Tuesday, October 18, 2011, WBUR radio hosted a story by Andrea Shea
"Harvest Parties Celebrate Bumper Crop Of Locally-Made Art."
It is the story of how the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE) is creating Community Supported
Art.
Yup, you read that right: it's a CSA for art.
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| Artist Grace Durnford, left, and Susan Hartnett, creator of the CSArt program (Andrea Shea/WBUR) from WBUR Radio; View their slideshow |
What a fabulous concept! This completely fits with readings and discussions we've been having in museum management, especially our class earlier this week (October 17) about financing.
The CCAE CSArt program has 50 members chip a $300 share for three boxes of three pieces each, distributed one each at a series of "harvest parties."
The nine artists in the program each receive $1500. In return they produce 50 works each (whew!). Program director Susan Hartnett calls this “seed capital,” according to Shea's reporting.
Artist Grace Durnford describes this process of exchange “monetizing" her pieces. That's a strange term to use, but one familiar to any Blogger.... and it, and the “seed capital” comment, raise the issue of how we fund art
and the museums which host art and other forms of material culture.
Income, as learned in class, can come from several potential streams: earned, investment income, raised, and public/government sources. Earned is gate fees and other revenue-generating sources -- anything the institution can sell, including
goodwill. For museums and private schools this often includes facility rental, too. Investment income only comes if one has an endowment or excess capital this is invested. Government/public sources as our professor
Laura Roberts explained includes tax credits from charitable donations. [Yes, tax policy is an instrument of social will and deductions can generate
social goods. Think on that...!] This leaves raised income, which is usually the province of the Development Office.
While larger, established, more traditional museums have Development Offices, however, artists and smaller museums do not. And, smaller and newer museums need to look to ways to add to their income stream, especially if they are trying to build the capital they need to actually form an endowment.
Enter
"venture philanthropy." It's the practice of using venture capital techniques in a philanthropic context, usually on a smaller and more energetic scale. We're seen this practice work in schools with
DonorsChoose.org. We've seen it in international development with micro-lending ventures,
such as
Kiva and
the Heifer Project. This week we were introduced to micro-philanthropy that harnesses the power of the group to produce venture philanthropy through an interview with Liza Roberts, head of
Wake County Women’s Giving Network (NC). This group gives to women and children-supporting non-profits in their area by pooling their member resources. The cost? $1200 per member a year, with a five-year commitment. Only $100 of that $1200 goes to overhead -- an enviable stat in the world of non-profit finance! This coming month they'll announce grants totalling $140,000 to five organizations. Not bad for a group started by some women who were tired of the philanthropic rubber chicken circuit and wanted to see more bang for their buck!
In addition to getting a "giving circle" grant, other forms of "crowd-sourced" revenue for museums seem possible to me. The CCAE CSArt program is one possibility for a museum as well. It could blur the line between commercial art and the museum as a broker, however, if major donor's galleries or artists or artists whom they hold in their private collections are used. See the
AAMD Guidelines for some provoking questions that lead me to this. BUT what if a Children's Museum used art from children's classes as a fundraiser in this way? It could generate not only revenue, but greater buy-in for the kids, their parents, and the shareholder. The shareholder even could be someone other than the kid's grandparents.
Appealing to the smaller investor and using the power of the group for good makes a lot of sense. If 80% of the philanthropy in the U.S. is from individuals, as Prof. Roberts says, then appealing to individuals makes sense. If worries about the undue influence of a few donors is a concern -- say, someone in that
1% of the U.S. population who consolidating income -- why not invite more people to the group? Furthermore, at least one
psychological study has shown that the group as whole can make better decisions than the individual. (
Unless, perhaps, they're already very rich and their social conditioning and their "groupthink" has pre-determined their choices.) So, finding ways to involve a greater number of people in the funding of museums makes sense.
Ultimately, I would call this approach
Participatory Philanthropy. It's clearly based on
Nina Simon's thinking.
Her October 12, 2011 blog entry "Equity in Arts Funding", in fact, is especially relevant here. But let's extend the participation to funding sources. The idea that more people could become participants in museums, and that their participation could generate funding to support their museum, is the point here.
I doubt we'll get away from the "Big Ask" completely but adding more "Group Supported Art" (and Artefacts) sounds like a good idea!
For more information on the Cambridge Center for Adult Education CSArt program, click
here.
