Five qualities that lead to small town arts success

I was talking with a good friend of mine who ran a youth arts organization in Richmond, Virginia for a number of years and now does consulting work. He has enjoyed the podcast but he brought to my attention that it might be a good idea to release a podcast that is a recap of previous episodes and provides some clear instructions on what you can do right now, if you deliver the arts in a smaller community. I feel that I have collected enough intel over the last 9 months that now is a good time to share what I have learned. 

I have showcased a number of model organizations in our first few episodes. Common with all successful small community organizations are some specific qualities. I have identified 5 of them. In today’s episode, I will name them and explain them. 

Quality number 1: Successful small community arts organizations reflect with specificity the community they serve. Their identity is tightly entwined with the community itself (history, culture, landscape, and/or geographical). 

In Episode 1 we spoke with Appalshop in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. Their name says it all. Their work ties back directly to what it means to live, work, and be from Appalachia. I imagine if they were the Letcher County Arts Center and their mission was general arts delivery, they would be significantly smaller and wouldn’t be able to galvanize their community to the degree that they do and they certainly wouldn’t access the level of national funding and attention they receive. 

In Episode 2 we spoke with the Wormfarm Institute in the farmlands of Wisconsin. Farm is literally in their name and the focus of their art work connects directly to the land and what that land produces. Their annual festival travels from farm to farm, utilizing the landscape as a backdrop. The festival also has a theme of fermentation and incorporates all that the area ferments. 

In Episode 3 I interviewed Roger Schmidt who leads Sitka Fine Arts Camp in Sitka, Alaska. Their identity is tightly connected to Alaska as they are identified as not just Sitka’s arts camp but Alaska’s. Being geographically isolated from the continental US, they use this as an advantage and not a disadvantage. They have been recognized by the state and nationally for their work to provide arts access to youth to our most northern state. It is baked into their purpose and business model. 

In Episode 4 we introduced you to Riverzedge in Rhode Island. They are located in Woonsocket and they specifically serve youth (which will come up again in our next essential quality). As a part of their mission and business model, they have a shop where they sell items made by the students they serve and employ. In this shop are Woonsocket and Rhode Island specific merchandise. They also have a program dedicated to public art that utilizes and enhances with specificity the city where they live. 

In Episode 8 once again we meet an organization whose name is tied to their location. Border Arts Corridor. This orgnizartion serves a US/Mexican border community, has their entire identity and purpose tied to the culture of that border community and all that that entails. 

Quality 2: The organizations address a real and tangible need or needs in the community. Their mission is not abstract or broad. The need they address is very clear. 

I often see arts organizations, because of both the subjective and abstract nature of the arts, take a broad approach to their identity and mission. This could feel like a good thing to do in a smaller community when you are wanting to cover all bases and be all things to all people. Vagueness will be the death of you. Vagueness doesn’t galvanize people. It doesn’t fundraise and it doesn’t sell admission. 

I have read a lot of mission statements that look something like this:  

“To produce the arts for our town and its surrounding counties because the arts are essential to a thriving community.”

Sounds nice enough. I like a thriving community. I like the arts. But what community? What arts? Why? 

Now let’s listen to Riverzedge’s mission statement:

“The mission of Riverzedge Arts is to use innovative applied and work-based learning strategies to teach art, design, and critical thinking to the youth of northern RI, providing our participants as well as our community with a path to economic and cultural sustainability.”

Hear the difference? The need they address is super clear. Their identity is clear. 

How about Appalshop which is much more encompassing. Now, there mission starts broad but then it narrows down into specific focus areas: 

It reads: 

“Our mission is to enlist the power of education, media, theater, music, and other arts to:

• document, disseminate, and revitalize the lasting traditions and contemporary creativity of Appalachia;

• tell stories the commercial cultural industries don’t tell, challenging stereotypes with Appalachian voices and visions;

• support communities’ efforts to achieve justice and equity and solve their own problems in their own ways;

• celebrate cultural diversity as a positive social value;

and participate in regional, national, and global dialogue toward these ends.”

When I read that… I understand who Appalshop is and the needs they address. With this approach, they become ESSENTIAL to their community. Not just a nice addition to their small community’s amenities but a critical part of their cultural infrastructure. 

Let’s look at Wormfarm Institutes mission: 

“Wormfarm cultivates connections between our rural and urban neighbors through art, food, and the land. We do this by investing in our cultureshed: This “cultureshed” includes 1. A region irrigated by streams of creators and producers, fed by deep pools of human and natural history and nourished by what is cultivated locally. 2. The efforts of artists, farmers, chefs, scholars, writers, performers and community organizers who contribute to a vital diverse local culture.”

So clear. 

Finally, Border Arts Corridor which is simple but still clear: 

“Border Arts Corridor (BAC) is dedicated to cultivating arts and cultural programming that explores the complexities of the borderlands so that social borders will fall and bridges materialize.”

You know who they are and what they do in one sentence. 

Quality number 3: The organizations have a cause or call to action that galvanizes the community directly and beyond just financial support. 

I want to use Sitka Fine Arts camp as the example here although all of the organizations have rallying cries and calls to action. Often this occurs through festivals or large scale events. For Sitka it is their campus. Their home is an old college campus. The college itself closed and left the community with a sprawl of empty buildings. Over time, these buildings began to fall into disrepair and had become a cultural, economic, and visual blemish for the community. As their Executive Director Roger Schmidt articulated, it became a symbol of community decline. Sitka Fine Arts Camp operated in a different facility at the time of the college’s closure. They were approached to take over the grounds and buildings and convert them into a sprawling art campus. At the time, this move had its skeptics. What was so smart though was that through Roger’s unique leadership and gumption, building by building they began to turn the campus into an active and rejuvenated set of facilities. Many of its skeptics turned into supporters. Now the change did take some fundraising but because of the size of Sitka and the tight nit nature of their small community, revitalization also involved direct involvement of the community itself to repair, replace, and update the buildings much like a Habitat for Humanity project. This direct involvement, beyond financial assistance, created a deep relationship between the community and the organization. You can mow the grounds, repair flooring, paint a classroom… your work is a part of the change in a direct way. 

I love to share the story of their donor wall. It is very Alaskan and rugged. It is made up of wood from the surrounding forest and each wooden plaque is the same size. You get on the wall with any size donation. Everyone is valued equally and it sets a culture around participation and ownership. It also creates a broader social pressure to be engaged. It becomes embarrassing NOT to be on the wall. 

Quality number 4: The arts are valued financially and this is manifested in budgeting, labor, and delivery. 

So, all of the organizations I spoke with pay their artists and/or instructors. This was across the board. Value has to be placed on the labor and art is in fact work. My favorite small community trend is a desire for public art but asking for submissions from artists with no pay. The locale tries to sell the exposure and visibility of the project as the payment. I can tell you, I have watched artists get taken advantage of with projects like this and what happens; the cycle of undervaluing the art continues. Exposure does not lead to the artist's next paid gig. It just teaches the community they can get artistic labor for free. 

Communities can really undervalue the real skill and time it takes to create public art. Here in Lynchburg we have a very bizarre fountain in our river. It is just a slab of concrete with a pipe poking out of it. It shoots a rush of water hundred of feet into the air and resembles an industrial accident as the ED of our local children’s museum loves to point out. Visitors and many locals often wonder what it is and if it is on purpose. Sadly it is. So, how did we get a fountain that looks like an industrial accident? My understanding is that the original vision was that an artist would create something for this fountain. I am not sure of the history of the funding, but funding never manifested for an artist so now we simply have the exposed fountain mechanism with nothing to beautify or define it. I imagine this had to do with a lack of understanding that art has a cost and that cost wasn’t understood or planned for. I would argue the fountain now does the opposite of its intent. Instead of wowing and inspiring visitors it creates snickers and jokes. 

For this quality of valuing artistic labor, I want to use Riverzedge Arts as my prime example. The reason is that their organization could actually exist without paid artistic labor because they work with youth, most of whom are under the age of 18 and the nature of the work is educational. It would be easy to simply build a tuition model, generating a revenue line for the organization. If they did this though they wouldn’t be who they are and they wouldn’t have the relationship to the community they do. The organization’s focus is to work with young people from low-income families and underserved communities, providing them with opportunities to develop their creative and technical skills and in so doing the organization provides job training and career development services for young people who are interested in pursuing careers in the arts. So, they pay the students for their commissioned work that manifests in their public art, multi-media commissions such as videos and graphic design, and work that they create that is sold in the organization’s online shop that includes merchandise such as t-shirts and coffee mugs. On one level this is necessary for the students to participate. Many of these students' economic circumstances means they would need to be working part time jobs to help support their families if they were not participating in Riverzedge’s programs. Most importantly though, they are teaching their community that the arts are valuable and the skills associated with creative fields are a part of the labor force. Because it is valued, funding follows. 

Also, the staff of these successful organizations are paid and often provided benefits. In episode 3, Roger and I talked at length about the importance of providing his team in Sitka health insurance. As he said, you just have to do it. There is certainly the ethics of the matter but it is also a business strategy. Now, I went through a similar transition as Roger in providing health insurance for our staff here at the Academy in my first couple of years with the org and I am now in the process of implementing a retirement plan and 4% match for our team. It can be easy to look at your budget and see that the math may not add up in the present. Your payroll seems to be weighing you down and all you can think about is the dollars you have to raise and the tickets you have sell and the number of students you need to enroll to cover all these costs. Here is the thing though… it is an investment. Good employees will raise more money, will sell more tickets and will engage more students. If your team is good and they feel good this will project out into the community. If they feel undervalued or you simply employ (or in some cases not employ) who you can afford… I promise you your engagement will suffer. The arts are SO hard to deliver and the people who do it and do it well have value. 

Last but not least, Quality number 5: The organizations have a direct and defined relationship with their board of directors. 

Now, the organization I spoke with did not share in the number of board members they had or the make up of their boards. Some boards have non artist community members with skills they bring to help support the organization such as lawyers, fundraisers, civic leaders etc. Some boards were only made up of artists and practitioners and some organizations had large boards and some very small boards. 

What they all shared though was a clear and established relationship to that board that was mutually understood and beneficial to all involved. I can’t express how important this is. It looks different for each org and each community but what is shared is there are established expectations for the board and from the board. It is active and not passive. If you are forming an organization or running one, it is important to establish clear roles, responsibilities, and goals for the board. If they are simply a group that gathers around a table to listen to reporting, you are not maximizing the potential for your organization. This group of people is responsible for the success of the organization and they need pathways to do so. Whether they are building a new roof in Sitka Alaska, drumming up commissioned artists to come to a farm in Wisconsin, or connecting you directly to your corporate community in Rhode Island, you must give them clear pathways to support you and clear means of measuring their success. 

So to review: 

Quality number 1: 

The organizations reflect with specificity the community they serve. Their identity is tightly entwined with the community itself.

Quality number 2: 

The organizations address a real and tangible need or needs in the community. Their mission is not abstract or broad. The need they address is very clear. 

Quality number 3: 

The organizations have a cause or call to action that galvanizes the community directly and beyond just financial support. 

Quality number 4: 

The organization values the arts financially and this is manifested in budgeting, labor, and delivery.

Quality number 5: 

The organization has a direct and defined relationship with their board of directors.

My advice is to enhance any of these things you are currently doing and to begin to address the others if you are not. This can be overwhelming with limited resources and community specific challenges, but if you make incremental changes in any of these areas, over time there will be results for the good. Successful arts delivery doesn’t happen overnight. One quality not mentioned is patience and knowing it is a long game. Don’t be discouraged and remember the efforts are worth the results. I will share that my own organization probably needs to overhaul its own mission and we are in the midst of addressing our board engagement. None of us is perfect. 

Thank you and keep up the good work and remember your community needs you!