If you work in a corporate setting, in retail or perhaps at a busy hospital, your notion of an arts organization might be one with creative types daydreaming about clever, inspiring exhibitions or performances.
The reality is that people who run such groups spend much of their time concerned with the same issues that confront businesses and large institutions: budgets, marketing and staffing, tasks that might not have a lot to do with creativity. Overlay that with limited resources, low salaries and a small support team, and you’ll have a better picture of what artists and performers must balance with creative output.
Arming such professionals with tools to enable them to face these challenges is the goal of the 2015 smART Summit, a
daylong professional development event for arts administrators and artists on March 4 at Music Hall’s Corbett Tower. The organizers are
ArtsWave, Greater Cincinnati’s local arts agency and the nation’s largest community fundraising campaign for the arts, and
Cincy Emerging Arts Leaders, which is administered by the
Cincinnati Arts Association (CAA), program presenter and facility administrator of Music Hall and the Aronoff Center.
Kathleen Riemenschneider, CAA’s assistant director of education and community relations, chairs an advisory committee populated by young professionals from the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Contemporary Arts Center, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati Opera and the graduate program in arts administration at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music. The group has been hosting arts conversations and working sessions since 2006.
“This year we hope to provide local programs and opportunities for those working in the arts to understand the evolving needs and expectations of the industry,” Riemenschneider says.
In addition to breakout sessions about “Avoiding Mission Creep,” “Optimizing Partnerships,” “Exploring a Data-Savvy Organization” and “New Approaches to Marketing and Communication,” the day will offer a lunchtime address by Scott Provancher of the
Lewis & Clark Company. He’s been in the news recently as the lead fundraiser for Music Hall’s renovation, but he has broad experience as an arts administrator, serving as president of the Arts & Science Council in Charlotte, as CEO of symphony orchestras and as the campaign director for the Fine Arts Fund, now called ArtsWave.
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Scott Provancher
His topic will be innovation in arts organizations.
“It’s what I’ve been focusing on in my work,” says Provancher, who recently named his consultancy after the explorers who rose to Thomas Jefferson’s 19th-century challenge to chart a path across the then-unknown North American continent. “I’m inspired by their story of relentless commitment to a bold idea and to the explorers who turned Jefferson’s vision into reality.”
He will discuss that intersection of creative thinking and necessary financial support with attendees at the smART Summit.
“What does innovation mean in the cultural sector and the arts in general,” he asks. “How do we spur it? How do we pay for it? What does it take to design and launch new, socially-minded ideas?”
There are potential barriers, including tradition and history, that often derail new ideas. “We can’t do that” is a frequent sentiment, as well as “We’ve always done things this way.” Even when something is successfully launched, how can an organization with limited resources sustain it with infrastructure?
Many organizations are so consumed by their core activity that making a leap beyond can be a big challenge. Inertia is the enemy of innovation, according to Provancher.
“Organizations need to figure out how to enable and support new ideas,” he says. “Human nature tries to impose order, and arts organizations are no different. Innovation can be an extremely messy process, so it requires focus if you’re going to develop in new directions.”
Provancher admires the work of for-profit entrepreneurs. At the luncheon he’ll discuss how people working in the arts can learn from them. Attendees are likely to be young arts administrators and others new to the world of the arts.
“Ideas are like commodities,” he says. “Everyone has them. But, like a commodity, the real value is what you make of it. You need discipline and help. I’ll talk about how to take ideas and move them out into the community.”
Asked for an example, Provancher cites a client,
MusiCorps in Washington, D.C.
“They work with wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, using music to re-engage people who have real challenges to find purpose in life,” he explains.
Arthur Bloom, a composer and pianist with an entrepreneurial spirit, had the idea of bringing together accomplished musicians to serve as mentors to soldiers injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. They use traditional instruments as well as computers and custom equipment. Men with seriously damaged bodies have learned to play, write, record and perform as part of their rehabilitation, some joining the Wounded Warrior Band, a group that’s made music with Yo-Yo Ma, Sheryl Crow, Aaron Neville and others, earning coverage in
The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS and ABC.
But getting off the ground wasn’t easy.
“Arthur had to follow a less structured path to develop his ideas and find investors,” Provancher says. “People wanted to support his idea, but creativity was required to find support and make this work.”
Provancher’s overriding message is that creativity involves innovation.
“That’s what you see when you experience art,” he says. “But, like any business, if you’re not driving a level of innovation within your organization, you’ll become obsolete — just as you would in business.”
In fact, he points out, businesses grow by investing in research and development. The challenge for the arts is to learn how to balance work that people are willing to attend and invest in philanthropically with new ideas and initiatives that could succeed but might not move forward.
“I hope I can inspire these young arts leaders to find ways to invest in innovation,” Provancher says. “There’s so much room for growth.”
Details on smART Summit: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday, March 4 at Corbett Tower in Music Hall, Over-the-Rhine. Tickets are $30, $15 for students.
Register here.