage social media to enhance their work, engage audiences and create transformative experiences.  Adrianne is an arts educator, writer and consultant in Kansas City, Missouri. She is the Founder of the arts-based blog Cabinet of Curiosities, established in 2009. She has worked at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art as the Ford Learning Center Assistant, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts Ambassador Executive Board as the Outreach Vice President, and sat on the New Media Consortium’s “2011 Horizon Report: Museum Edition” Advisory Board. She received her Master of Arts in Liberal Studies degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and her bachelor’s degree in Nonprofit Leadership Studies from Rockhurst University.

Related Post: About the ArtsFwd Blogging Fellowship