Making Exact Change
How U.S. arts-based programs have made a significant and sustained impact on their communities
By William Cleveland

• Table of Contents
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: Case Studies
• Part Three: Findings
• Part Four: Recommendations

Part Three: Findings

Findings

This study was undertaken to assist Art in the Public Interest in its ongoing efforts to support and strengthen the community arts field in the United States. To do this, we solicited a broad range of opinions and perspectives on the basic questions posed. The Findings section summarizes data received from the ten case studies. Its emphasis is on program characteristics, strategies and trends that could inform practice in the broader field of arts-based community development. It includes both summaries of consultant findings and direct quotes.[1] The findings are organized in six sections, summarizing our analysis of responses to the questions outlined below:

1. As they have evolved over time, how have these programs defined success?

2. What ideas, values, standards, assumptions and expectations have influenced the design, policies and delivery of these programs?

3. What kinds of leadership and organizational practices characterize these efforts?

4. What support strategies (funding, technical assistance, training etc.) have most contributed to the success of these programs?

5. How have these programs defined, measured and learned from their successes and failures?

6. What persistent issues, conditions or problems confronted by these programs have constrained their ability to fulfill their missions?

1.    As they have evolved over time, how have these programs defined success?

1.1  Cross-sector arts partnerships produce expanded definitions of success. This study’s subjects have found that partnerships between the arts and agencies concerned with community development greatly expand the diversity and complexity of the work. These expanded aims shape definitions of success or failure in different ways. First, the “we” has expanded. In addition to citizen participants, every new sector and/or partner that becomes involved, be it a school, a neighborhood block, a senior program or a small rural town, now has a say in designing the program and identifying the desired outcomes. In the mix, artists doing community work often find themselves contending with a greatly expanded range of scrutiny and judgment.

1.2   Definitions of success in community arts work reflect community needs, assets and priorities. For the organizations in this study, community art is principally defined as art that is made with, for and about the communities they serve. Service is an important quality as well, since the work is generally created to help the community in some way. Some of these efforts have very specific objectives, like crime reduction or increased literacy. Others are more broadly framed as celebratory, commemorative or healing. And, although change often results, very few use the word to describe their work. While the terms they do use to describe their roles run the gamut from historian, storyteller and healer to educator, organizer and community developer, the common ground across all of these programs is the integration of art making with community issues, interests and assets. This shared landscape is also evident in both the formal and informal guidelines that direct the work. The following section (1.3) describes these standards briefly.

1.3   Some characteristics are regularly identified as keys to community arts success. The following program characteristics and values were most often identified by artists, administrators and participants as critical to productive community arts work. (Many of these are addressed in greater detail in the sections that follow.)

Productive community programs:

• Have guidelines and structures that are simple, clear, and focused
• Have support structures that emphasize continuity and regularity
• Are patient and nurturing
• Accommodate mess, waste and altered plans
• Emphasize convening and networking
• Have open and regular communication
• Accommodate unpredictability
• Pay attention to details
• Emphasize quality over quantity
• Value process as much as product
• Cultivate and celebrate their history and alumni
• Try to protect their “researchers” from distraction and exploitation
• Learn from experience and incorporate lessons learned
• Practice community building

1.4  Constituents have a big say in determining goals. The mainstream art world is constantly on the lookout for the next big thing. Some cultural historians have opined that the best places to glimpse the cultural future are in out-of-the-way, left-field boroughs far from the nexus of economic and political power. If this is true, then the diverse but distinctly off-center locales that have produced this study’s subjects should be a motherlode of great ideas. But the most revolutionary ideas rising up from these programs are not new at all. The two most consistently articulated principles we encountered in this study are “accountability to the community” and “participatory democracy.” Put simply, this means that these programs exhibit good manners and share power.

The common sense genius here is that these programs simply walk their talk. Their missions articulate a commitment to community participation and ownership. While many programs pay lip service to this simple but hard to realize ideal, these organizations actually do it by devoting the majority of their time, resources and expertise to developing authentic advise-and-consent relationships with their communities. They further demonstrate their commitment through their willingness to stop the presses when community feedback reflects that they are falling short of this ideal. At the Wing Luke Asian Museum, this means that exhibitions that are curated with the community, for the community, do not go up until the collaborative design team is satisfied. At Swamp Gravy, this means that writing a new script each year involves both literary imagination and the art of negotiation.

1.5  Many define community arts in terms of community cultural development. A good number of the people we talked to defined community-based arts in terms of “collaboration” and tangible, useful outcomes. This was as true in our conversations with representatives of education, human-service and community-development sectors as it was with artists and arts administrators. Within this group, there was general agreement that the arts are an appropriate and useful partner for both developmental and aesthetic goals. While many of the funders and civic leaders interviewed were familiar with this type of cross-sector arts activity, they felt that the work could be taken to another level. There is also a growing recognition that this next level cannot be reached by solo operators and that deeper partnerships and more integrated definitions of success will be needed to increase the effectiveness and impact of future work.

Among the artists we talked to, success in the community arts realm was more vaguely and broadly defined. When asked to reflect on the term, most began with an arts-based definition but also said that they felt the lines between arts and community-development practice had been blurring for the past few decades. The majority understood and embraced the development of hybrid definitions of success as accurate and relevant. Many also felt strongly about the potential for artistic growth and innovation offered by cross-sector exploration.

1.6   Leadership development is a natural byproduct of many community arts endeavors. Many of these programs have found that leadership development is an intrinsic and important outcome of community art making. Some even characterized it as the most significant long-term result of the work. When queried as to how or why this occurs, our interviewees had a variety of responses. Many felt that the new relationships that had developed through community cultural work naturally broadened the perspectives and capacities of those involved. Others pointed out the empowering effect that came from working closely with accomplished professionals in other fields. Some observed that these relationships often lay the foundation for new strategic alliances and sources of support.

2.    What ideas, values, standards, assumptions and expectations have influenced the design, policies and delivery of these programs?

2.1  Commitment to community engagement is a responsibility, not a strategy. Over the past two decades many arts organizations and funders have embraced community engagement as a priority. While the motivations driving these have been varied, the most central goal has been the expansion of their audiences. This makes sense. For organizations whose primary purpose is making and presenting art, finding a public is key. In this regard, the organizations in this study differ significantly. For a community art center like Northern Lakes, or culturally specific arts group like Isangmahal, community relationships are intrinsic to both art production and presentation. In a sense, the work is not complete without the community’s involvement. Community members are thus regarded more as a constituency than an audience. This notion of a cultural constituency implies a broad range of responsibilities and, in some instances, even obligations for these programs. These include expectations of openness, accountability, continuity and respect.

2.2  Missions and values are informed by practice, not ideology. Some of the characteristics common to these programs arise from their long-term engagement with the communities they serve. This extended interaction with the community shapes the organizational culture. When the community is a partner, active listening, constructive dialogue, patience, clear communication and long-term planning inevitably rise up as critical behaviors.

2.3   These programs operate as creative learning centers. Communities are dynamic, living organisms — always in motion, always changing. According to our interviewees, they have found that programs that serve communities must be designed to learn from and with the constituents they serve. They do this by making space in their organizational cultures for the stories, debates, rumors and reflections rising up from the community. This creates a learning environment that is open to ideas and provocations from both inside and out.

2.4  Learning builds trust. These programs have come to know the deep distrust that many communities have for “do-gooders.” They have found that building trust requires both patience and a respectful engagement of the many layers of a community’s cultural landscape. Over the years, each has honed a capacity for discovering and learning from the histories and stories that form community identity. Many spend considerable time teaching staff about how this knowledge can be used to build trust and support effective collaboration. Some respondents also indicated that impatient funders sometimes have made this task more difficult.

2.5  Investments emphasize quality. We were told time and time again that there are no shortcuts in the community arts arena. When combined, both creative and community-development processes require even greater care and attention. Our interviewees asserted that their communities deserve the best of both. But because empirical research often defines success in community-development work, there is a tendency to steer resources toward activities that will translate in terms of volume rather than depth. When this happens, resources are often spread too thin and systemic root problems ignored. Because it is new, and for the most part untested, arts-based community development is particularly vulnerable to this pattern of investment. Our respondents encouraged funders to apply the highest standards of quality to both sides of the community/arts equation.

2.6  Process gets equal billing. Northern Lakes Art Center Director LaMoine MacLaughlin says “art is action.” He and his colleagues in this study see artmaking as an integrated continuum of process and product. Their programs manifest this conviction by treating all aspects of the work with equal diligence and investment. In Philadelphia, when the Mural Arts Program makes plans to create a community mural, this means that community engagement and mural design get as much attention and resources as rendering and public relations. At the Village of Arts and Humanities, Lily Yeh went one step further. She describes contract negotiation, fundraising and other administrative functions as intrinsic parts of her artistic process. Once again, this value is intrinsic to the implicit community covenant that guides these endeavors.

2.7  Transcendent elements of the arts are acknowledged and celebrated. “The artist,” says psycholo­gist James Hillman, “bears sensate witness to what is fundamentally beyond human comprehension.” The communities reflected in this study have embraced that role and the artists have responded. The Zuni stories heard in the performance of “Corn Mountain/Pine Mountain” reflect both the physical and spiritual history of that community. Many of the Swamp Gravy scripts reference the spiritual life of Colquitt. Lily Yeh, the former director of the Village of Arts and Humanities, is unabashed in her assertion that artists fulfill the shaman’s role in the community. She says, “The artist at work in these realms mediates the moral, the rational and the spiritual; the artist sensitizes us to the presence of social and material toxicity.”

2.8  The involvement of multiple generations is seen as critical. Reflective of their whole-communities perspective, these organizations have come to include all age groups in their programming. This translates as programs designed both for particular age groups and cross-generational initiatives. (See also, 2.13)

2.9  Respect is the foundation upon which these programs are built. When Lily Yeh, the mother of the Village of Arts and Humanities program in Philadelphia, first started visiting the Germantown community she saw a vital culture. She saw that the impulse to create and reflect on one’s environment was not missing or erased, as she had feared. So, when she began using art to transform a rubble-filled vacant lot into a thing of beauty, she knew she was not bringing art to the great unwashed, but was joining an established culture. The people in the neighborhood appreciated that level of respect. They also let it be known that they weren’t automatically accepting of her good intentions.

Most of the programs represented in this study found out early on that no matter how many validations they received from funders and city officials, they would be outsiders until the community decided otherwise. These programs have learned how to tune their work to the self-interest of the community and local leaders alike, without compromising their program’s integrity. They have succeeded by assuming multiple roles as learners, listeners and creative catalysts. They have provided opportunity and raw materials, given direction and respected the combined power of the art, the artists and the voice of the community.

2.10  Sustainability is a core value. When GRACE started working in senior centers, they began with short workshops. Participants came, but they were not satisfied. They said they didn’t want to dabble. They wanted to get good. The artists listened and responded. For many of the seniors, these professional artists provided a model of creative self-expression and independence. They also posed a challenge, a challenge that offered a degree of control over a small corner of their lives in exchange for commitment and hard work over time — not a few weeks or a month — but continuously, with opportunities for acquiring increasing levels expertise.

For GRACE, and the other programs in this study, this idea is key. Investing in the triumph or failure of artistic efforts builds a kind of stamina. This is the cycle of sustainable learning. To achieve this, the work has to be rigorous, regular and sustained.

2.11  Accountability keeps them honest. All of our respondents agreed that while scrupulous accountability is basic to good community relations, it can also be complicated, overwhelming, time consuming and unavoidable. Many of these programs operate in communities that feel deserted, in deficit and put upon. In that context, the first thing prospective partners want to know is who’s pulling the strings and what’s in it for them. According to Mural Arts Program (MAP) Education Director Kathy Ogilvie, responding honestly demands that “you understand the ecology of accountability you are operating in.” She says her artists “need to be accountable to the legacy of their art form and themselves as creators. Then as teachers/mentors they are accountable to their students.” Finally, “MAP and our community partners are accountable to their leadership, their constituents, their missions and their funders. If you recognize that you are not working alone,” she says, “then this interlocking, interdependent system can be helpful and supportive. If not, it can eat you alive.”

3.    What, kinds of leadership and organizational practice characterize these efforts?

Leadership

3.1  These programs have forceful, visionary, long-term leadership. The average age of the programs reviewed in this study is 21.6 years. Of the ten, six are still operating under the principal guidance of their founders. The founders of three of the remaining four are still intimately involved with their organizations. The presence of strong and enduring leadership is one of the most indelible patterns to emerge from this study. To understand how and why this characteristic came about, it is instructive to examine early organizational histories.

Most of these organizations came into being at a time when arts-based community development was in its infancy. Among public officials, funders and the leaders of the mainstream arts community the idea that the arts and community-development realms would find significant common ground and garner mainstream support was not considered credible. Those who undertook such endeavors were, in essence, inventing a whole new field. For a time, during the late 70s and early 80s, there was a plethora of community arts startups that took advantage of new federal and state funding. But very few of these continue in some form today.

As survivors, the leaders of the programs in this study successfully navigated a complex cross-sector environment of funding, regulation and public policy. Looking back, many considered the fact that they were young and driven nearly to obsession as key to their staying power. Their survival also demanded a clear and forceful articulation of mission that translated to the self-interest of multiple partners. It is important to note that all of these programs were created by artists who were, in essence, self-mandated. Put simply, that mandate was a passionate belief in the power of art to make significant positive contributions to community life. This was, and remains, a hard sell. To gain any credibility in the skeptical, even adversarial, territory they occupied, they had to marshal resources, advocate effectively and produce results, simultaneously. This seat-of-the-pants challenge was a hothouse for the development of effective community leadership. It would not be an exaggeration to say that these programs defined their leaders as much as their leaders defined them. No wonder so many have stuck around.

3.2  These programs have organizational structures and leadership that are resilient, adaptive and improvisational. Like the Wing Luke Asian Museum described in the previous section (2.2), many of the programs we studied have developed dynamic structures to support creative community development. In some cases, this has meant creating administrative systems that regard change as a natural feature of the community landscape. Often, this is as much about adaptive attitudes as it is flexible guidelines or rules. Another characteristic of these dynamic organizational cultures is an understanding that both form and freedom are necessary for integrating creative inquiry and community development. At the Mural Arts Program, this means that the “givens” for collaboration between an artist and a neighborhood (i.e., goals, budget and timelines) are clearly articulated in advance. The collaborating artists and community members are then left free to improvise and invent in the design process. With Isangmahal, this manifests as what one artist called “the invisible and predictable structures, rituals and practices that provide the rhythm section for creative improvisation.”

3.3  These leaders are highly collaborative. Another interesting characteristic exhibited by the originators of these programs is the situational nature of their leadership. Because they started small, they wore many hats. In the early days, artistic and administrative duties were shared by small staffs that operated much more like colleagues than subordinates. In this type of environment, hierarchy often takes a back seat to necessity, and collective decision making is much more the norm. With few material resources, the organization’s collective knowledge and connections became an important resource. To make space for the free flow of expertise and information, these leaders have learned how to step back and step up, depending on the situation.

3.4  These leaders are entrepreneurial. The leaders of these organizations are opportunistic, investing their often meager resources in programs and partnerships that have provided significant return. But some identified the organic nature of their community relationships as a critical balance to the impulse to say yes at every turn. They said that community accountability tempers the vision of assertive leaders so that the work is honest, on track and relevant.

Organizational Practice

3.5  The entrepreneurial nature of the work is a blessing and … a caution. Colquitt, Georgia’s community play, “Swamp Gravy,” has been incredibly successful in its mission. It has created a poignant and evolving cultural event, attracted hundreds of thousands of audience members and spawned quite a few spin-off projects. Successful community arts programs such as Swamp Gravy, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and the Village of Arts and Humanities are regularly generating new prospects for expansion and growth. While this is certainly a positive characteristic, for some it has also been a problem. Without forethought, this entrepreneurial impulse can, very easily, outstrip a program’s capacity to support it. The point made by some was not that success was a problem, but, rather that it is important to anticipate both opportunity and difficulty. Survival tactics born of early-days necessity (i.e., never saying “no”) can set up unreasonable expectations in the community and bury a program once it gets rolling. While having an entrepreneurial approach is critical to success and should be encouraged, it also must be controlled.

3.6  “Community–based” and “organic” are related concepts for these community arts practitioners. A number of respondents talked about the link between naturally occurring or “organic” systems and effective community work. At the Wing Luke Asian Museum, great attention is paid to supporting the systems of interaction and creativity that naturally emerge from community history. The assumption is that stories and events that are important to each community have a unique ecosystem. The staff at Wing Luke believes that understanding and supporting this system is one of its principal jobs. The Mural Arts Program operates on the assumption that authentic community collaborations cannot be forced. They also use the term “organic” to describe the processes that give rise to strong community partnerships and leadership. Many of the artists we talked to also spoke in a similar vein about how they find their way in the creative process. One artist said, “I know the general direction, but I am dependent on signs that emerge along the way to lead me to each specific step in the journey.”

3.7  These programs depend on the quality of the relationships they create in the community. Many respondents considered relationships both a critical tool and an essential outcome of their work. Ron Chew, the director of the Wing Luke Asian Museum, considers everything he does in terms of relationships. He views the museum’s relevance to the community, its reputation with funders, even his organization’s standing in the museum community, as all resting on accumulating layers of relationships. He believes this so strongly that the number one criterion for employment at the museum is a candidate’s relationship-building skills.

Chew is not alone. The consensus among interviewees was that community arts are by nature relationship intensive. Two principal reasons for this were cited. First, the work itself is relationship-based. According to Roadside Theater’s Donna Porterfield, most of their two-decade-long collaboration with the Zuni Pueblo has been spent building and maintaining trustful relationships and common ground among members of two cultures separated by 1,600 miles and 9,000 years of history. The Zuni collaborators see their art as the outcome of this relationship, not the other way around. In a similar vein, CityKids has based its entire program on the foundation of a “safe space” where young artists and their adult mentors can speak their minds and take creative risks together.

Second, the work is community-defined. Removed from the context of its community, some artwork can lose its essential potency. This is the reason that efforts to duplicate “successful” community arts programs so often fail. Unlike a Broadway show or a traveling exhibit, community art often finds its fullest meaning in its birthplace. In these instances, context and connection are essential parts of the community arts process. Outside the embrace of the local ecology, something is missing. In the extreme, this means that some work cannot exist outside of the web of relationships that gave it life.

3.8  Each program calls upon a larger network of expertise and influence. All of the programs we looked at make use of community networks that offer a wide variety of links and referrals. Over the many years of the Zuni-Appalachian exchange, the program partners enriched their efforts by calling upon the wide network of knowledge within their respective communities. Every time the Northern Lakes Art Center responds to community interests and or needs with new arts offerings they call upon on an extended network of arts practitioners and subject-matter experts in the region. The Wing Luke Asian Museum depends on an expanding circle of constituents for the content and form of its exhibits. These networks provide access to practical resources. They also serve to connect their members to the larger web of community identity and mutual support. This is particularly important for organizations serving small or isolated communities that need to validate their best practices and learn from each other.

3.9  Ownership devolves to community. The Mural Arts Program identifies “community involvement, support and ownership of both the mural process and product” as one of its guiding principles. And MAP puts its money where its mouth is. Fully 90 percent of the time devoted to their mural making in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia involves the community in some way. But the real proof of neighborhood ownership is what happens when MAP leaves. This is when the communities assume responsibility for the works of art. Research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts program indicates that these communities do, in fact, take over by protecting and maintaining both the art and the environment that surrounds it.

The programs developed by the organizations we have reviewed are highly sensitive to and in concert with community priorities. They know that community ownership and participation at all levels is crucial for building lasting partnerships. They know these strong partnerships use asset-based, rather than problem-based strategies. This means that, even though problem solving may be a goal, the effort is not defined by and driven by what is wrong, but rather, the strength of the community resources that will be used to address the problem.

3.10  Collaboration is a learned skill. Our interviewees had a lot to say about partnerships, good and bad. Most comments reflected on the intrinsically collaborative nature of community art making. Many shared their ideas about what it takes to develop and maintain effective and lasting partnerships. Here is a summary:

• Good partnerships have long-term goals that are focused and specific, and shared equally by the various partners. These relationships are built on long-term mutual self-interest. Their success depends on leadership that is stable, committed, assertive and inclusive.
  
  
• Good partners know that you don’t have to have complete and total alignment of beliefs, values or needs among partners. Partnerships can share common goals for different reasons, as long as these differences are on the table.
  
  
• Effective partners know that the core driving force in successful partnerships is trust. They know that trust is built on a relationship of deeds, not words. They also know that trust-engendering practice is characterized by the consistency and integrity of the work over time.
  
  
• Successful community collaborations require long-term commitment measured in years, not weeks or months. Their proponents know the notion of power will need to be reckoned with. They also know that building trust between the more and less powerful is difficult, and that the greater the gap in power, the greater the challenge. Finally, they know that those who wield power are often unaware of their extent of their privilege and power, and thus they have a difficult time understanding and responding to demands to share their power.

3.11  Collaborative art making is hard but builds strong relationships. A few interviewees likened successful creative collaborations to good marriages. CityKid’s Laurie Meadoff said, “Even though it takes three times more energy to find consensus and get things done, the results make the journey worthwhile. Some said they felt that the partnership itself was often the most significant long-term outcome. These successful partners also said that at times the partnership will be tested, and that those tests will not only measure their strength and resiliency, they will be the crucible upon which the real strength of the collaboration will be forged.

3.12  Young people are a priority. All of these organizations have made significant investments in programs that involve young people. This is striking because only one of the ten, CityKids, has a youth-centered mission. This characteristic reflects both community responsiveness and a growing trend among funders. The communities served by the study subjects have all identified youth development as a priority. Funders, reacting to failing schools and a rise in juvenile crime, have dramatically increased support for youth-oriented programming over the past decade and a half. These programs have responded with significant investments in training and mentorship that emphasize the development of arts skills and youth leadership.

3.13  Active, on-the-job learning is key. These organizations rely principally on workplace learning for staff development. There are a number of factors that contribute to this.

• Few formal educational opportunities: At present, there are only a handful of undergraduate or graduate programs for artists or administrators interested in working in the arts-based community-development field.
  
  
• Many jobs are locally defined: The site-specific nature of the work undertaken by these programs often necessitates on-the-job training. This work simply does not lend itself to cookie-cutter preparation. The mix of relevant job skills can vary widely from site to site and project to project.
  
  
• Peer training is best for relationship-intensive work: Many respondents identified trust as one of the most valuable resources in their work. Unfortunately, trust building cannot be learned in the classroom. Learning how to earn trust in a community setting requires mentorship of veterans and practice in the field.

3.14  Planning and design are not given short shrift. Completing a participatory cross-sector arts project within budget and on time is difficult, particularly for new, inexperienced partners. The most successful projects we saw were based on thorough planning and a conservative budgeting of time and money. This type of preparation takes time and money. Many interviewees felt that long-term planning and relationship building were not sufficiently supported by funders. They thought the field would benefit greatly if these processes were supported as intrinsic to the achievement of both artistic and community-development goals.

3.15  The concept of “story” is used both literally and metaphorically by these community arts programs. We found many references to “story” or “narrative” or even “quest” in our conversations. Some spoke very directly about how their work could only be truly understood both literally and metaphorical as a journey. Some expressed the concern that because the powers that be are so often interested in the material outcomes or products of these stories, that the most important part, the messy rhythm of each tale’s unfolding, is lost or ignored. Others described themselves as protectors or guardians of the stories they were exploring. One artist said she felt that she needed to fold a funder-friendly story around art to protect the true story of the community’s work.

3.16  Communities of interest and program intentions are clearly defined. Of necessity, these organizations are very clear about where their responsibility and accountability lies. Though often complex and multifaceted, these constituencies are defined very succinctly. These firm lines arise from constituents themselves who are often very protective of the relationship they have with the program in question.

Another characteristic of these programs is the degree of clarity with which the various partners have articulated their respective roles and the anticipated outcomes. Social, economic, political and artistic goals are not necessarily seen as incompatible. While their combination increases the complexity of the work, the potential for extraordinary outcomes on all fronts may be raised exponentially. This makes the work far more demanding.

3.17  Nontraditional hiring practices make for a diverse workforce. Arts organizations typically hire people with experience making and/or managing the arts. The community arts organizations in this study have allowed themselves a much broader personnel palette to choose from. You will find staff with background in social work and community development at the Mural Arts Program and the Village of Arts and Humanities. At Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild you will find educators, computer programmers and community organizers. Conversely, at the Wing Luke Asian Museum there are few people with museums in their backgrounds. Our interviewees view diversity of staff background and experience as a critical asset for their work. They say that cross-sector work demands cross-sector expertise.

4.    What support strategies (funding, technical assistance, training, etc.) have most contributed to the success of these programs?

4.1  Most have stalwart, loyal funders willing to work outside the box. Most of the organizations in this study have one or more funders who have provided extraordinary levels of support. In most cases, these special relationships have manifested as grants that exceed the original time or funding limits. In other instances, funders have worked behind the scenes through referrals to other funders and/or individual philanthropists.

4.2  Partnerships are resources that need to be nurtured over time. A number of respondents have found that it is useful to view their arts partnerships as evolving relationships. They have learned that sometimes relationships have to grow and mature before they can respond appropriately to community needs and ideas. Some spoke positively about funders who work with them as developmental partners rather than grantees. As projects evolve and change, this approach gives both funders and fundees opportunities to reflect on and learn from the ongoing work.

4.3  Governance serves leadership. There are only a few discernable patterns to the way governance manifests in these organizations. All have boards of directors and advisory boards that include commununity representation. Most board members define their role as providing support for their executive leaders. Some have boards capable of raising money, while other boards provide links to the community and provide advice on a wide range of relevant issues. Boards have also played a significant role in those organizations that have experienced a transition in leadership. Isangmahal, the only program in this study that is not a nonprofit organization, operates as a collective. As such, critical issues are identified by a steering group and voted on by the members, who number about 150.

4.4  Real-estate ownership provides stability and credibility. Seven of the ten organizations included in this study own their own facilities. Wing Luke Asian Museum’s Ron Chew, who is in the middle of a capital campaign for a new facility in Seattle’s International District, feels that investing in real estate sends an important message to his community. He also thinks becoming a stakeholder counters the marginal status often accorded to cultural organizations. For CityKids, owning their own facility provided the most critical element in their effort to create a “safe space” for their constituents. Beyond the status and stability that comes with ownership, learning the redevelopment ropes has been a significant factor in the successful growth of three of the study’s subjects. Swamp Gravy, The Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and the Village of Art and Humanities have all been major players in the physical rebuilding of their communities.

4.5  Moderate but steady growth. Except for a few fits and starts, most of the organizations in this study have experienced moderate but steady annual growth. In many cases, this trend continued even during what were considered down years for the arts sector. This stability can be attributed, in part, to significant levels of support from nonarts sources.

4.6  There are no easy answers. According to CityKids founder Laurie Meadoff, the key to successful community-based arts is knowing that there are no microwaveable short-cuts to participatory art-making. Every community’s cultural, social and political ecology is unique. Assumptions and expectations accrued from other sites should be checked at the door — not because those experiences are not potentially valuable and informative, but because the scrupulous learning of a community’s culture is an indispensable part of building community trust. And, in the end, trust proves to be the most valuable asset.

4.7  Training is on the job. Our study subjects made it abundantly clear that community-based art-making is not for the faint of heart. This is particularly true, they said, because the necessary skills and experience are often acquired on the job. One administrator likened it to learning to walk the high wire in a hurricane. Given this, many of our interviewees described how at one time or another they had advised others in the arts community to leave community engagement alone.

4.8  Personnel are generally loyal beyond the call of duty. The people who staff these programs are driven by their passion. Despite the typically low pay, these workers are incredibly well educated and quick on their feet. They regularly work extra hours and weekends, and perform a whole range of duties not included in their job descriptions. Unfortunately, after a few years in the trenches, many experience burnout and leave the field.

4.9  Free labor is expensive. All of these organizations use volunteers, but caution that free labor is labor-intensive. For the Wing Luke Asian Museum, coordinating their community docents program is a fulltime job. Northern Lakes’ LaMoine MacLaughlin says that dropping the ball with community volunteers can both damage a valuable resource and ruin your reputation in the community. MAP’s Kathy Ogilvie says, “Think twice about taking on free labor. When you do, make sure its care and feeding is in capable, compensated hands.” Isangmahal, the one organization in the study that depends entirely on volunteers, views its volunteers as its community members.

5.    How have these programs defined, measured, and learned from their successes and failures?

5.1  Most evaluation and assessment has been conducted as an obligation to funders. Unfortunately, the quality of these assessments is often quite low. This is because these obligatory evaluations are generally unfunded and completed after the fact. For obvious reasons, funds-linked self-assessments also have questionable credibility. And, finally, biased or not, this data has not generally been made available to the field.

5.2  There is a strong interest in learning more about long-term community trends and issues in the community arts realm. There was an enthusiasm for more information and research about community arts practice. But the lack of support for such research was clearly noted, as was the need for consolidated information on community arts practices and outcomes in the U.S. and overseas.

5.3  Credible research is lacking. Our respondents felt that credible research in the field was not well supported. They felt that a small body of good research is only just emerging, but, unfortunately, is not being widely disseminated. Given the marginal status accorded the arts in America, some felt that even the best research would not make many new friends for the community arts sector. Others worried that more compelling research would end up defining the field solely as a therapeutic or remedial methodology.

5.4  Community feedback is immediate and relevant. Although lack of funding has limited research in the field, another, less obvious reason was cited as a contributor. Because of their strong community links, many Making Exact Change programs have no problem getting constituent feedback without formal evaluations. Isangmahal member Jojo Goan puts it this way: “Our community votes with its feet. If they don’t show up, then we know we are not meeting their needs.”

5.5  Some good research comes from nonarts partners. One particularly useful aspect of collaboration is the sharing of information and expertise. The arts programs in our study that partner with human-service, education or community-development organizations have found that research methods and data from these programs can be a valuable resource. Community-development agencies typically have more experience and more resources devoted to research and evaluation. Piggybacking arts-program evaluation onto existing protocols is much easier and cheaper than starting from scratch. And for the increasing number of funders who are looking for specific outcome measures, this type of data is more credible.

6.    What persistent issues, conditions or problems have limited or constrained these efforts?

6.1  Many programs face difficulty translating their work to funders. Although the number of funders was potentially greater for community arts programs, many have found it difficult to convince them to support cross-sector work. Some interviewees expressed frustration with narrow eligibility criteria that focused on single, “siloed” or isolated disciplines. Others felt that many funders didn’t understand that long-term relationship-building was a necessary part of community cultural development. The issue of control also came up in discussions about funding. Demands for predetermined outcomes were seen as antithetical to community-based, community-owned development.

6.2  Effective translations can be a “catch 22.” As was mentioned previously, (6.1) many of our respondents feel their work is not well understood by public officials, funders and the general public outside of their communities. Because of this, they spend considerable time “translating” their work. Unfortunately, these “translations” are often tailored to the predispositions of their audiences. As a result, human-services and community-development people get one slant and the arts folks get another. While this can be effective in the short run, some worried that over time the complex, hybrid nature of the work is being obscured.

6.3  Street credibility sometimes does not translate. The programs in our sample place great stock in the credibility they have earned with the communities they serve. Without it, they say, the best-laid plans and the hottest technology would have little effect. The importance of “street rep” is not sufficiently appreciated by the “outside world.” It’s also very hard, they say, to document or “prove.” As one artist said, “You either have it or you don’t.” Another described it as “hard to get, but highly perishable.”

6.4  The arts-based community workforce requires training. These organizations have learned that artists who are committed to and capable of doing this work are hard to come by. Because the field has expanded dramatically over the past decade, many have come with good intentions but very little experience. Given the demands of community work, this lack of experience can be dangerous. The skill set needed to forge successful community arts partnerships is daunting. Not only must artists be technically proficient, they also need to bring diplomatic, organizing and partnership skills to the table. Patience, optimism and a sense of humor come in handy, as well. But probably the most important prerequisite for this work is a love for the messy, unpredictable and confounding nature of community engagement. Although none of the programs in this study have established fulltime professional-development programs for their administrators and artists, they all agreed that it is very much needed.

Even those who possess the requisite skills and experience have a hard time sustaining themselves in the work. There is a high rate of burnout in the field. Unfortunately, none of the programs reviewed here have developed in-house stress- or trauma-mitigation programs for their staffs.

6.5  Retention can be hard — turnover is damaging. Most of the programs in this study have no problem bringing smart, young artists and administrators into the fold. These newcomers are idealistic and energetic, willing to devote countless hours to the cause in exchange for the sense of community and learning. All too often, though, these tendencies have been exacerbated by organizational cultures that thrive on and demand self-sacrifice and overwork. Though highly productive in the short run, for most, these are not sustainable work habits. So, ultimately there is a price to pay. Thus we find burnout and high employee turnover is a recurring issue with many of these high-functioning community arts programs.

Through this study, we have found that employee loss is particularly difficult in this field. Each community-based organization demands a unique amalgam of expertise and experience from its personnel. It can take two-plus years to learn the culture, acquire the community-specific skills and establish the relationships necessary to do these jobs well. So, when these organizations lose employees who have reached this threshold of experience, it is particularly costly. No matter how qualified the replacement, the organization is often starting from scratch.

6.6  Leadership transitions can be difficult. Three of the organizations in this study have changed leadership in recent years. Their experience indicates that what some call “founder’s syndrome” is not a stranger to the community arts sector. In some ways it may be worse because of the complex web of relationships that typically undergird the work. Hybrid programs are often a hard sell. Very few have what it takes to successfully build, run and promote community-based arts partnerships in our culturally estranged society. Those who do often become so intimately identified with their programs that it is very difficult to separate the person from the institution.

6.7  Constituent boards are not fundraisers. Board roles vary significantly among the programs in this study. (See 4.3) The boards in our sample that had high community representation did not have strong records as fundraisers. The credibility and expertise these boards provided were seen as a major asset. They also felt that it was important for funders not to judge board effectiveness solely on fundraising ability.

6.8  Many expressed an aversion to overly directive funding relationships. This was one of the most consistent views expressed in our conversations regarding funding. In the words of one artist, “If the support comes with too many strings, we just end up pretending.” Most respondents were quick to point out that this sentiment did not mean they felt that all guidelines and accountability measures were counterproductive. In fact, many said they welcomed guidelines that were focused, simple and clear. The central point that emerged was that community-based creative inquiry needs supporters who trust the people they invest in. A higher than usual tolerance for “failure,” or unexpected outcomes, was also seen as an important.

6.9  Unfunded mandates are disruptive. When our interviewees asked what advice they would like to pass on to funders, the issue of unfunded mandates came up often. They felt that funders need to be more sensitive to the fragile economic and social ecologies that characterize arts-based community-development efforts. They also said that the labor required for administrative and evaluative mandates should be funded and realistically framed to accommodate each organization’s economic and labor conditions.

[Next: Part Four: Recommendations]  [Table of Contents]

Notes

1. It should be noted that some of the quotes provided are not attributed at the request of the interviewees.