Statement by Americans for the Arts on the 2010 Election

Justine Roberts, Principal

Americans for the Arts released a statement today from President and CEO Robert L. Lynch.  The intent is to position the arts as part of the economic development and job creation platform on which many members of Congress successfully ran and to begin coordinating that message at the grass roots level.  

This message is very consistent with that from the President's Committee on  the Arts and Humanities, including the point that artists themselves are underemployed so that investing in arts education and art projects offers the opportunity to put people back to work AND stimulate tourism, urban redevelopment, and workforce development all with the same investment.

In his statement, Lynch identifies Senate and House members who have been advocates for the arts, as well as governors who have made a commitment to incorporating support for the arts into their local development efforts.  And if you haven't read the Congressional Arts Handbook it is a great primer to the issues and people involved.  Lynch also reminds us that Americans for the Arts is about the begin research on the Arts and Economics Prosperity IV study (you can sign up to participate on their website).  His statement reads:

 “Frustration with the nation’s lack of economic recovery is clearly top of mind among voters and candidates.  Likewise, nonprofit arts organizations have also felt the sting of the recession with state and local government arts funding dropping as much as 16 percent, and private charitable gifts to the arts declining $1.2 billion in just two years.  Additionally, individual artists have been experiencing unemployment at twice the rate of other educated, professional workers.

As our newly-elected leaders at the federal, state, and local levels focus on creating jobs and growing the economy, it is imperative that they understand the profound role the arts play in spurring economic growth and job creation. The nation’s 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations are part of the small business sector, and the nation’s 2.2 million professional artists are among the millions of business entrepreneurs fueling the economy.  It is also important that our newly-elected leaders appreciate the connection between arts education training and the development of creative and innovative workforce skills, which are essential to future workers to compete effectively in the 21st Century global economy.


For the past four years, the House of Representatives initiated several hearings to spotlight the role of the arts in both the economy and in workforce development, yielding more than $100 million in new public investments in the arts and culture. Americans for the Arts looks forward to working with the bipartisan Congressional Arts Caucus and Senate Cultural Caucus on Capitol Hill to continue educating freshman members on how the arts fuel our nation’s economy.  We want to congratulate three of the four Caucus members who were up for re-election on their convincing win last night and look forward to working closely with them in the 112th Congress.  They are Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Representative Todd Platts (R-PA), and Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY).  We also look forward to working with Representative Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL), both already champions of the arts in the House, as they move into their newly elected Senate seats.
At the state government level, several arts champions— based on their record in other public offices or platform statements—have been elected as Governor. They include Governors-elect Jerry Brown (D-CA), Dan Malloy (D-CT), Tom Corbett (R-PA), Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Lincoln Chaffee (I-RI), Mark Dalton (D-MN), John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Rick Snyder (R-MI).


Locally, there were 232 Mayoral elections in cities with a population of over 30,000. Among the many new promising arts champions, Providence, RI Mayor-Elect Angel Taveras and Louisville, KY Mayor-elect Greg Fischer identified the arts as a way to harness local talent and creative energy to power the economy.


Americans for the Arts will soon begin conducting the next installment of national research to document the size, impact, and trends of the nonprofit arts industry for its Arts and Economic Prosperity IV study.  The previous study demonstrated that the nonprofit arts industry generates $166.2 billion of economic activity annually, which supports 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs.”


What you can do


American's for the Arts has identified a number of steps that they feel are useful at the start of the new Congress, and especially for new member of Congress to, as they put it, "welcome and educate".  Their suggestions are geared both for individuals and for organizations.  These include (and below I am quoting from their email):

• Send a letter of congratulations to each elected leader representing your community (federal, state, and local levels) and identify yourself or your organization as a resource on arts policy issues.
• Ask all freshman members of Congress to begin thinking about joining the bipartisan Congressional Arts Caucus or Senate Cultural Caucus.  We will be sending more information about this in the coming weeks.
• Work with your state and local arts advocacy organizations to develop a unified message to your newly-elected state and local leaders.
• Save the dates of April 4-5, 2011 to come to Washington, DC for National Arts Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill.  We especially need grassroots advocates representing the districts and states of newly elected Congressional members.

We'd love to hear how your museum, or arts organization is working locally to make the case.  Do you have support at the State level?  How about your national representatives - do they get it?  Are you optimistic about federal funding and where do you see the priorities heading, is there likely to be increased emphasis pushing in a particular direction - STEM? STEAM? Art Education? Community organizations?  

Tuesday Talks with the Presidents Committee on Arts and Humanities

Justine Roberts, Principal

I thought it was really in keeping with the way this administration uses social media to hold an on-line chat with the Presidents Committee on Arts and Humanities.  This was presented as one of the Tuesday Talks which are an opportunity for citizens to have access to policy makers from different parts of the government, ask them questions, and get substantive answers in a mediated conversation. Its not a debate, and there is no mechanism to follow up or clarify your question if you aren’t getting a pointed answer.  But its not unlike a talk radio show where there is a host to keep things moving and a guest with subject expertise.  There are three ways to particpate in these Tuesday Talks: you can go to Whitehouse.gov to jump in, through Facebook in advance or also live.

This particular Tuesday Talk was part of National Arts and Humanities Month (October) and took place on October 19, 2010.

The PCAH is an independent group appointed by President.  It was founded 1982 under Reagan and has 35 members including working artists.  Its role is to work at the national level on advocacy, programs, issues, opportunities and sustainability related to the arts and humanities.  There are three government agencies that are considered partners of the PCAH: NEA, NEH and IMLS.  But PCAH works with other government departments as well, and with private partners too.  As a committee made up of government and presidential appointees, they bridge public and private and work with both – bringing together groups that aren’t always partners to work on the question of strengthening investment in the cultural life of the USA.  Over the years the PCAH has conducted research and policy analysis, catalyzed programs, and built international relationships.

Each PCAH has its own character and emphasis.  Past committees have focused more on the economy – Preserve America for example was about preserving our historic architecture and civic spaces for tourism and as a basis for economic redevelopment.  This particular group is very concerned with arts education and sees advocacy - making the case - as a central piece of how they can move the needle on participation.  Chuck Close, the first ever visual artist to serve on the PCAH, says they want to remind "educational institutions of the importance of arts education both in and of themselves, and integrated into the rest of the curriculum."  

These are the areas this committee seems to care most about:

• Make the case
• A call to action
• Identify models and opportunities to replicate them 
• Work with other government departments - advocate for the arts and how the role they play
• Give awards to recognize success and catalyze investment

This all adds up to trying to build a movement.  No small thing.

The CHAT

I liked the chat format. And was really pleased to hear Chuck Close speak - what an inspiring advocate he is!  

There was about an hour total and time for 9 questions.  One person read questions aloud and moved the conversation along.  She selected questions about the creative economy, arts education, the influence of the PCAH on policy discussions, role models, making the case, and how to get involved.  

What didn’t come up was international cooperation and the importance of arts/culture embasador and cultural exchange.  The reason that is surprising is because it is part of the mandate of the group and in the past few years they have worked on international projects notably in Haiti and China.

The whole discussion was worthwhile (click to watch) but I wanted to summarize some of what I thought of as the key points the Committee made.  

1. Make the Case.  The committee acknowledged that there is work to be done on making the case for how the arts contribute to formal education, and about how the arts and artists contribute to economic revitalization.  Committee members repeatedly talked about how important it is to articulate the difference that artists and arts organizations make:

• To Economics and urban renewal by moving into abandoned neighborhoods like the NJ Performing Arts Center in Newark which is planned as an anchor for that city's revitalization.  
• To Education by building capacity, enthusiasm, ongoing engagement, and creativity.  They help many different kinds of learners stay in school and support their success through self-esteem and increasing their passion to learn.  They help teachers to feel they have a real stake in educating their students and give teachers permission to explore other ways to get information across. 

2. Build on Success.  They are working to identify existing operating programs that can serve as models to roll out more widely. Programs like Studio in the School are great for individual artists but they also benefit the education system and whole communities.  

3. Artists themselves are a resource.  The committee has also been working on the idea of an artists corps which is a group of working artists that can participate in projects nationally.  Chuck Close has an idea for a “put and artist to work” model like WPA - so increasing direct employment opportunities AND having an impact on schools at the same time.  At the same time, the NEA is developing a program called Our Town which will pilot programs that engage artists.  Our Town grows out of Art Works which is about showing that art does work! In education, community development, economics etc.  

4. This is a non-partisan conversation.  The Committee was created under Reagan and historically has been broadly supported.  They are involved in advocating for the arts inside government - with the DOE about education reform and the role of arts in education and the Domestic Policy Council e.g.  But their goal is to stress that the arts are good for society in general but also in an important local way irrespective of politics of a community.  Art and culture are an important part of society; are our national identity. 

5. Partner, Partner, Partner.  The arts are important to workforce development.  They can teach people how to pose a question, and identify a problem, not just find the answer.  A 2010 study of CEOs lists creativity as a critical skill.  There is a need to have corporate partners who recognize the need for a prepared workforce – one that understands how to think critically, pose questions, collaborate, etc. 

6. Advocacy starts at home.  If you want to get involved look for a local initiative to help out with, or opportunity to teach.  Talk to the PTA and work on showing the local chapter what difference the arts are  making in their community schools.  

Measuring the value of culture

Justine Roberts, Principal

There is a lot of discussion about the role of evaluation in our work - as museums, what is it we really can evaluate?  What is our sweet spot as learning organizations - content knowledge, skills, attitudes?  Is it reasonable to attribute certain kinds of impacts (behavioral change eg) to museums?  What set of instruments should we use to capture impact?  Who should do evaluation and when?  How should the results shape our work? Which comes first, priorities or results?  And does an evaluation framework negatively impact the ways we develop public programs, or even staff professional development opportunities - does it make an exhibit or program more linear, more focused on content transfer, and less wonder-ful?  There are others, these just come to mind.


So it was interesting to come across a project from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in the UK that attempts to put a comprehensive framework in place for thinking about the role of evaluation for self-choice learning social-service organizations. They start with a definition of learning and then systematically define outcomes for both visitors of MLAs (what they call Generic Learning Outcomes) and for organizations themselves (which they call Generic Social Outcomes).  Using that as a foundation, this framework then shows how to create evaluation tools that help measure impact.  

So it links content to metrics.  It is an actionable framework, and because it measures success, it is also designed to tell a coherent, fundable, story about the work of a public service organization. 

This tight relationship between what it means to “learn”, the types of learning expected from the audience and the wider impact of the organization’s work, and the evaluation tool designed to measure learning is very strategic.  

This is a systematic framework and calls for a kind of on-going self-evaluation policy or attitude within an organization.  Individual programs, initiatives, exhibits, or workshops are evaluated, but there are no one-off, stand-alone evaluations.  Every time something is measured (professional development, summer camps, a new stage production, etc) it uses the same goals. There is no need to reinvent WHAT to evaluate for each event, and evaluation results are automatically consistent with the big, visionary impacts of the MLA (Whether they show success or not).


This project steps out of the stream of day-to-day work and program delivery and thinks about evaluation as part of the overall trajectory of an organization.  That makes it an interesting way to think about the importance of evaluation and how it functions.


Inspiring Learning

The MLA describes “Inspiring Learning” as “a self-help improvement framework” and encourages MLAs to use it to:       
       *Assess your strengths and plan improvements
       *Provide evidence of the impact of your activities through the generic learning and generic social outcomes
       *Improve your strategic and operational performance

What is in it?

As the saying goes - you get what you measure.  So it matters what framework you use and you have to start with a clear agreement on key terms.  MLA does this with a definition of learning as active engagement with experience: 

They expand that as follows:

•            It is what people do when they want to make sense of the world
•            It may involve the development or deepening of skills, knowledge, understanding, values, ideas and feelings
•            Effective learning leads to change, development and the desire to learn more

So they are starting by positioning the work of MLAs as something of a fusion of learning frameworks to include cognition, social/emotional learning, skills development, and personal dimensions.

The MLA believes organizations should model the kinds of learning that they hope to foster.  Because of that, self-assessment is the first step in the bigger strategic process of identifying areas where MLAs can have an impact. The Council has created a kind of SWOT worksheet using their scale of impacts get you started.

From that point, the framework turns outward and looks at how to evaluate and measure impacts on individuals (GLO), and communities (GSO).

Generic Learning Outcomes

I want to talk about what the GLOs are because I think this way of looking at the opportunities for learning in MLAs is really nice.  MLA has identified 5 ways that audiences grow and develop through their relationships with organizations:

1.      I think the yellow circle is in some ways the most interesting because it is calling for lasting behavioral change as an outcome of a visit to a library, museum, gallery, or archive.  The difficulty of measuring this is one issue, and I am not sure that Inspiring Learning has solved that question.  But it is in many ways the ideal of many museums working on exhibits and programs related to climate change, wellness, and human rights.  So it is something I think the field is very interested in figuring out.  With that exception, I think the GLOs are familiar and part of how we think about museum outcomes here in the States.  So this diagram offers a handy tool that is easy to use - and when you go to their website each of the circles is clickable and pops up a more detailed description.

Generic Social Outcomes are intended to help measure the benefits, or social value, of these types of organizations.

So if that is the framework then you can use it to create research tools, questionnaires, focus group guides and other materials that support evaluation of programs and offerings against the GLO.

This is fundamentally political

In a way, Inspiring Learning is quietly pushing MLAs to recognize their potential contributions to their local and professional community, and also to policy discussions that impact their work in arts education, cultural funding, out of school time learning, healthy communities and more.

To that end, the MLA council has taken care to ensure Inspiring Learning aligns with other existing UK policies and initiatives.  Those include:

• Every Child Matters - a chart setting out everything from nutrition to educational attainment to public play space – quality of life, basic health and wellbeing, opportunity, and 2020 Children’s Plan rolled together.
• UK primary school curriculum framework
• The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) - which is working on a vision of informal learning for the 21st century and ties the GLOs to adult informal learning.
• The RARPA framework – a National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) framework that tracks progress for adult learners.

So is the framework helpful or just another hurdle?

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council wants to make their membership stronger, more productive, and more sustainable, and to improve their social standing.  They are thinking about how to demonstrate value by creating ways to measure impacts. Fair enough but why an evaluation framework in particular?

Inspiring Learning was developed specifically as a response to the 2007 Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act which shifted assessment from a service–based model to an outcome-based model. As MLA explains it, this shift meant no longer assessing the quality of programs but instead looking at how to demonstrate value by showing improved quality of life for individuals and communities.  That left the question: how do you identify the contributions of MLAs? 

Clearly MLA is operating in a very different environment than we have here in the States.  Museums here certainly respond to funder priorities and opportunities, and some of those can shape the experience of many museums across the country as they position themselves to be more competative.  But we don’t have the same pressure (safety net?!) of national funding and we don’t have national mandates or policies like this one in the UK that push a sector-wide response.

Even so, The Wallace Foundation, which studies Out of School Time (OST) organizations has come to the similar conclusion that we need to better “link and align learning opportunities within a community” if we hope to create high performing/high impact non profits. Although working in a different country, and coming at the question from a different point of view, they have arrived at a surprisingly similar formulation of the issue:

“Being results-oriented means synching the nonprofit’s mission and vision with its programmatic activities and then setting goals that best reflect the intended outcomes of the activities.  In a mission- driven/results-oriented nonprofit, operations decisions are cross-walked with the mission to ensure that the services provided are aligned with the overall strategy.”

The Wallace Foundation clearly sees program evaluation as part of a larger process of learning and strategic thinking that will drive organizations to be more effective.  However, they do diverge from the MLA framework in some important respects.  They are not in favor of holding OSTs accountable for community-wide measures of success, and they do not try to map out the criteria that individual organizations would use to evaluate learning outcomes.

At the end of the day 

I think there is a lot to take away from Inspiring Learning.  For one thing, its comprehensive and consistent focus on strategy.  The tag line is “placing learning at the heart of the museum.”  But it applies that to policy as well as to people, physical space, and partners.  It is a chance to align an organization top to bottom along a consistent strategic axis.  It recognizes that exhibits succeed not just when they are coherent with the style of the museum, or when they are able to meet their fundraising targets, but when they improve the museum’s capacity, make it more competitive, raise awareness and profile, and contribute to the social capital of their communities.

For another, it asks some important high level questions and encourages social service organizations to be explicit about them.  These include: what is our public value? How do we demonstrate our contributions? What are our priorities as a cultural organization? What is our own culture as a learning organization? It can seem like an organization is struggling just to deliver service and keep the doors open these days.  But it is also important to be able to say what difference you make in the world, and why you matter.  That seems to me one of the messages of Inspiring Learning.  

Although it takes seriously the idea that MLAs have to prove, demonstrate and perhaps even justify their work – and that can be very uncomfortable – the demand for evidence of need, outcome and performance data, and improved efficiency and effectiveness are all growing steeply here in the States as well as in the UK.  If this is our reality, a framework like GLO seems very handy.