Dec
25
“With changes in audience behavior and the widening impact of technology, the live performing arts in America are facing unprecedented challenges.” – Ben Cameron
Ben Cameron, Director of the Doris Duke Charitable Fund (DDCF) made this statement with a November 2007 announcement of a $15M donation to the Nonprofit Finance Fund. The hopeful objective of the donation, to provide leading Arts organizations with the resources necessary to test ideas for responding and adapting to the world around them and the complicated trends affecting the performing arts.
Are the countless social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, YouTube, imeem, Google, SuperDeluxe, Flickr, and other online media sites preventing Arts organizations from reaching the next generation of supporters? Does the open source (read: FREE) state of the internet influence potential audiences to feel as if ALL Art should be available at no cost? Has the immediacy of the Information Age affected the longevity and impact of artistic works?
Ben Cameron believes that Arts Leaders must convey, not only the quality of the work produced, but the VALUE that the organization and its work offers to the community. He suggests that every arts organization answer three basic questions:
- Hard: What is the value of having my organization in my community?
- Harder: What is the value my group alone offers, or that my group offers better than anyone else? Duplicative or second-rate value will not stand in this economy.
- Hardest: How will my community be damaged if we close our doors and move away tomorrow?
Answering these questions will certainly help you reflect on sustainability. By considering the community as a potential audience that can exercise CHOICE, you are forced to reflect on your VALUE to that community and to reflect on what works of Art that potential audience might find meaningful and relevant to their lives.
Thoughts?
Tags: Artistic Value, Ben Cameron, Nonprofit
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Dec
24
“In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.” – David Ogilvy
In the Arts community disagreements about sustainability and subsidization have created a divide between actual working artists and “artists” who wish the world would see what they have to offer. The second group are the people who often fail to engage audiences in the way a business might engage the consumer of its product, so the audience (the Arts consumer) fails to support these people as artists, or the work they produce enough (monetarily) to justify the work itself.
I agree with David Ogilvy.
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Dec
23
Chapel Hill native and proud Carolina graduate, Zach Ward is the Founder and Executive Producer of DSI Comedy Theater and the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival. He has been performing and directing comedy professionally since 1993. Zach has received critical acclaim from the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune for DUAL EXHAUST (Critic’s Choice, Highly Recommended, Top 10 “Most Influential Comedy Duos of the Past Decade”) and THE BEATBOX (Critic’s Choice, Best Bet). Zach continues to perform weekly at the DSI Comedy Theater.
Zach was asked to Chair the Carrboro Arts Committee in 2007, after graduating from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Leadership Program. He has been a featured guest on The Arts Spot with Jon Wilner and was presented with the Triangle Arts Award, shortly after accepting the New Business of the Year Award for DSI Comedy Theater from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce in 2006.
A coach and mentor for the improv community, Zach proudly serves on the Board of Directors for festivals and theaters around the country. He would love to have coffee and talk about DSI, the philosophy of improvisation, Sustainability and the impact Non-profit and For-profit Arts organizations have on the community and our economy.
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