10-24-08
Changing Organizational Structures
Steppenwolf, 9 other arts groups, land $1 million grants to help them reimagine their organizations.
Ben Cameron knows that arts groups need to change their organizational models in the 21st century. Cameron used to be a corporate donor—through Target Corporation—before taking the helm of the Theatre Communications Group for eight years. So, after landing at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation as director of arts two years ago, Cameron started looking for ways to help the arts organizations the charity serves (contemporary dance, jazz and theatre) to find those organizational models.
The result is a five-year initiative in partnership with the Nonprofit Finance Fund. “Leading for the Future: Innovative Support for Artistic Excellence” just announced 10 arts groups who will get up to $1 million to redefine how they do business.
One of them is Steppenwolf Theatre.
Steppenwolf will be looking at ways they can engage younger audiences, perhaps implement a larger education program, and enhance the visiting artists initiative, which has brought in such groups as Collaboraction, About Face and The Hypocrites.
But executive director David Hawkanson can’t give much more detail than that.
“In the next 12 months, we’re going to be doing a whole lot of market research,” he said.
Steppenwolf's Hawkanson
That research will be framed by the idea of “creating a new producing model which results in a more socially engaged and intellectual interrogative with young audiences.”
In other words, Steppenwolf wants to entice people in their early 20s to around 30 to come to their shows.
“That’s the demographic group that built us,” said Hawkanson. “Chicago has one of the highest population of higher education students in the United States.”
How they’re going to engage that population segment is still up in the air. Doris Duke and the NFF are providing a starting $75,000 for each group to come up with a detailed plan. Steppenwolf intends to take the next year, hire consultants and conduct focus groups to see if their ideas are viable.
The ultimate goal of the Leading the Future initiative is for arts organizations to come up with models that other arts organizations can replicate—creating new ways that all arts groups can conduct business in the U.S.
And, oddly, viability was not the main criterion for getting the Leading the Future grant. According to both Cameron and NFF vice president for knowledge and advocacy, Sharon Combs, the main criterion was boldness.
“We were looking for those ideas that didn’t replicate existing strategies, but had the boldness to move out in the field and find new strategies,” said Cameron, who added that it didn’t matter if those ideas were half-baked, as long as they showed “a courage or strength of imaginative thinking on an issue of scale.”
Most of the ideas the 10 groups came up with had to do with audience development and using new technologies. One theatre, Ping Chong & Company in New York, is looking for a way to, essentially, franchise its community based method. The other groups are: Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation (New York), Center Theatre Group (L.A.), Cunningham Dance Foundation (N.Y.), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (Becket, MA), Misnomer Dance Theater (N.Y.), National Black Arts Festival (Atlanta), SITI Company (N.Y.) and The Wooster Group (N.Y.).
The 10 groups were chosen from 85 applications, which were cut in three judging stages. Arts organizations that made the final list showed a track record of demonstrated artistic excellence, a deep and innovative quality of thinking within their proposed plans, and were financially ready to handle such a large grant.
“We were looking for organizations whose proposal went beyond just their organization,” said Combs.
The Duke/NFF panel asked applicants to tell them about the issue they wanted to address, and their possible strategy for addressing it. Additionally, the panel asked each group to describe its biggest failure and what they’ve learned from it.
As Cameron puts it, they were looking for organizations that were “rigorously self-critical and, not afraid of risk and could learn from failure.” He terms them “change positive receptive organizations.”
For Steppenwolf, in particular, Cameron agreed with Combs that the theatre’s selection “had to do with their willingness to engage in self-criticism.
“They’re really clear that they didn’t know the answers in seeking to engage with a younger audience.”
Steppenwolf’s visiting artists initiative also impressed the panel.
“People within the theatre community consider that a very bold move,” said Combs.
Hawkanson thinks partnering with smaller, younger arts groups will end up as part of the final plan. Part of the year-long process will be engaging with those groups. Right now, he’s just trying to figure out how to start figuring things out.
“It’s a real opportunity for us to shape this institution for the future,” said Hawkanson. “You don’t get these kind of R&D resources often.”
Steppenwolf, though, seems to be getting a lot of new cash resources. Just days before the announcement of the Duke/NFF grant, Steppenwolf received a $600,000, 3-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to commission new work. Specifically, the grant will go to Steppenwolf’s First Look series. The bulk of the money will go to four writers, who will be charged during the 3-year period with creating work designed with Steppenwolf’s ensemble in mind. The rest of the cash will go to enhancing First Look’s audience interactive component.
Audience interaction is the cornerstone to the Wallace Excellence Awards grant that Steppenwolf received two years ago. That grant helped the company to redesign its website to include video and audio podcasts and blogs, as well as new ticketing procedures. That, and a better model for post-show discussions were designed to draw people in. Hawkanson is in the process of quantifying the changes as they enter the third and final year of the grant, but he says the initiative seems to be working. “We’re seeing a difference in audience response. We’re getting more feedback about the work.”
That, says Hawkanson, was precisely what the company was looking for as they transitioned into doing primarily new work.
“If we were going to do new work at this level, we needed to engage with audiences on a different level—create an environment so the work is understood, whether it’s a success or not.”
That environment is exactly what the Duke/NFF panel liked. And they’re betting a million dollars that the plan Steppenwolf comes up with will be a success.