Michael Foot and the smashed watch trick

On the radio last night they played a great clip of Michael Foot in Parliament assualting Keith Joseph with typical wit and grace. He compares Keith Joseph (one of the hard men of the Thatcher cabinet at that time wandering the country in bewilderment at the industrial 'reorganisation' they had set off) to a magician he used to see in the theatre in Plymouth as a young man, who would obtain a watch from someone in the audience, carefully place it under a handkerchief and then smash it with a mallet. He would then look completely puzzled and announce he had forgotten the second half of the trick...

This made me think two things. Firstly, how the genuine the 'laugh' is when it comes, from the other MPs, and how different that is to today's yahboo behaviour in the house - although there are one or two genuine wits left, notably William Hague, perhaps surprisingly, in themain the barracking and pantomime behaviour would get MPs excluded from any decent comprehensive. Secondly, and more importantly, how relevant the story is today. As all parties try and sound both tough and magical about cuts, hearing Michael Foot's elegant scorn illuminate the real issue, I couldn't help wonder whether the second half of the trick is any better known thirty years on. If it is isn't, only those with the money to buy new watches will be laughing.

(You can hear the clip 55 minutes into the programme here for the next few days.)

Art at the right time (part x in an ongoing series)

I've referred before to my theory that art finds you when and how you need it, and it happened again this week with a particular song from Field Music's new album. The refrain 'them that do nothing make no mistakes' has been in my head all week. It's a good mantra, I think, for funders, funded and commentators, to apply to ourselves and others. And a hell of catchy tune, which also has a use of the word 'tight' I find absurdly pleasing.

Here's the video for you to enjoy. (Has Sunderland ever looked so lovely?)

How do you fund for resilience?

This week I was part of the panel at MMM/ERA21’s latest Peer-to-Peer event in Newcastle, the topic being ‘funding transition’. Chaired by David Carrington, the panel was myself, Penny Vowles from the Northern Rock Foundation and two leading American thinkers on funding and philanthropy, Clara Miller of the Non-Profit Finance Fund and Ben Cameron of the Doris Duke Foundation. (The audience was pretty stellar too, of course.)

It was a really stimulating conversation, encouraging and daunting in equal measure. Encouraging because it showed potential ways through the issues which seemed to face arts organisations on both sides of the Atlantic. Daunting because those issues are so deeply ingrained in the mental models of both funders and funded, and because of the political pressures we face in this country, given our public sector-leaning funding model. (Although, as Jim Beirne from Live Theatre pointed out, the issues of under-capitalisation, lack of focus on business growth and fluctuating revenue streams seem common to the UK and the US, where government funding is a very small percentage of income.)

Both Clara and Ben have a great turn of phrase. Clara described how NPFF had realised it could ‘either nurse the malaria patients one by one or drain the swamps’ and decided to try and deal with the underlying issues. She also introduced us to ‘the four horsemen of the non-profit financial apocalypse’ – Overbuilt, Over-endebted, Labour Economics and Disappearing Revenue.

If there was a single idea to take away and pass on from the very rich discussion it was this:

Both funded and funders need to acknowledge the difference between capital fund and revenue funds, and use them well. Capital is not just about buildings, but about building enterprises (organisations if you don’t like that word, though Clara also suggested we ‘learn to love our inner enterprise’.) The best definition I heard was ‘investment that builds capacity to attract reliable income'. Revenue funding is about ‘buying’ – of cultural value, or activity, or ability to take risks, depending on the funder. This is not an either or: for a resilient organisation and cultural sector, building and buying are necessary. Doing one without the other is the biggest risk of all for funders. Mistaking one for the other is unhealthy for organisations. It’s often – maybe always? – about survival and transformation. The task of being flexible and responsive enough is shared – and goes all the way through the system, which in the case of the UK, takes it right up to central government.

Video and recordings of the conversation will be available on the MMM site very soon. You can also catch up on the Steady State discussions last month.

74% of Everybody's Happy Nowadays

I’ve done a presentation on the headline results of our ‘Stakeholder Focus’ survey twice this week, once to staff and then to Regional Council. It’s a kind of customer satisfaction survey, where people get the chance to say what they think of Arts Council England, their relationships with us, how we work, our impact and so on. So it’s always a bit nerve-wracking opening the document and seeing how you come out.

Fortunately, things are heading very much in the right direction, and it's certainly a far more positive feeling than last time we did it, when there a few 'difficult messages'. Obviously not everyone thinks the Arts Council’s great (1 in 10 respondents consider us ‘unfavourably’, for instance), and there is, as ever, plenty to work on – reducing bureaucracy, being even more flexible and responsive, being more open with partners, for instance - but also lots to build on – being supportive, helpful and strategic are already strengths we can use. (According to the 896 people who responded, not according to me.)

There’s lots more interesting stuff, such as that 7 out of 10 members of the public have heard of the Arts Council, but most of those know nothing about us and that North East respondents have a very low propensity for taking the ‘Don’t know’ option. This may help explain why more people than average would be critical of us whilst more people than average also think we make a positive impact difference in the region. (In fact that welcome group seems, according to my maths, to include some of those who'd criticise us when asked.) So lots of useful feedback and issues to dig deeper into over coming months so we can carry on improving. (Blimey, that sounds a bit corporate, doesn't it? Rest assured Alan Davey is not standing over me whilst I write this. I can't think of anyone in the organisation not genuinely committed to listening and improving.)

There was one figure which puzzled me, staff and Council members alike. 15% of arts organisations, artists and partners thought that the Government benefited most from Arts Council activity at present. This is more people than thought artists benefited most, and nearly as many as said the public (18%). When asked who should benefit most, only 1% of respondents said the Government. (I will return on another occasion to which categories came out top in perceptions of current benefit and ‘should benefit’.)

This feels really interesting, assuming it's not some kind of blip. One in eight people think the government benefit more than the public, or artists or arts organisations from our work. It may just be a survey poke in the ribs for us from the Intrinsic School. It may be a sign of scepticism about government full stop. But what returns is it thought the government are getting that the public aren't? How does a government benefit without the public, or the economy benefiting, anyway? Popularity-by-announcement? Given the government decide on levels of funding, what should they get in return for their money? What image do arts organisations and our partners have of government - and, of course, the Arts Council? Is that a sign of healthy scepticism or of a kind of solipsism and myopia, expecting, presumably, continued government funding with no 'return' to government? I'm not saying the Government should benefit most, I just find it very interesting.

You can read a summary of headline results here, though there will be more detail and a full response in due course. This is not part of the Arts Council response!

(By the way, those of you who get this by email subscription, and read it on your blackberry or some other mobile device, do go to the actual site and you'll find a free gift, courtesy of Manchester and YouTube that you might not see in your hand. You could even leave a comment - Arts Counselling is also committed to listening!)

Plus ça change?

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation have done an interesting thing and republished a seminal report from 1959, Help for the Arts. The aim is to stimulate debate about how we meet today’s questions of how best to support the arts. It’s a fascinating read. Many things are different – and not just the ‘surface’ signs such as language. (I’m pretty sure I don’t want to bring ‘patronage’ and ‘provinces’ back into regular usage for instance, let alone phrases such as ‘men of means’.) The post-Austerity landscape does look free of agency ‘clutter’, and the text has a refreshing directness – though that may simply by style of the report, unafraid to be patrician where necessary.

There are also many things that are oddly similar through the differences –sometimes in an ‘eternal question’ way. What’s the best balance between support for individuals and institutions? Is it simplistic to say that ‘artists not institutions create art’ – where do ‘producers’ fit in, let alone commissioning ‘bodies’ public and private? If institutions endure, in a way individuals (as opposed to their artwork, of course) may not, is that a good or a bad thing?

Funding interventions are the key theme of the report – which led to the Gulbenkian’s crucial work in developing arts in the regions, and some key 'arts spaces'. I’ve been involved in some discussions in the North East about ‘intelligent funding’ (as opposed to stupid funding, you might say!) and was struck by this paragraph:

The reluctance of the State to help new needs in the arts has been emphasised by the tendency for State grants to take the form of meeting deficits (and to some extent the same criticism applies to local authority grants). No doubt grants on this basis are more easily justified where public money is concerned. Nevertheless the deficit basis of finance has a crippling effect on creative work. Moreover, since bodies which receive deficit grants cannot build up reserves, they are prevented from putting their finances on a sound basis: in the long run this system is therefore uneconomical. This criticism is not, however, valid where guarantees of fixed amounts are made to new and adventurous enterprises.

This is something Arts Councils and both local and national politicians grapple with today, further complicated at times by lottery regulations - well, either grapple with or studiously ignore. (It applies across the voluntary sector as a whole.)

The report posits four key things that need to be addressed, and again, whilst acknowledging how much progress has been made, it’s startling to see how unchanged they are from the list many would draw up today. I’ll end simply by quoting them:

The first is that far greater support is needed for the arts than in the past. Nor is this a temporary need. Once high standards of artistic creation and performance have been established, an increasing sum is required to maintain these new standards. This means
that over the years public authorities will have to find more money for the arts.

The second is that far more needs to be done today to render the arts accessible, particularly in the provinces.

The third point is that there should be more scope for experiment in order to invigorate the arts.

The fourth point is that we think that more should be done to foster appreciation of the arts among the young. The introduction of music and drawing into primary schools has been of the highest importance. But in grammar and secondary modern schools, the practice and appreciation of the arts is apt to be crowded out after the age of 14; while little incentive or encouragement is given to boys and girls after leaving school to develop whatever interest in the arts they have acquired. The best means of doing this is something which would well repay enquiry.

Do It Yourself?

Because I became a chef the week after I left university, I never went on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, though I had lots of friends who did. (You can listen to some 80’s janglepop from my friend Ally's record label, Sombrero, partly enabled by the EAS, here.) My recollection is a key boon (to both individuals and the government of the time) was getting away from the dole office for a year, but that may just have been my friends, and it did undoubtedly assist some long-lasting businesses, and provide some great experience for people making their way into the world with few resources. (And MySpace and the internet mean those old records, books and magazines in attics and garages might even have a second life.)

Do it yourself: cultural and creative self-employment in hard times is a new report by New Deal of the Mind for Arts Council England, just published. It provides research and analysis to inform thinking about opportunities for young self-employed creative people and the potential implications of the government’s Future Jobs Fund, and amongst other things suggests creating a 21st century version of the EAS. (It has interviews with people who benefited such as Louise Wilson.)

I feel there are also lessons to be learnt from more recent small grants schemes to support creative industries, such as the North East’s Cultural Business Venture. Investment in technology and marketing in the early days of a business, enabled by access to ‘micro-finance’ may have more impact than the same amount spread across a year to subsidise living. The requirement to talk to a Business Link adviser and work on a business plan was often of real benefit to people, they told us – though usually only afterwards! We have been working with Business and Enterprise North East to make sure artists get a good service: see here for a press story about the new MOU we’ve signed. Such an approach would also encourage an approach to the support of artist businesses based on building a business - or 'just' a living - though investment of funds rather than simply a weekly subsidy. Probably a mixture is required to help people out of unemployment.

Where I think the report hits the bull’s-eye is in drawing attention to the lack of focus on self-employment in the government’s approach to recession and job creation. The Future Jobs Fund is based on having employers and employees, and self-employment hardly features. This has to be self-defeating as an approach, particularly in a sector with such high freelance and self-employment figures as the arts.

What's the best way through a time of crisis?

I spent a fascinating two days last week in Wexford in Ireland, at the conference of the Theatre Forum Ireland. The theme was 'The Way Through', and I was asked to talk about the creative uses of crisis. As well as drawing attention to the thinking around resilience I've talked about previously here - and in particular the habits of resilient organisations - I talked about how crisis is often defined as something which disturbs equilibrium (psychological or business, for instance) because it can't be responded to using one's usual methods or approaches or skills. As such it is precisely the thing that allows us to grow, or to (in the jargon) 'build capacity'. It relates to the ways things move from the 'release' or creative destruction phase to 'reorganisation'. When we realise our usual methods of control are no longer sufficient for the world (if they ever were), we are forced to find new and better ways. But before we get to reimagining, we have to properly accept the limits of our current methods.

The 250 theatre and dance professionals from all over Ireland seemed to be at precisely that point, because the Celtic Tiger economy appears to have gone 'pop!' very messily indeed. Interestingly, the Arts Council of Ireland also seemed to be at a point of reimagining how best to support theatre, given the challenges. These seemed huge, but there was, by the end of the two days, a real appetite to work together. It was fascinating for me to observe the sector and the Arts Council relationship at one remove, for once - the different perceptions and the difficulty of communication and partnership. It was also nice not to have to feel personally responsible every time I heard 'the Arts Council' being criticised! (That wasn't all the time, I hasten to add, and there was a general understanding of the necessity of the difficult decisions that Arts Council had to take, and an acknowledgement the Council was really making an effort to work with the sector.)

It was my second conference speech in a week, and interesting that the issues around young leaders I wrote about after the ENYAN conference were very apparent. One of the biggest dilemmas facing the Arts Council of Ireland, and the sector, is how to maintain some stability for the key institutions and companies, whilst also bringing on new talent. Clearly some of the 'emerging' artists, most in their 30s, felt more needed to be done to assist them.

There were lots of other thoughts stimulated by a hugely enjoyable two days, so thanks to curator Belinda McKeown and Tania and Irma at Theatre Forum Ireland for the invitation, and to people for making me welcome. I may return to some of those thoughts, once I've caught up with myself.

How far up the ladder dare we go?

Came across some interesting ideas from Tom Atlee in an article about 'crisis and evolutionary leverage for philanthropy'. (I'm talking about the creative uses of crisis at the Theatre Forum Ireland conference next month.) He describes an interesting 'ladder of intervention', suggesting 'the higher on the ladder that activism or philanthropy can intervene, the more leverage for evolutionary transformation it can have.' The word leverage inspires a bit of a twinge these days, but at least he's using it as a noun not a verb.

The ladder relates to previous topics about resilience and systems. Some of the terms may be a little opaque at first glance, and you could argue these things are not strictly sequential but the general idea is helpful, I think, for funders to think about. It might also be useful for peer-to-peer review or support and collaboration to think about. Here it is:

8. EVOLUTIONARY CATALYTIC ACTION: Tweaking the evolutionary process in a system, especially at crisis points, especially through enhancing its collective intelligence and wisdom
7. SOCIAL SHAMANISM: Working the context, culture, story, paradigm, goal, field, etc., within which a system operates
6. SOCIAL SYSTEMS DESIGN: Designing and reworking overall systems and feedback dynamics
5. SERVANT LEADERSHIP: Designing and empowering networks and communities; building capacity for self-organization in specific realms
4. PROCESS ARTISTRY: Hosting generative interactions among a system's diverse players, stakeholders, leaders, etc.
3. ACTIVISM: Mobilizing concerned citizens and victims for causes and candidates to change conditions
2. EDUCATION: Giving people the information/training they need to help themselves as individuals and groups
1. CHARITY: Helping individuals and groups directly
0. SYMPATHY: Knowing and resonating with another's suffering, and letting others know.

10 quotes and thoughts on resilience (1 - 3)

I mentioned some time ago I had been reading ‘Resilience Thinking’ by Brian Walker and David Salt. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Although I plan, at some point when I’ve more time, to write a ‘proper’ essay on the implications of resilience thinking for the arts, and for funders of the arts, I thought I would for now share some of my ‘notes in the margin’ –some quotes and thoughts. They concentrate on possible parallels in the arts world – and how Walker and Salt’s advice might be applied in the arts ecology - though the book is important in terms of climate and ecological change too. I’ll spread over a few posts to make it a little easier to read. (I know this one’s a bit long.)

1. ‘Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure.’
Helpfully memorable and easily applicable to the arts or individual organisation and to the system. Disturbance might be a grant cut, a failed application, the loss of staff, change in audience or customer behaviour. It might also be a new CEO, an influx of funding, a funder wanting you to do something else, a sudden ‘hit’. How resilient are you? Can you absorb the shock and work in a way which doesn’t damage long term? Crucial at a system level – the system of organisations also needs to have resilience. (Put simply, for example, the poetry world can withstand one or two small presses stopping so long as others fill their space – in fact that is part of the system that brings new growth.)

The idea of systems is central. The easiest way to think about this is that things in a system interact in a complex and adaptive way – not in a simplistic, linear ‘crank the handle’ way. The book includes 5 case studies in the environmental field which illustrate this. But an arts organisation can demonstrate this too. There are factors to do with their quality and ‘efficiency’ that impact on them. But they also interact with how audiences are behaving and that ‘system’, with the ups and downs and changes in funders’ worlds, in the business world, in the broader economy, and in the political world. These are all arguably ‘systems’ that also interact in a larger one. It’s complex – though we do it to some extent without thinking - but you need to consciously ‘map’ all the systems to know what’s working on you.

2. ‘The Paradox of Efficiency and Optimisation:… Being efficient, in a narrow sense, leads to elimination of redundancies – keeping only those things that are directly and immediately beneficial… this kind of efficiency leads to drastic losses in resilience.’
You could relate this to how you shape your budget and programme, or to cuts in local authority funding. Worth the Chancellor bearing in mind when looking around for savings before the Budget. Simplistic efficiency today may have drastic knock-on effects when further shocks come. Systems work indirectly as well as directly so you need to look at the big picture. An obvious example of of 'simplistic efficiency' leading to less resilience is what happens when organisations choose not to build up a reserve in order to maintain or expand programmes. Reserves give not security for now but resilience for the future. They should be a measurement of health not wealth.

3. ‘There is no sustainable ‘optimal’ state of an ecosystem, a social system, or the world. It is an illusion, a product of the way we look at and model the world. It is unattainable, in fact… it is counter-productive, and yet it is a widely pursued goal.’
This is challenging to someone like me who’s talked a lot about sustainability and sustainable organisations. They go on to say that the common reaction when the model doesn’t quite work is to exert even more control, and I can see the truth in that – from government to arts funding to artistic directors. Models are not necessarily a bad thing – they can be useful if you use their simplification to explore how things might work – but you need to acknowledge they are models and not reality in all its complexity. So if there is no stable sustainable state, only an adaptive sustainability, we need to support people to adapt, to be as complex as they need to be, and to acknowledge that concentration on single aspects is likely to lead to less resilience when further change comes, as it inevitably will. Sustainability therefore comes from resilience, not vice versa, and is continually happening or not, rather than being acquired.

Wednesday Word of the Week: Resilience

This is a word I think we’ll be hearing a lot more of this year and next, in the arts as elsewhere. Enjoy it now before it gets tiresome. It draws on thinking in the field of ‘ecology’ – a word I’ve been using a lot lately in describing the needs of the sector, though there is also a strand of thinking about personal or 'emotional resilience'. This sees the sector not as a fixed infrastructure which may or may not reach a state called ‘sustainability’, but as a system or field where individual elements will grow, shrink, give birth, die and mutate, with organisations of different size and nature both co-operating and competing for the greater good. It also draws, as that description might suggest, on systems thinking. It’s not about simply pulling a lever or inputting something to get an output – it’s about often overlapping systems and their impact. (This is one of the reasons I don't think simply protecting funding is the answer to all the issues of the recession - unless we understand the complex systems at play that may only be a sticking plaster.)

So the best definition of Resilience as it applies to the arts sector I’ve seen is ‘the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function’. For the arts the ‘disturbance’ (not always a negative) might be loss of funding, sudden influx of funding or commissions, change in funders’ priorities, change in environment (eg a multiplex opening down the road from your arthouse cinema), changing audience patterns, changing technology and so on. Many arts organisations are already highly resilient, but there may more that can be done by thinking this through as a sector. Size does not guarantee resilience – note, for instance, that the best independent record shops may be surviving the download era better than the chain stores.

I plan to return to some of these themes over the next month, as they seem some of the most urgent things to think about, and there a number of possibly fruitful parallels I want to throw up to be challenged. (I’m currently pushing Resilience Thinking by Brian Walker and David Salt onto people – it’s a really good exposition of these ideas. There’s an article summarising them here .)

I also recommend an article by Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz about the ‘Six Habits of Highly Resilient Organizations’. It's worth thinking whether your organisation does these things:

1. Resilient organizations actively attend to their environments.
2. Resilient organizations prepare themselves and their employees for disruptions.
3. Resilient organizations build in flexibility.
4. Resilient organizations strengthen and extend their communications networks – internally and externally.
5. Resilient organizations encourage innovation and experimentation.
6. Resilient organizations cultivate a culture with clearly shared purpose and values.

Do you say please and thank you?

Geoffrey Crayon and I have been having an interesting exchange in the comments on my recent post about artists and farmers. I mention this for two reasons.

Firstly I want to encourage you to comment. I do read them, I do reply and others sometimes join in. If you get this via email subscription, do click through and visit the site so you can comment or read the comments others leave.

Secondly, we got on the subject of what it's right for Arts Council to expect from its funded organisations, stimulated by Sir Christopher Frayling's recent comments on how he felt he was treated during his time as Chair. I won't repeat it here, other than to say I don't think funding should buy agreement or silence when people disagree with a funder but that people should remember that even funders have feelings too, and be reasoned or at least human in their disagreement. Personally I am more interested in difference and diversity than unanimity but no one likes being shouted at.

The quick, possibly blindingly obvious point I was reminded of was this: it is good to say please and thank you. (At least in England, there may be cultural differences across the globe.)

In fundraising terms this is very basic - I was taught by someone many years ago. If you approach funders (any funders, this is not an ACE-specific issue) with a sense of absolute entitlement to their money, it a) is usually misplaced as most programmes are competitive b) it can suggest either naivety or intransigence and c) it just rubs people up the wrong way. So make it clear you understand they don't have to fund you, but they'd be wrong not to.

Then, let them know what you do with their money. Keep them informed, not by simply following the payment conditions and so on or doing the minimum reporting, but by sending them invites to see activity or updates, by talking about the fact that they've funded you to do what you're doing, by mentioning them in your press activity, by dropping them a note afterwards to say how brilliantly it went. (Don't fret if they can't come: there are simply not enough hours in the day, it's nothing personal.) If you want to get on the good side of a funder, you don't have to agree with their latest strategy or all their decisions - just send them a card or even just an email and say thanks for their help. (Send it to the officer or adminstrator that helped you, not the boss, by the way - the boss will hear about it anyway.) It doesn't take long, and don't go over the top with your gratitude, but it will help when you next approach them. It might also make a better starting point if you need to complain, campaign or otherwise become disgruntled with them.

This may sound simple and trite, I know. But if it's that obvious, why do so few people do it?

Could we persuade a nurse to fund the arts?

I mentioned recently the debate that's been taking place in the States about additional funding to the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the stimulus package. (I've already had emails using the phrase shovel-ready, by the way.) It seems this has been in, then out as a Senator tried to make it illegal to fund theatres and 'that sort of thing' through such a bill (I paraphrase broadly), then finally back in. Good news, but indicative of the issue. It's set out really well by Greg Sandow in the Wall Street Journal here.

I think he's right in many ways. Precision in our arguments is going to be important. We need to be positive as well as protective - the arts have a role in job creation as well as economic stimulus. We need to draw on every bit of evidence we have, look more closely at what we do and what it actually involves, and avoid special pleading. The kind of data Arts Council collects could be better used, I'm sure, and colleagues are working on it. The work done by Arts and Business and CCSkills is also helpful for local arguments. As a sector, it sometimes seems there's an instinctive nervousness about numbers part in telling a story, but they can very powerful.

We should, for instance, remind ourselves and politicians that jobs in the arts are proper jobs. Perhaps not well-paid at times, perhaps not standard, but real jobs. But many people who work 'in the arts' are not the obvious 'artytypes' but cleaners, administrators, craftsmen, accountants and so on. You can't make major public art works without major construction skills and building companies. When, say, local authorities are making choices it's worth reminding them of that. But everyone, even the luvviest of luvvies or most unusually bespectacled of installation artists, pays their taxes and spends their wages. Unfortunately (or so it feels to me, as I think it was at least partly what got us in this mess in the first place) that consumption-driven view is what's driving thinking around economic stimulus, so we have to make the case in a way it will be heard.

Wednesday Word of the Week: ‘shovel-ready’

Bit different from other words I’ve looked at, this one, but I can’t resist. The debate about Obama’s financial stimulus – which includes $50M extra for the National Endowment for the Arts – has brought me a new word – ‘shovel-ready’. It means something – usually a capital or construction project – which is ready to start, and therefore (in this context) provide immediate activity, expenditure and general stimulus to the economy. (See this definition on the entertaining Word Spy site.) I shall be making every effort to use it as I go about my business. ‘Do we have any shovel-ready projects?’ ‘Is this work really shovel-ready?’ ‘I’ve got something shovel-ready for you.’ I apologise to everyone in the office in advance!

An article in Atlantic Monthly suggest the arts, especially public art, are a worthy part of a stimulus package because the arts are shovel-ready. It has a slightly naïve view of how artists work, and in particular how large public art projects work – in my experience they are rarely shovel-ready until relatively late in the day. And major arts capital projects including public art rarely run to the originally discussed timetable – even before they get on site. That said, it’s basically right: the arts can be both an immediate stimulus, and help improve both the physical and ‘mood’ environment, in a way that’s definitely worth 1/600th of the package.

There’s clearly an interesting debate going on the States about this. I picked up on it through Artful Manager. It’s an argument we’ve made – and often won – many times before, since the 80s. Given pressures on Regional Development Agencies, and public spending generally, we will need to revisit and sharpen our arguments once more.

How much will the recession crunch culture?

Sorry it's been a bit quite on here. Regular readers will know I was off in Bulgaria helping some friends of mine translate 10 of my poems in to Bulgarian - in just five long days, alongside 30 others by three other poets. You can see them here. My first few days back at work simply got too, too full.

One of the things I did was attend a really interesting seminar organised by the Sponsors Club for Arts & Business on Culture and the Credit Crunch. Speakers from the Chamber of Commerce, the CBI and Waitrose made the audience respectively feel

• optimistic (because there's more good stuff than bad going on really)
• nervous (because the recession may be even harder than predicted)
• jealous (because we're not partners in the wonderful sounding John Lewis/Waitrose.)

There was also a presentation on the latest Arts & Business research into private investment into the arts and culture. This shows a record high, but predicts a sharp frost a-coming. In North East England, as the research suggests, we've already experienced something of that with the difficulties Northern Rock hit having a knock on to the fantastic investment of the Northern Rock Foundation into culture. This was withdrawn and then brought back by the trustees, which has had a very positive impact on the sector. It did underline the fragility of private sector investment, however. The Arts & Business research is well worth close attention as it draws on figures going back several dips and recessions. As such it should help inform planning of organisations that work closely with private sector sponsors and foundations.

One of the points I made from the floor was that we should not slip into thinking of 'business' and 'the arts' as separate: arts organisations are businesses and employers too and should make full use of the things being put in place to help businesses of all kinds, though things like Business Link. I also supported the point that mood or confidence will shape reality. We must not talk ourselves into defeat, be it around the economy or around public spending and the arts. The next spending round will need to be strongly argued by us all, but we must not give anyone any excuses or alibis by talking as if cuts to the arts are inevitable or sensible.

Bloodaxe and the helping hand

The day after National Poetry Day I spoke at the 30th birthday celebrations of Bloodaxe Books. Bloodaxe is, for me, absolutely classic example of the difference one or two stubborn, gifted, passionate and dedicated people can make in the arts. Neil Astley – the editorial vision of Bloodaxe since 1978 – and Simon Thirsk – who could be stereotyped as the marketing or business man but is also as passionate about poetry as Neil - have changed the face of contemporary poetry. They’ve published literally dozens of great writers. They’ve challenged many orthodoxies in the poetry worlds of both ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ or ‘experimental’ publishing and poetries. They’ve been criticised for cheapening poetry by putting together anthologies like Staying Alive that have sold tens of thousands of copies – anthologies full of ‘real poems for unreal times’. They have transformed the marketing and promotion of poetry. They continue to be at the forefront of publishing of international poetry in translation, and broke new ground early on with their impressive lists of women, black and Asian poets when that was unusual. (It was fitting that the event last week also marked the publication of the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets.) You’d have to be Neil to enjoy everyone of them, but that’s life.

And I'm glad to say they’ve done it all with consistent Arts Council and before that Northern Arts support. That’s allowed them to take chances, and to keep things in print that otherwise would have disappeared. Looking through my bookshelves the night before the event, to see what the oldest Bloodaxe book I had was (10 North Eastern Poets, 1980, available second-hand for anything between £4.46 and £103 according to Amazon!) I came across a poem by the great Czech poet Miroslav Holub that had a new relevance for me, it becoming some kind of - possibly ambiguous? - description of Arts Council activity…

A Helping Hand

We gave a helping hand to grass –
and it turned into corn.
We gave a helping hand to fire –
and it turned into a rocket.
Hesitatingly,
cautiously,
we give a helping hand
to people,
to some people…

Who wants to be in charge?

Here’s an interesting example of what no-one in the real world calls participatory decision-making or 'peer involvement'. Tennent’s, the lager company which sponsors a number of music events in Scotland, have created The Tennent’s Mutual. This gives control of programming, ticket prices, even format of gigs over to the public – or those music fans who want to become members of The Tennent’s Mutual. Founding members of The Mutual will select artists, debate locations for gigs and call the shots on ticket prices by interacting as a community and voting for their preferences online. Tennent’s have started it off with a fund of £150,000, and recruited a number of expert advisors to share their views but not make decisions. Any profits will be reinvested in future gigs or festivals.

Although it’s early days, the Vote and Forum and sections show how people are reacting to the chance to influence things. Even where the bank account went was voted upon by members. It will be interesting to see how the programme differs from the norm – and whether this kind of involvement guarantees big audiences.

Anyone aware of other arts organisations devoting even part of their programming budgets to this kind of public involvement? And how might this model be used by public funders of the arts – be it Arts Council or, say, local authorities? (Who are increasingly taking parallel approaches for local decisions such as street furniture, repairs and so on.)

I came across this model in Trendwatching’s latest briefing – ‘41 new business ideas to copy or be inspired by’. Well worth a look, for entertainment value if nothing else.

Why can't we be infallible?

Arts Council England, North East was the main sponsor of The Journal Culture Awards 2007, which were given out at Northern Stage in Newcastle on Monday. (I missed it, for complicated reasons, but you can see our glamorous staff in some of the photos here.) This is a night to celebrate the achievements of the cultural sector in the region, and there were lots of fantastic projects on the shortlists. I’m pleased to say our staff and our support had roles in many of these projects, such as overall winner Belsay Picture House, a result of a long-standing partnership with English Heritage.

We were, though, an awkward mixture of pleased and abashed at the winner of the Arts Council Award. The Novocastrian Philosophers’ Club was universally acclaimed as a brilliantly intimate, innovative and imaginative theatrical performance. However, the organisers had been unsuccessful in applying to Grants for the arts, not once but twice, due to the high demand on the scheme. Each time we reluctantly put it the wrong side of the line that reads ‘No more money available no matter how great the next project is’. (This despite it being led by a former colleague at Northern Arts, Cinzia Hardy. Bang goes that cynics’ theory that we only fund our mates. In fact, now I think of it, I’ve turned down and withdrawn funding from some of my best friends. And we didn’t judge the awards alone, before you ask.)

Now, did we get it wrong? Was it a mistake not to have funded what clearly turned out to be a great project? Certainly it’s felt that way since. Would the work have been bigger and better if we’d backed it? Would Cinzia and the Lit & Phil Library been able to use energy put into filling the funding gap for other purposes? Might more people have got to see it? Would we have demonstrated our judgement more effectively? Perhaps.

But, we would then have had to turn down some of the applicants that did get funded at that decision-making meeting. (All very successful since.) Could we have dealt with it differently – for instance by giving more people half what they’d asked for? I really think that usually leads to no one fulfilling their potential. Would having either an artist or a member of the public there have helped us make a different decision? I doubt it, given the competition. Perhaps they would have argued for another unsuccessful applicant whose festival reached far greater numbers than the Philosopher’s Club.

No one can get decisions right 100% of the time, especially when dealing with things that are yet to happen. If we could somehow grant fund everything retrospectively on whether it was ‘excellent’ or not, or actually reached its target audience, being a funder would be a lot easier. (Not simple, though, because even hindsight doesn’t give us 20:20 Excellence-vision) Oddly, until I get a company Tardis, the practicalities of the world refuse to co-operate with that. We will reflect on what we can learn about backing great ideas, and about weighing up risk. We will use this learning to get better. (There’s a really good essay on learning from your mistakes here, which contains a handy checklist all arts professionals could have on their wall.)

The other old point this reinforces is that the best projects and artists don’t see an Arts Council grant as ‘permission to exist’. If they are unsuccessful they dust themselves down and find another way of making their work regardless. So I’ll end by congratulating the Lit & Phil and the Novocastrian Philosophers’ Club on their well-deserved success. (And thanks also for Cinzia’s permission to discuss this example here!)

What does sustainability in the arts look like?

This question underlies most of the themes I’ve touched on in the first month of this blog. Making ‘excellent’ work, building audiences and participation, creating a meaningful cultural offer, having deep meaningful experiences or even superficial ones: all of them are dependent on a level of sustainability in the sector. They also contribute to achieving it.

A new paper published in Australia by Cathy Hunt and UK-based researcher Phyllida Shaw, ‘A Sustainable Arts Sector: What will it take?’ explores this issue in revealing ways. It takes us away from a sterile debate that sees organisations look to funders to ensure their sustainability, and funders look to organisations to ‘simply’ diversify their earnings to enhance their sustainability. (Although funders and organisations are no doubt right to do both of these at times.)

Really interestingly, the paper sets out a list of characteristics for sustainable arts organisations, but also those of a sustainable sector. These are as much about vision and purpose, and a product that reflects them as they are about money, although a diverse financial base is noted as necessary. Managing risk, investing in staff and board, and the regular renewal of products though learning from consumers are central for organisations. For a sustainable sector, balance, diversity of specialism and scale, and adaptability to change are key to a healthy ecology. I am summarising clumsily and urge you to read it. There are different challenges within for funders and arts organisations, but they are things we are all dealing with. Sometimes everyone involved can slip into convenient, often mutually agreed, fictions around sustainability. This is an understandable and excusable syndrome, but one to be avoided.

It’s no surprise, of course, to put this into the bigger context of sustainability and see that the arts sector needs to develop the core principles of sustainable development, because it’s simply how the world needs to be if we’re going to survive. This is a connection Money Mission Models, another project looking at sustainability, has made at times, most notably in ‘Invitation to an Alternative Future’, which I always think of as Kahlil Gibran meets Arts Management. (For the avoidance of doubt, as the saying goes: I mean that in a good way. It sits provocatively alongside the more traditional papers they share on their site, which I also recommend.)

Are the arts prone to ‘producer capture’?

I have Matthew Taylor of the RSA and a recent blog to thank for a new phrase – ‘producer capture’. Not sure I’m going to be able to slip it into conversation very easily, but it is, I think, a useful concept: ‘the process whereby the goals of an organisation reflect the interests and prejudices of its employees (the producers) rather than those it is supposed to serve (the consumers, customers or citizens)’. (His posting is inspired by a dispute at the charity Shelter, and Ken Loach’s intervention in it.)

Minimising ‘producer capture’ has apparently driven much New Labour reform, especially in the public sector. Matthew Taylor relates it to the voluntary sector, but it might be a useful check for arts organisations – including, of course the Arts Council. Why are we doing what we do, and who for – and what shapes our work most? When we argue for funding – either to government in the Arts Council's case or to the Arts Council or local authorities for many organisations - are we really sure we’re doing it for those we serve rather than for our own protection? These are good questions for any cultural organisation to ask periodically.

In the arts sector itself - as opposed to the arts funding and development systems - the idea is of course complicated by the central importance of artists and other kinds of ‘producers’ – they are far, far more than ‘employees’. Their individual artistic vision drives things. My sense though is that organisations that avoid ‘producer capture’, no matter how strong and individual the artistic vision, have more impact than those that don’t. They are also – as I would argue our recent case to government in the Comprehensive Spending Review result shows – more likely to put forward persuasive cases to funders.