Art and Service

People frequently ask me how I built a successful arts organization. I’d say it’s been about fifteen years now that I’ve gotten that question on a regular basis. So I’ve had a lot of time to think about it!

I’ve had the benefit of seeing an organization grow from nothing into something, which is interesting and unusual. I’ve also had the benefit of having many people ask for help, and then share their own stories and challenges. And I’ve even had the chance to help others grow and overcome some of those challenges.

Early on I came to realize that the challenges were remarkably consistent across disciplines and continents. They still are! For me sometimes it feels like I’m in that Groundhog Day movie with Bill Murray where he wakes up on the same day for eons (until he can figure out how to stop being a self-serving jerk).

Through all the reflection one word has come to me as the big secret. The one thing most stagnant or failing arts organizations do badly. And it’s the thing that successful organizations do well. Are you ready for it?

Service.

Successful arts organizations that grow, make money, sustain over time, and consistently put money into artists’ pockets, serve their community in powerful ways and, in return – alongside many other things – the community supports the organizations financially.

But what does that mean? Where does the rubber hit the road? How does one better serve the community?

The answer is way too long for this format, and it changes with every leader, art form, competency, vision, artist, and community. But most certainly common to every scenario are these things: actually wanting to serve people, listening, adapting, innovating, striving to improve.

The big challenge here, as far as I can tell, is that very few, if any, arts institutions teach this or prioritize it. As musicians we’re taught to get really, really good at our discipline by studying and practicing. This, by the way, is a wonderful thing, and it most certainly leads to excellence.

But the natural result of this traditional pathway is that young artists emerge into the marketplace with the goal or expectation that they will be able to do the thing they have spent a bunch of time practicing, and that “people” will pay them to do it.

It rarely works that way, unfortunately. But then again, it rarely works that way in any profession. Ask any professional if they get paid to do the thing they did in school and they will tell you “no.” Even professions, like law, where the progression from student to practicing professional is relatively direct. The day to day of a practicing attorney deals with clients, or bosses, involves interpersonal dynamics, resourcefulness, and a range of other things beyond the case studies and mock trials that law school consisted of.

But having now coached countless artists looking to develop an arts presence in a community, the first impulse I see is almost always the same. “We’re going to do the thing we love (theater with plays written by XYZ playwrites, chamber music for saxophone ensemble, etc.), we’re going to hire our friends and idols to do it, work really hard, and then expect the public will come in droves and buy tickets.”

It might work. But I haven’t seen it yet.

And so the exercise I love to do with people is flip the model. First ask yourself WHAT you do. List the 4-5 things. Then ask yourself WHO you want to do it for. List 40-50 constituent groups in your community. Seriously. I want lists of neighborhoods, age groups, schools, income levels, employers, parts of town, congregations, affinity groups. Now, with those two lists made. I want you to take one of the things you wrote on the short list, and then spend an hour thinking about how you can specifically do it, in the best possible way, for one of the groups of people you defined on the long list. If you are going to do your thing, or some version of it, for that group specifically, how will you change it? Format, content, location, price, participation, preparation, education, print collateral, marketing?

Do that exercise, and I bet you’ll start thinking like a community servant. Start thinking like a community servant and you’ll make a deeper impact on real people way outside the art club. Make deep impact on real people way outside the art club, you’ll be serving people with art, and (with a few other business practices in place) the money will flow.

(Along these lines, I recommend every artist I coach watch this video of Eric Booth talking about The Red Wheelbarrow.)

Photo by “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash