The Boston Indicators Project
Sector Convening Notes
Cultural Life & the Arts
Thursday, July 13, 2006

Brief Project Overview
The Boston Indicators Project is a collaborative project of Greater Boston’s civic community. Recognized for its comprehensive framework and selected by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to help inform the development of national indicators, the project is coordinated by the Boston Foundation in partnership with the City of Boston and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Its goals are: to democratize access to high quality data and information; to foster informed public discourse, and; to track progress on shared civic goals. Since 2000, the project has released four biennial reports, the last three as a summary in hard copy and a detailed web-based report on the award-winning www.bostonindicators.org. The Boston Foundation is committed to issuing a biennial report through 2030, Boston’s 400^th anniversary.

To begin to frame the findings of each report, the project hosts a series of convenings in each of the ten sectors it tracks: Civic Health; Cultural Life and the Arts; Economy; Education; Environment and Energy; Public Health; Public Safety; Housing; Technology; and Transportation. Each convening, chaired by stakeholders from within the field, includes a range of perspectives from academic experts, community-based practitioners, public agency and foundation staff, private sector representatives, and consumers.

The convenings range in size from about 20 to 100 participants, the latter for large, complex sectors such as education, civic health and housing, which are broken into sub-sectors, each with its own co-chairs. Each convening uses the same structured agenda, eliciting views on key long –term trends, major developments and accomplishments of the previous two years, and key remaining challenges. The notes are then compiled, reviewed by the co-chairs for accuracy and completeness, and used to frame and prioritize the findings of the next Boston Indicators Report.  

What follows are the notes from the Cultural Life & the Arts convening. 

In Attendance:

Co-Chairs:Candelaria Silva-Collins, Director of ACT Roxbury, Madison Park Development Corporation; Bill Nigreen, Principal, Facilitation for Social Change

Susan Birkett, Community Services Manager, Boston Public Library
Sabrina Aviles, Iguana Films/ Boston Latino Film Festival
Ricardo Barreto, Director, Urban Arts Institute, Massachusetts College of Art
Michelle Baxter, Director, Performing Arts & Outreach, Mayor's Office of Arts Tourism & Special Events
Carole Charnow, General Director, Opera Boston
Deborah Davidson, Manager of Programs & Exhibitions, New Center for Arts and Culture
Cathy Deely, Director of Marketing & Public Relations, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Anne Emerson, Executive Director, The Boston Museum Project
Cathy Emmons, Associate Director, Foundation & Government Relations, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Tomeeka Farrington, Principal, Spotlight Communications
Edmund Barry Gaither, Director, National Center of Afro-American Artist
Geraldine Guardino, Executive Director, First Night, Inc.
Meri Jenkins, Program Manager, Massachusetts Cultural Council
Martha Jones, President and Executive Director, Bank of America Celebrity Series
Anita Lauricella, President, Lauricella and Associates
Brian LeMay, Executive Director, The Bostonian Society
Charlot Lucien, Founder, Haitian Artists Assembly of Massachusetts
Micheal Maso, Managing Director, Huntington Theatre
Jose Mateo, Artistic Director, Jose Mateo's Ballet Theatre
Rita McAteer, Associate Director of Development, Boston Lyric Opera
Judith McMichael, Director of Marketing & Business Partnerships, Boston Lyric Opera
Ann McQueen, Senior Program Officer, The Boston Foundation
Sarah Peskin, Director of Special Projects, National Park Service
Catherine Peterson, Executive Director, ArtsBoston
Jason Schupbach, Director, ArtistLink, Massachusetts Cultural Council
Candelaria Silva-Collins, Director of ACT Roxbury, Madison Park Development Corporation
Katherine Sloan, President, Massachusetts College of Art
Chia-Ming Sze, Principal, Chia-Ming Sze Architect & Elton and Associates
Zakiya Thomas, Citizens Bank Manager for Community Outreach, Museum of Fine Arts
Wen-ti Tsen, Artist
Celeste Wilson, Executive Director, Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston
Sam Yin

Welcome and Introductions
The co-chairs welcomed participants to the convening and asked participants to describe the primary indicators that they worked with. 

• Audiences: where they are coming from; how they are accessing info; changing demographics, which will require increasingly active outreach; overlap and crossover of audiences
• Role of arts *in* culture (more change happening here); also, role of art in social fabric and civic agenda more broadly, including participation of art leaders in civic roles
• Following (stalking) the money; public art funding and action at the statehouse; fiscal health of the sector; earned/alternative sources of income to support organizations; rising donor participation rates
• Ways educational organizations train/prepare young artists; increasing interest and importance of design; also questions about broader art education and impact on cultural/aesthetic literacy
• Local impact of MAASH
• Availability of (and funding for) affordable artist housing, especially in minority communities; also availability of artist work/show space, health care, and other sector infrastructure
• Trend of collaboration between ethnic artists and cultural organizations; also more general collaboration between organizations within the sector.
• Reduction in coverage (quality and quantity) of arts in the news, as well as declining self-advocacy; changes in marketing and PR; questions about how this affects donors
• How museums are working to become more relevant to the community
• Communication using non-traditional means (word of mouth)
• New, home-grown work
• Reconciling personal/professional lives; access to internet; language issues; questions more broadly about a lack of diversity in the art community and among the leadership in particular
• Different business practices (how people go about the business differently); how artists and small organizations are using the Internet to market/curate their work
• Strengthening boards
• Tourist industry and its associated facilities 

Key Long-Term Trends, Recent Developments and Accomplishments, and Remaining Challenges 
The co-chairs then asked participants to brainstorm key long-term trends, recent accomplishments and developments, and remaining challenges.

 Key Long-Term Trends

• Changing audience demography causing the sector to adapt and find a means of appealing to an audience of broader racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and age groups. 
• The audience is increasingly more powerful in relation to the artists and service providers (e.g., museums) in this sector. 
• The podcasting phenomenon and other tools that aid the proliferation of information are stimulating a shift in power to the public.
• There is an “earthquake” change in how people receive information (MySpace, Pod, cell phones, etc.), which necessitates the reevaluation (or demise) of traditional media and marketing tools (people want to access art at home).  
• Reduction in the quality and quantity of art criticism, particularly the page space given to it in print media, such as newspapers; questions about the distinction between opinion and formal, tutored critique; what does it mean if everyone can be a critic?
• Deepening international context in the art community due to ease of movement and sharing of information.  Short and long-term global issues, such as growing income disparities, will affect the sector in a variety of ways.
• Increasing international integration of Boston’s economy offer the sector new opportunities for communication and tourism as well as more intense competition.  Young talent and funding will also be able to move more effectively in this increasingly fluid environment.
• Donor interests and priorities are changing, with heightened emphasis on involvement and demonstrable results.
• Increasingly tight competition for donor funding (fewer philanthropic organizations); could lead to increasing desire for accountability.
• Skewed outcomes in donor giving with larger organizations receiving more funding.
• Rapidly changing attitudes and social psychology around the nature and the very definition of art and culture are encouraging the sector to respond actively.  Anticipating these changes will be important for the future, particularly in the performing arts.
• Shift in educational priorities; greater emphasis on math and the sciences in schools.  More importantly, the focus on teaching to tests like MCAS is problematic for the arts sector, and heightens the need for hard statistical data demonstrating the importance of arts education to impress upon legislators and philanthropists. 
• Generaldecline in cultural literacy, pointing to the need to provide art education to the public.
• Fewer male art students.
• Growing segmenting of the community along class, racial, ethnic, and age lines raises questions regarding whether all of these groups are getting access to culture and whether artists of various groups are receiving equitable treatment for their work (not happening now; e.g., work by artists of color put into city section of Globe).
• Growing trend towards the development of new artistic forms for expressing culture (e.g., folk tales).
• Rising costs (esp. housing), insurance premiums and wage demands are diluting the job market in Boston and straining the sector. 
• The mobility of Boston’s young labor force and the possibility that Boston isn’t the place for young artists to be is also making retention difficult.
• Changing relationships within the sector are being stimulated by the appearance of new people in media, sales, and funding.
• There is an overlap and blurring of public and private space, encouraged by funders.
• Increase in mixed (public/private) financial resources, which are being encouraged by the funders themselves.  There are frequent images we’re being bombarded with, and art and advertisement (or public/private) are sometimes indistinguishable (e.g., New Balance installation ad in Munich airport).
• Despite the increasingly diverse demographics of the Boston area, there is some question regarding a narrowing of diversity in some places.
• Fewer people of color in colleges than in the 70s.
• Youth discouraged from going into the Arts.
• The suburbs are becoming more diverse and facing their own unique challenges in this area.
• Ex-urban communities are becoming more diverse and moving towards creating their own art/culture facilities.
• The split between for-profit and non-profit enterprises is becoming increasingly blurred as non-profits are being forced to lean more heavily on quantifiable and demonstrable results.  In essence, non-profit enterprises are being encouraged to “go corporate” with their philanthropic work.
• Strategic collaboration, both within and across sectors, is a rising trend, fueled in part by the tighter market for donor funding (a “healthy interest in collaboration”).  Cross-sector collaboration with the sciences for work and funding.  Ex: Toronto facility combining scientists, artists, and venture capitalists (creativity breeds innovation; venture capital firms); coral reef preservation funded by science organizations is another example.

 Developments and Accomplishments, 2004-2006 

• The state legislature has taken greater cognizance of the importance of the creative sector to Massachusetts’ economy and tourist industry and has invested more heavily in it (also growing regulation).
• The Gardner Museum is investigating the role/importance of early education and access for interest in the arts, critical thinking, creativity, etc.
• There are numerous examples of positive and beneficial collaborative efforts within the sector.
  • The Roxbury Cultural Network (“Informing Roxbury”) is an example of how collaboration triggered a new and **innovative project.  The effort includes joint work on marketing, a brochure, website design, and sharing of information and staff, much of which would be beyond the capabilities of the individual organizations. 
  • Speakeasy (which has doubled its income in the last two years),
  • Take Me Out
  • Opera Unlimited (e.g., **Angels in America, whose recent N. American premier has had critical impact)
  • Lewis Playhouse in the Park (involves Franklin Park Coalition)
  • Cloud Foundation
  • First Night
  • The Boston Public Library’s Homework Assistance Program worked in conjunction with the symphony to provide both tutoring and access to 90 kids who had never been to symphony before (unbelievable!). 
  • These collaborative efforts are being encouraged by funders, who are also pushing for better “storytelling” across sectors.  In addition, new spaces are creating new “space” for collaboration, as well as having an impact on audience/demographics (research tracking this is happening now).
• Cross-sector collaboration is happening as well, particularly with community development corporations and the social sector, which are viewing the arts as a tool for community development (e.g., ACDC, Hyde Sq. dance project).  Other such efforts include the Create Boston Initiative, Artists Link Initiative, and collaborations with AIDS foundations (all about finding the right relationships). 
• Valuable opportunities to partner with ethnic and community-based organizations to reach ethnic communities in Boston.  Partnering with and providing expertise to the Conventional Visitors Bureau may be a valuable opportunity for the sector, as well (new conversations, openness).
• The Calderwood Pavilion has proven its value and the demand for additional cultural facilities in the community (coupled with an enrichment of cultural facilities across the spectrum).  The facility has seen an unanticipated boom of demand for performance and rehearsal space and a call for even further access to space.  There are questions, however, regarding the use of this space by audiences.                                           

Remaining Challenges

• Despite an increase in the sophistication of thinking about the sector, the city and state governments remain obstacles to development of the sector (as opposed to other sectors and other cities), due both to a lack of public funding and other regulations imposed.
• Less public understanding and funding of the arts in Boston than elsewhere.  It’s also important for the sector to keep arts and cultural issues on the broader civic/legislative agenda.
• Changing demography presents a unique challenge for the expansion and retention of audiences. 
• Identifying new demographic trends is insufficient; the sector must actively work to understand these new audiences to reach out to them effectively (diversifying and reaching audiences that normally don’t think of art venues; also looking at socioeconomics of audience—different marketing).
• Predictability of income in a fluid environment demanding flexibility is a constant challenge in this sector (“ability to predict is ability to plan”).  Stability is important for effective planning, particularly for smaller organizations, which can be adversely affected by the capital campaigns of larger groups.  There is a focus on unrelated earned income in the absence of big donors (donors often don’t answer financial need).  Key to this issue is willingness to work against the odds (commitment, not about making $).
• Concerns exist over the distribution of individual giving and financial resources within the sector.  There is a perception that a few of the already wealthy and secure organizations receive the lion’s share of funding, creating pressures on smaller organizations. 
• An increasing number of small organizations are in danger of disappearing entirely (can’t sustain the same developmental machinery of larger groups), and their leadership faces lots of time demands that are often uncompensated (ex: restaurants not relocating to different areas; lots of orgs that stop and are “reinvented,” like Roxbury Shakespeare group; difficult to gain trust/appreciation of community like this).
• The impact of Boston’s transportation network and its perceived safety (e.g., the tunnel collapse) affecting the city’s cultural tourism industry.
•  A perception of downtown Boston as unsafe is also a problem for the sector (esp. for women).
• Departure of young art students from Boston is putting pressure on the sector to make the city a place young artists want to be.  Young artists are increasingly leaving the region, challenging Boston to attract, support, and retain human resources in this sector (MassArt: *no one* staying).
• Concerns about succession plans for organizations (where is the next generation?  No time/money for mentorship).  Is this a youth deficit due to demographic change (baby boomer retirements) or can we affect it with planning and education?  Youth getting involved in cultural organizations through job programs (need more).  WMA internship (26 interns involved).  Emphasis on retaining people of color in for-profit (but NOT non-profit) sector.
• Need to encourage young people to go into the arts and keeping arts education a pillar in schools.
• Despite the development of new facilities, there is a need for sustained funding to support and maintain the sector’s infrastructure (capital $$ easier to raise than support for operating expenses), without which many of the new venues could become underutilized or fall into disrepair (transcending the limitations of cultural spaces; bringing new communities in).
• Broader questions regarding the creative economy; after the burst of excitement a few years ago, Boston is challenged to find out what it actually means, and how exactly do we build/develop it.
• Perceived access to facilities was described as not being very high.  Boston needs to work to improve access to resources, venues, translations, scheduling, marketing, and information.  There is no one go-to website to organize/distribute information. 
• Boston’s growing income disparity threatens to limit accessibility to culture and the arts for those who are not wealthy.  All of these factors challenge the sector to increase affordability and accessibility both to artists and organizations as well as to the public (audience’s $$ being squeezed).
• The depth and diversity of the sector in Boston was highlighted as a strength.  Also mentioned, however, was the fact that the sheer number of artistic and cultural opportunities available every night was staggering to the point of being overwhelming.
• The demographics of the leadership in the art community doesn’t correspond to that in society overall.  Particularly noteworthy is a disconnect between older leaders in the sector and the younger generation (boomers vs. 20-30 year olds). 
• Challenge of artists communicating/expressing intergenerational ethnicity (1^st to 2^nd generation) and concerns about broadening the meaning of diversity.
• Broadening and deepening our concept of diversity should be a priority.  It cannot be limited to just providing tickets for low-income kids; need to promote more openness to new, smaller, community-based organizations. 
• Demand for more diverse leadership representing communities of color. 
• Impact of new health care legislation on small organizations and individual artists?
• Collaboration is very difficult, but is fast becoming an integral part of the sector.  Collaborative efforts often occur only between organizations of the same size, limiting some of these efforts.  Small and large organizations still see each other as adversaries.  Projects are more often based on self-interest than a community-targeted commonality of interests (interdependent ecology of cultural life; we need a shared strategy). 
• We need to make new kinds of distinctions in the way we look at the sector.  We should conceive of it in terms of those who create, train artists, educate the public, advocate for the sector, etc. as well as simply breaking down across medium. 
• Pressures to commercialize art are unique in their impact on sub-sectors.  We must also avoid reifying the “community” and search for more effective categories to direct efforts towards (e.g., K-8, 12-18, etc.).  Internal infrastructure may be more effective at targeting specific subgroups, which we should be mindful of, rather than trying to appeal to the entire “community” with one offering.  This presents an infrastructure challenge, even for large organizations.
• Recruitment of young talent for both staff and board member positions is a challenge for all organizations, particularly compared with the corporate sector, which can afford far more for professional development.
• Concerns over the future development of the sector’s leadership pipeline, especially with increased competition for a scarcity of funds.  Cuts in summer and school funding are also having an impact here.
• Preserving and promoting the non-quantifiable factors of art/culture are also important challenges, particularly in the face of increasing pressures to commercialize the sector and limitations in funding. 
• Sustaining “art for art’s sake” has become increasingly difficult.
• Boston must continue to market itself effectively as a tourist destination.
• Need for a sector workforce development plan.
• More energy from municipal governments outside of Boston on this issue.

Suggestions for Indicators to Highlight

The co-chairs asked participants to identify indicators to highlight in the next report. 

• Funding/health of cultural organizations is a key indicator of the sector’s health.  Specific numbers to look at include balance sheets, the percent of organizations with deficits and the growth of those deficits (adjusted for staff/salary levels; does anybody have a surplus?  Also consider staffing levels in workforce development terms).  The number of donors as well as the amount of funding available is also a useful index.  Additionally, the availability of federal, state, and local public funding (also foundations devoted to arts/culture) is a key tool to gauge the vitality of the sector and the emphasis being placed on it in the civic agenda.  The successes of publicly-funded collaborative efforts in other cities (such as Chicago’s Millennium Park) are examples of best practice from elsewhere.
• The “joy” factor.  Is there an indicator(s) that can be used to determine whether the sector has an impact in this way upon the community?  Are people happier (community morale)?  Are we enriching/edifying their lives at all?  Linked to these questions is the issue of values (e.g., example about the proliferation of gyms not being linked to healthier lifestyles).  What values are we trying to promote, and are they beneficial to the community (social relevance?  (A related issue is data gathering on changing audience demographics).  Metrics on this are difficult to measure; how are organizations gathering data?
• The state of the arts/culture infrastructure is another key factor to consider.  The number/age of facilities, square footage, and seating capacity (seats per capita?) are all possible quantifiers, and it would be valuable to sort them by neighborhood.  Equally, it is important to measure the audience demand for these facilities, measured by the usage of this production capacity (# of attendees?).  Are people actually attending these new events and using the facilities?  Per capita measures are also useful to have (donors/category?).
• The retention rate for human resources and artists may be an important indicator.  Tied to the vitality of the sector’s human resources are such indicators as the proportion of artists that actually make a living from their art, the percentage with health care and/or the number of arts/culture organizations providing health care.  There may be other indicators that tie into the health of the environment for individual artists.  May also have to reckon with the possibility that Boston isn’t a center for the arts.
• Boston’s recognition/success as a national and international tourist destination as an important factor to consider. How well are we connected to the rest of the world?Measures of how people get information on cultural activities. Consider the sector’s relationship with the audience.  How many people are going vs. years ago (declining usage of theater)?
• A measure of the diversity of organizations and audience (by race, class, and age).
• Measures of collaboration may be useful (consider esp. in light of the “lack of collaborative gene” highlighted in civic health section of ’04 BIP).  Collaborative efforts within the sector, across sectors, and intercultural efforts may be used to gauge the prevalence of collaboration.