Redefining Impact: Alan Harrison on Transforming Arts Organizations for Community Succes

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Talking Impact with Alan Harrison

(00:01):
===

Lucy Costelloe (00:02):
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Arts and Everything in Between podcast. My name is Lucy Costello and today I am delighted to be joined by Alan Harrison. Alan is an author, speaker, writer, father, performer, non profit executive, and artist. but in no particular order. For over 30 years, he's led, produced, directed, promoted, raised money for, succeeded, and failed in over 300 theatrical productions on and off Broadway, and at prestigious and not so prestigious non profit arts organizations across the country.
Alan is a Joining me today, and we are also going to just make a note that Alan's new book, Scene Change, has been published and is available in the UK. The book tosses a virtual brick through the window of the non profit arts sector, where the elitism and social failure have doomed it to near irrelevance.
This book offers real techniques to achieve the kind of impact that will make them indispensable to their communities. I'm delighted to be talking to Alan today. We touched upon Lots of different topics. One in particular that I think our listeners will really enjoy is that of impact. And also as well, touching upon some of the elements that we sometimes shy away from in the sector, including.
Why some things fail and why some things maybe perhaps thrive. We also talk about how we can look at implementing change within our business models too. And I am delighted to say that this was a conversation, I suppose, that I think is very different from our traditional topics on the arts and everything in between.
And I'm looking forward to any feedback that our listeners may have. Please remember you can always like, subscribe and share the podcast. And I look forward to hearing from you very soon. Alan, welcome. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Arts and Everything in Between. How are you?

Alan Harrison (00:07):
Fine, Lucy. How are you?

Not too bad. So, Alan, your day is only just beginning and mine's actually coming to an end.

Yes, I'm in the Seattle area. Seattle, Washington is Pacific time zone. It's roughly eight hours behind you. Or I'd like, prefer to say that you're, you know, blazing the trail for me.

Well, it's not raining here today in Dublin.
So if that's anything to go by, but I, I believe the weather is, is quite similar, um, for, for yourself as well. You're, you're, you're not shy of, of the rain.

Oh, no, we have plenty of that.

Well, Alan, we traditionally podcast with a little bit of an informal introduction to our guests, um, and as well, just to kind of, I suppose, Bring our listeners in, uh, a little bit in terms of kind of the, the, the storyline that, that you're bringing to the podcast today.
So it'd be great to hear a little bit. I've, I've already shared with our listeners, um, a piece of your blurb. It's very, um, charismatic and, you know, I've, I've no doubt that that won't shine through, um, on our episodes. We've had a few conversations back and forth, um, in, in refining this topic. You know, I'm, I'm really looking forward to, to hearing from, from you today and to be able to kind of further develop our conversation.
But it would be great to hear, I suppose, you know, a little bit about your career in the arts sector. And, um, you know, I suppose, particularly when we're, we're kind of touching upon the fact that, you know, you've just released this book called Scene Change as well and kind of where some of those learnings might have come from.

Well, scene change comes from 30 years of, of a ping pong pinball existence in the nonprofit arts, because when I began, that was the only way to advance. You had to change, uh, and I believe it's probably still the case. You actually had to change organizations to get moved up or, or, and so I ended up going around and around.
I ran a couple of organizations, uh, you know, as an executive director, I was the, uh, I was there at the Alabama Shakespeare festival. And before you laugh, uh, that was a 12Million dollar organization. While I was there, it was attempting to be a festival like Stratford, Only in the Southeast United States, where in the summertime, it's, you know, 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity, very difficult to get an audience, but we got 1.
and also a smaller company of 1, 000, 002 is was the budget called arts West in Seattle, where we won theater of the year and best nonprofit place to work. And the reason I'm proudest of the 2nd of those awards is that that was. Uh, we were nominated by our own employees. Um, and we were the only arts organization in the United States to win that award.
And we were the only nonprofit organization in the, in the state of Washington. To have won that award that year, so it was a good, it was a good year. But after all of this time and looking and struggling and constantly struggling, constantly struggling as all arts organizations are spending every last dollar of the budget and then some and counting on, you know, millions of dollars worth of volunteer.
Work just to get a play up because mostly I worked in theaters, although I have worked in opera and dance as well. The hardest thing that that finally happened once I stopped doing that and started consulting, I noted that everyone else was looking at their artistic vision as the be all and end all of what they do.
And. I again read, uh, in the United States, we have section 501 C3 of the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service Code, which determines what is a nonprofit organization, a charity, and I looked at the passage. I hadn't looked at it in years. I looked at it again and noted that it's only 5 sentences long, something like that.
It's very small. The arts are not mentioned in it whatsoever. Not even close. Nothing even that could be reasonably assumed to mean the arts as a tax exempt activity. So if the arts are not a tax exempt activity, what is the government looking for in its charitable organizations that happen to do arts?
Now there was a company that sued way back when and said, we are a tax exempt activity because we've always been a tax exempt activity even before there were the 5 0 1 C3 code. And some judge likely who was on the board of some opera company himself, uh, said, sure, you know, those, those donations are tax deductible.
And he looked at it from that side of things. And so he said that arts organizations were. Educational organizations, which are covered into 501c3. Well, the problem with that is that the arts by themselves don't really help a community in the sense in a, in a, in a legitimate, quantifiable, measurable sense.
You can talk about them nurturing the soul. So the cows come home, but. Truly what they do is they are fulfilling a vision of an artist. And it's coming from that way. So you hear a lot of arts organization, people talking about that hackneyed phrased arts for art, for art's sake. Uh, it's a terrible phrase.
It, it goes to artists, not to arts organizations. Arts artists can use it all they want. That's fine. Arts organizations are not artists. Um, and they shouldn't act as such. So they don't really deserve a lot of the funding that they're getting because if you're measuring them against an educational organization, you know, here in Washington, the University of Washington is an educational organization.
Why does it get funding? Because it can prove through test scores and alumni and, and you know, what the, what their students went through to get there, that they're actually teaching something. All an arts organization can claim in an educational process is a declaiming. Here's our art. It would be like a teacher, a professor standing in front of the class and just saying, here you go.
And then saying, see, I've completed my, my job and I have educated. No, you haven't really, you just declaimed. Education is, is, is measured by the receipt of the education, not by the giving of the education. So what struck me post pandemic was that the arts were suddenly yelling screaming organization after organization after organization saying we're essential.
We're an essential part of our community and the public. Learned the word essential and they applied it to supermarkets and delivery services and they applied it to health care and pharma, but they didn't apply it to the arts because the arts had not done anything for them except say, send us money. We need the money or we'll close.
The problem there is that if you are not indispensable to your community, you cannot call yourself essential, you only become essential when you are solving a problem that the community has asked you to solve. And as such, that's the indispensability factor will be the key to arts organizations to success.
In the coming years, and that goes for the UK that goes for Ireland that goes for, uh, the United States, Canada, Australia, et cetera, but a lot of people from around the world get in touch with me through my writings. At arts journal, where I am a weekly blogger, uh, where I tend to rant about the last, uh, organization that acted poorly in trying to find out what the arts really are, uh, maybe I should break it down for you.
I, you know, we're working on a system. that hasn't worked for 60 years. 60 years ago, that's a long time, 60 years ago, people attended the arts as a status. They purchased season tickets or subscriptions or whatever you want to call it, to show that they see I'm a big deal in my community. They may have thought of it as some sort of civic rent, if there is such a phrase, a donation to an arts organization, but mostly they, they did it for status.
That status has been has long gone generationally. Nobody looks at somebody in a theater and says, Oh, well, that's a, that's an interesting person because, you know, they have good seats. So, the ones who are in trouble, the arts organizations who are in trouble are still following that line. We do an art, we have an artistic division, we have a artistic visioner.
An artistic director, or something like that, and we're going to follow that to the ends of the earth and it has nothing to do with helping the community. Um, and they, these organizations often talk about, but our work is excellent. Well, no excellence is subjective. Your excellence might be my, my company's, uh, uh, goat poop, but, uh, that's a matter of opinion and therefore it's not a metric.
Um, so there are three legs to the stool of support for the arts in the United States, and please interrupt me if I'm going on too much, the three legs that are, that have always been used as the argument, and this is a 60 year old argument, and it's still being used. Leg 1 is how many people come as a barometer to success.
Attendance is not a metric for non profit organizations. It's not a metric at all because it's a commercial transaction. Somebody buys a ticket, they see a show, your contract, your contractual obligation is over. Um, that's a commercial metric. A non non profit metric, uh, if it were a non profit metric, Manchester United would be a, you know, could be a non profit because they draw a lot of fans, uh, both in person and on television.

(00:37):
You can think of the millions of people who watch Man U, that's, uh, you know, you could say, hey, look what we're doing for the community. So that's 1 leg that doesn't work. The 2nd leg that doesn't work, they claim A positive economic impact in the United States. The number that gets bandied about is about 25 per ticket.
That is spent outside the ticket to babysitters and parking and restaurants and, you know, what have you. So the reason that one doesn't work is because if that were true, then every restaurant could claim to be a nonprofit because people who go there often go shopping and parking and have babysitters and they buy, you know, and they might even buy tickets to your orchestra event.
So that like doesn't work. It's not a good metric. The third metric it's a little bit squishier. And that is that, uh, students who engage in the arts as an afterschool, uh, activity, extracurricular activity, often do better in math. And there were some national, uh, studies that proved that was actually true.
The problem with that one is even if that's completely true, What did your company do to increase the Uh, test scores in math of your students who attended your events. National data is irrelevant to local results. Uh, it's just an interesting idea. It's an interesting fact. It may be something that you can think about and say, okay, if we do this, and if we test the same way as the national folks did, then maybe we could prove worth that way.
But unless you're testing your students before and after the production, you're testing your students. Before and after, uh, their participation in some way, um, you're testing your adults before and after the production. You're just your regular performances, whether it's an orchestra or ballet or a play, or what have you, then you're not able to prove that the test scores went up.
Um, so unless you're doing all of that, then that's a useless metric. It may be valid on some. Exists, you know, entire, uh, uh, the entire art form sort of thing, but it's not valid to your organization. And so you shouldn't really use it. So how do you measure success? That. Tell me how many people you saved.
How many people are eating now? Because you did something to help them find some dignity and worth and went back into the, uh, the workforce. Not that every arts organization is a social service organization. Some of them are social justice organizations, but they have to have a reason for being that is measurable and means something to the community.
So, let's say a community has, uh, let's say a community has a homeless problem and, uh, I know of a company that did this, an orchestra in California that did this.
So they sent groups of 16 to, um, overpasses where they, they went under an overpass where they found tent cities filled with homeless people, filled with homeless people, hundreds of them. And they set up chairs for them and they set up bottles of water for everybody and they got them out of their tent.
They got them. These are the musicians themselves who are doing this along with some people around them, getting them out of their tent. We're going to play for you. We're going to play for you. And it was a brass group because it's really loud under an overpass. So brass was the only thing they figured would cut through.
They played for them. They play beautifully for them. Um, and during the interval, the, they also brought with them some social service people. Can I get you set up with public housing? All right. Um, is there anything that you need that you feel you need? Do you need a shower? Most, uh, homeless people, they have found that's the first thing they asked for.
They want to be clean. Um, can, can I send you to a place? Can I take you to a place? Can I take you to a place? Can I accompany you to a place where there are showers and you can use them? Um, do you need a haircut? Do you need a shave? Do you need new clothes? Uh, maybe two sets of new clothes, not, maybe not new, but maybe gently used that have been donated for this purpose.
Do you need a set of clothes for an interview so that you can go interview for a job? And they found that after a year, where normally 5 percent of those people would be back into housing, at least some public housing, something like that, what we call section 8 housing, um, 20 percent were actually in section 8 housing and half of them had jobs and were contributing back to the community.
And the reason was that this organization, this orchestra made it possible. They use the art as a means to an end, not as the end in and of itself. And the means to an end that meant people are better off because of us. That's indispensable for your community. That's what foundations will support. That's what the general public wants to see.
And that's what makes you essential. Not the fact that you play brass instruments.

That's actually just really interesting, Alan. I hope you don't mind. Just, I've been taking notes as, as you've kind of been mentioning, um, kind of certain hooks that I say in particular and something that I've been having or hearing in conversations recently is this idea that since COVID, there's been kind of an informal change to policy funding, particularly early.
In Ireland, and perhaps as well in the UK, in that before COVID, the arts organization, the non profit, the, um, the venue, the festival itself was in charge or, you know, its responsibility was to be an organization, was to be a theater. But then since COVID and, um, you know, lack of funding or maybe kind of, um, you know, the hiding of, of the lack of funding as well, that there's still funding there, but there, you know, Arts councils are using it slightly differently.
It was this idea that organizations now are under more pressure than they have been before, because they feel like this duty of care around the artist is falling under their remit now, not with more funding, with the same amount, and it's their responsibility to, you know, bring the artist more within that organization.
And it's a lot of pressure on, on teams as well. So I just wanted to call that out because, you know, I think, you know, How we, um, we kind of view this kind of like contemporary nonprofit arts organization or, or organization in itself, um, has very much, you know, is, is changing. And it is more of this kind of, you know, established, you know, network and you know, um, all of these, these different pieces coming together, you know, from, you know, where I'm sitting, you know, we are, um, uh, a CRM ticketing marketing, um, membership provider for, for lots of organizations.
And, you know, we like to think that we can facilitate and enhance their offerings and what they're doing, but they're also reliant on the Arts Council. And now they have to take, you know, more artists within their, their remit as well that just feels to be added pressure with kind of the same amount of, of resources in the pot there.
And the second thing that I thought was really interesting was your idea of the commercial metric on, you know, in terms of how many, how many people come and this, this, this forever, you know, magic number of capacity being at 70 percent is the sweet spot. And so long as you're hitting those targets as well, because.
Unfortunately, whether or not, and I think a lot of arts professionals and managers in the sector would agree that, you know, it's, it's not around how many people come, it's around the impact that's generated after that. But we're still being asked for these metrics. Um, and it's, it's, you know, it's, it's very hard when, when they're within kind of policy reports and, um, kind of funding bids that, that we need to know, well, how, Well, how many people came to your organization?
How many purchased a ticket? Where did they come from? How many from this locality? And, you know, how many of them now are, um, purchasing online?

Frankly, it's, it's stupid, but that's why the book would be an excellent resource for arts organizations to give to their elected officials to say, look. Or to their foundation officials or people because it's there.
They need to know. Look, here's the deal. I could give you a million dollars and you could tell because you've sold 100, 000 tickets. But what if you sold in the same size or same size budget? You've sold 10, 000 tickets. You've given away 90, 000 tickets to. People who are underserved, or you've gone to their communities and performed for them, and you've given them the opportunity to work with you, rather than to just sit there and, you know, and pay their money and see the show.
That's far more important to your community than just 100, 000 people buying tickets. 100, 000 people buying tickets is a completely commercial transaction, as I mentioned. Uh, it's the same reason why they buy tickets to a football event. You know, it's the same thing. Uh, they got their thing. And in fact, in the football match, uh, they're, they don't know how it's going to end.
In the arts thing, they may well know how it's going to end already before they go. If they're seeing an old, you know, thing like, uh, you know, the Nutcracker Ballet or something like that. So it's far less important how many people come. It's all about what happens to those people who come and who's paying for it.
When you have a system like we have now, where the people who pay the most money get the most benefits, whether that's as a donation or just as the ticket. You end up with the most elitist, if there you can say something is the most elitist, the most elitist form of a business. Donors are also the beneficiaries.
The donor donates so that the donor can attend, uh, or maybe get a room named after them, or maybe get their name on the wall or in the program or something like that, or mentioned from the stage before the show, that's the, the, the, nearly the textbook definition of elitism. And that's, what's killing us as an, as an industry, because once we have become an elitist group.
Which it never used to be until that time, 60 years ago, we were at the pinnacle of the status being the most important thing. Once that happened and things went the other way, and you didn't meet, you know, but it's been written about in sociological books for years. People don't want to join clubs. They don't want to bowling alone.
That book, uh, they, they don't want to join clubs. They don't want to do this. They want to do something that's meaningful to them. And it has nothing to do with their status as a human being. That's why the group that that matters to is now 80 and older. And they're, they're still alive because our medical, uh, uh, techniques have gotten better over the years.
So they're still around and they're still coming to shows, but they won't be soon. And their kids don't care and their grandkids don't care and the, the older folks say, well, that's a shame. You're going to miss out on something special. And the kids say, no, we're not. It's not meaningful to me, so it's not going to be special.
It's meaningful to you. So, to make it meaningful to everyone, you have it for this crowd, for everybody under that, that eldest generation, that includes boomers who did not choose to go to the theater, or who did not choose to go to the arts and won't just suddenly magically say, oh, we're old now, so we'll go.
Um, to make it meaningful to them, they have to see that they're there. Money went to something special and especially as a donation. Yeah, they may, you know, they'll go attend a Taylor Swift concert. They'll go attend concerts galore that are with big stars in them. They even attend concerts with medium stars in them.
That's a thing. That's an event. That's, you know, something different from another production of a Christmas Carol, another. You know, peer gint, you know, if you can sell a ticket to peer gint, God bless, but unless you're actually, you know, an Ipsen fan club, no one's going. So, I think it all breaks down to the difference between art, artists and arts organizations.
And let me say one word about that in our remaining time. Art is essential. Art is essential in the, in the literal sense that art exists, whether you want it to or not, art is everywhere. Art is in anything that has either been designed or not been designed is artistic. It's art. Uh, there was a comedian I saw years ago who said that his family was so poor that on the 4th of July and in his hometown, uh, rather than seeing.
Uh, fireworks, they couldn't afford to go out. So they just closed their eyes and did this. So then they could see fireworks. That's art, even artists, while not essential are magical. They take disparate items and things and ideas and notions and fabrics and metals and words and dances. And somehow put it all together to create a new piece of art.==
And in that sense, that's magical. That's like the Stephen Sondheim line from Sunday in the Park with George. Look, I made a hat where there never was a hat. Um, it is, they are creating something out of, nearly out of thin air. That's magic. Uh, textbook definition. And then there are arts organizations. Arts organizations are neither art nor artists.
They are not essential to the process except that they can bring people together, I suppose, and they can present. American companies like to use the word produce. They're not producing, they're presenting. And, um, so they're, they're nice, but they're not, if they're the nonprofit, then they have to prove worth beyond just being an essential, being providers of art.
You talked about artists, uh, and, and I can see where the UK and Ireland and a lot of Australia is the same, where there is a care for artists in the United States. With no subsidy for the arts forever, uh, there's some, there's this thing called the NEA. It provides about 130M for all of the arts in the United States out of, you know, 380M people.
So taxpayers are paying something like 20 cents every year for all of the art in the United States. So we're not, we've never counted on, on government funding, counted on it. It's always been a nice. Leverage point, but, um, We don't, that has also led to the idea that artists are lesser. It is, they are lesser, uh, unlike Europe and the UK and Ireland and everywhere else where people actually think artists are very special to a community.
Now, Richard Florida wrote about it and he called it their creative class. And he increased, he called it, he used creativity as the. As the base rather than just art. And he said, look, lawyers are creative. Artists are creative, but lawyers are creative and doctors are creative and engineers are creative.
And you have to make something out of nothing in all of those cases. So the areas and then he did some research and he found out that the 10 most successful regions in the United States also lined right up with the 10 regions with the highest number of artists by percentage living there. So if your city has a whole bunch of artists in it, you're going to do better than cities that don't have a bunch of artists in it.
And yet here in the United States, we think of them as lesser. My sense is that rather than subsidizing, you know, some company to the tune of 500 a year, uh, which is nice, but it doesn't really do anything for your organization and having to fill out a, you know, a 64 page grant application to get that 500.

(01:21):
Why don't you pull the money if you're in a city and it's a city fund and buy a building and put 500 artists in it at a, at a subsidized rate. If you can do that, you're doing more for the artist than just trying to employ them because you're putting them all together. You're creating a, uh, a creative mass, a critical mass of creativity.
They're going to work together on top of everything else. But if nothing else, you have supported artists in your community, you have lots of them, and now your community is going to be more, uh, is going to thrive more. I would rather see that happen than the continual, you know, piddling bits of money sent out to, uh, a lot of different organizations and worse, the huge amounts sent to the largest organizations who will.
Uh, you know, they'll spend it on things they might put 9 people in that play instead of 8, where they might hire another assistant development director. That's what they're doing with it. It's not going to the artist trickle down, which is the, uh, the, you know, and we've talked about it in America for years trickle the trickle down economy where you give all the money to the rich people.
And it trickles down to the poor people because they got to employ. Somebody never has worked. It's why we have the biggest. Income gap. In the history of our country, anyway, the wealthiest 0. 1 percent owned 50 percent of the country. So, um, that's what led to that. Now there's this idea of trickle down for artists.
Well, we give it to all the big organizations that somehow the money is going to trickle down to artists and we'll care for the artists. It's a, it's a failed idea. It's a failed notion. And, um, somebody needs to do something about that. And so I wrote a book about it.
Let me talk about data for a second too, because that's what you do.
The most important thing any arts organization can do is not just collect data. You have to collect data. That's, that's a given. If you're not collecting data on not just the people who are giving and coming, but on Your city and your region and your, you know, what is appealing to everybody you're failing as an organization.
Um, that's incredibly important. But then so many companies will take software packages like the 1 you offer and they won't use them. They'll just use them to count. Or to some, but they would use it to actually analyze and slice and dice and say, look, this kind of arts performance. If you're going to go out and sell tickets to the money to people, rather than to if that's all you're choosing.
Oh, we'll just, we'll just attract the people with the most money. That's and then we'll, that'll work. Then you've, you've missed the bus entirely. One of the things that we found out in, in this country. Uh, in a, in a program that I invented in Pittsburgh, uh, for Pittsburgh Public Theater was the highest. We completely missed the boat on who comes to the theater in the sense that we had always thought it's just the people who had the most money.
Now, it's the people with the highest educational aspiration. They're the people who come to the theater. Uh, case in point, a, uh, a student going for a doctorate in English wants to see a play. Texas cattle millionaire doesn't. So it has nothing to do with the money. Uh, because the status is all gone. It has to do with the educational aspiration.
It happens that educational aspiration also leads to money down the line. But it led us to put together a program where we just invited anybody who was under the age of 25 to come see a show for 10, rather than doing a student rush program or any kind of rush program, to be honest, where there's the risk that they might not get in, or then they, or if they do get in, they find out that that was easy.
I'll never pay full price again, or whatever it is. So, The 1st year out of the box, we quadrupled the number of people who had come on a student rush program where they were sitting in the back of the house and all this, the 25 dollar. I'm sorry under 25, 10 dollar program. If the seat available was 5th row center, that's what you got.
And just the only difference between you and anybody else was that you were under 25. So your seat was 10 period. We instituted in Seattle. We went from selling 1200 student rush tickets the year before we started it at Seattle rep by year 3 were up to 20, 000 tickets sold at 10. And the reason was they wanted to attend a play, they just couldn't afford it and money was the only reason plus now they were once again, another discussion of critical mass.
Once there were a critical mass of younger people in the audience, then it didn't seem like they were crashing a party of 80 year olds. Suddenly, there were people who looked like them in the audience. And what also goes with the youth often is other kinds of diversity. Suddenly there were black people in the audience.
Suddenly there were Asian people in the audience. There were people of all different backgrounds, because it was less urgent to the people who were then under 25. Then it was traditional for the people over 70. So it was a big step forward. And a lot of companies copied it around the, around the world.
Something like a million tickets have been sold on programs like this around the world. I'm pleased to say that I invented it, but if you're going to go out and sell tickets, and if you're going to use your database program to do so find the people who are most highly educated. Find the avenues of people who want to participate in this, and then they'll do it.
Especially if you can give them, uh, the, the final reason, which was not only are you going to see this show and have a wonderful time yourself, but, um, that family of 10 over there is going to eat because of what you put in to this process, and here's the connection between your money and that happening.
As long as you can do that, you're indispensable. You're gold. You're going to stick around forever.

Yeah. I've seen some really fantastic initiatives, um, to be fair in the last few years, Some of them, and I, I don't know what it is. I'm just kind of Going back to a time where I think it was the word essential that you used, honestly, Alan, that kind of triggered something for me a little bit.
It was like, at the beginning, it was a feeling of nearly like being overwhelmed, just thinking back to that idea where things were essential or non essential. Some employees were essential, non essential. But also then, like, what happened, um, To the sector at that time in terms of like, you know, the theaters transforming into food banks, which is, don't get me wrong, it's an amazing initiative.
It was absolutely incredible to watch and to, to kind of see how overnight an organization could, could pivot towards the needs of a community. But I suppose where it kind of maybe fostered some feelings of, um, maybe instability amongst the sector was, well, that's not what we do. Or how do we do that alongside and, you know, because we, a lot of the organizations that listen to this podcast, you know, are really focused on, um, you know, their mission.
And, you know, someone once said to me, we're relying on the passion of the sector, but what they didn't mean is like the passion necessarily of audience members booking tickets. They meant the passion internally within their teams, because they're so busy, they're not able to take their annual leave, or, you know, they're, they're working really.
Very, very hard and trying to achieve quite a lot. And that always, that kind of stuck with me as well, but I, you know, I think it's that relationship that means that, you know, when. As we're kind of still working on, on kind of growth, because obviously we know that kind of ticket revenue is, is pretty much on track to where we'd hope it would be for, uh, from kind of 2023 24.
So there seems to be some sort of recovery, although capacity and programming is down. So that can, you know, that can relate to lots of different things as our ticket price is higher, people willing to pay a little bit more. But I think for me. You know, some of the messaging that I've seen is it's the organizations like Farnham Maltings, for example, who reached out to their community and said, like, you know, we're doing a fundraising drive so that we, you know, so that we'll be here seeing the responses coming back from their community who are contributing and helping them like achieve their, their fundraising targets of, you know, anywhere between 60 to a hundred thousand.
Something else I think that's really interesting that you touched upon a little bit with your example of, of the orchestras. Um, an organization I know, um, Anton, they were filling me in about basically engaging with an audience member who arrived one day. Um, and they realized that actually there is, um, a strong, uh, Ukrainian community in the area.
And now they've You know, responded to that in terms of their programming and some of their community initiatives as well. And I think, you know, that piece on impact is, is amazing. It only takes kind of one engagement, one conversation. You know what it takes?

It takes the intention. It takes the intention.
The intention. If you are unintentionally impactful, you're just lucky. If you're intentionally impactful, you're indispensable.

I like that idea, yeah, intention, like, how do you, well, just on that, that topic, Alan, like, you know, as, as kind of some advice for our listeners, how do you pivot towards, you know, that idea of intent and impact?
What would your recommendations be on that?

I think the hardest thing for arts organizations, and I remember I did it for 30 years. I have been those people. If you're looking at me now, I have been you. I was a marketing director for 15 years, and I was an executive director for 15 years. I will say this.
Often you don't have the time to look to you're just running all the time and often you have given yourself the idea that working overtime and working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is some sort of badge of honor. It is not. It's a badge of lunacy. Uh, you will die young and that won't be good for anybody.
Will it, um, if in fact, your organization requires everybody to be working at lower wages for 24 7 and using passion as the coin of the realm that will not last long. And in fact, you need to start talking about doing other things. To to make sure that your company is stay sane. You're going to lose people constantly people.
You're going to have huge turnover. You're going to have a nervous breakdown. It's not a good way of doing business and to boards of directors out there. If you're a board member and listening to this and you think it's okay. For your people to work themselves to death, get the hell off that board because you don't get it.
You would never do such a thing, but you're expecting artists to do that. No, no, no. The best designers, artists, and what have you are the ones who have the time to think about what they're doing and then do it. Not a constant, uh, treadmill going at 10 miles per hour. You'll have to translate that in, in your, in your own way, running 10 miles an hour is really fast.
And try and assuming that everybody will be fine with that. No, you're going to lose everybody. So, just because people are working for charities, and this actually goes to most charities, doesn't mean it's okay to abuse them. And if you're running that charity, especially an arts charity, and you're doing it, stop, just stop, go to your board of directors and say, we need to stop and we need to, you know, I have an article that just came out and today's version of Arts Journal.
It's called just land the MF plane. Uh, and MF is short for another 2 words. Uh, And there's a photo in it, there's an image of all of these people who are, uh, screwing things and, and drilling things and, and, you know, giant wrenches and screwdrivers and such on a plane that's in the air. You got to land the plane and then fix the problem.
So you might have to stop programming. For a bit, just to get your feet under you and get people who actually want to work there. We didn't get voted best nonprofit place to work because we work people to death. We got that because we worked people in their form in their comfort level and expected the, uh, The thing to work and it did because they were happy.
What did that lead to in a small company? We had people staying years in their jobs because they were happy. They didn't want they didn't need to move on. They weren't paid as well as as the for profit community and they never will be until the commercial community gets it that nonprofits are harder to do than for profits.
Uh, and there's some value placed on that, but until that happens, if you're not getting money, you have to give them happiness. And if you can't, and at least the closest thing they can get to happiness. And if you can't give them that, they'll leave, they'll find it, they'll look for it somewhere else that also may not have it.
And they'll leave there in 2 years too. There's a lot of positive over it. The idea of not driving your people into the ground. And so I know that you're doing that. I know that you're rushing. I know that you're listening to me and saying, yeah, yeah, I'd love to stop, but I can't, you can. You have to, and you need to talk to people on your own board of directors about it and say, look, here's where we are right now.
If we don't want to lose our entire staff over the next two years, including me, we have to slow down and so that we can present better impact to our community rather than just faster impact. That's my piece of advice.
That's

really, really great. Alan, thank you so much for that advice. I think something that's. Been really interesting for me to, I suppose, to partake in this conversation is it's, um, it's not things that we don't necessarily know, but it's things that we might necessarily want to talk about.
So in that sense, it's about, sometimes there is a series of hard truths, um, that we very much are living and experiencing. But bringing that to the attention of the board, to our senior management team, you know, it has to happen at all levels. So who, who is that person who, you know, advocates for slowing down, something that we definitely don't do in the sector.
I think we're very, very busy. Someone once said to me, there's this idea that, you know, Busyness is idolized. It, it's

stupid. It's for lack of a better word, it's stupid. Busyness should not be idolized.
I've talked to too many people who have said, I need, you know, I've said to them, I need to talk to you about something. They say, I'm sorry, I'm just too busy. If that's the answer, stop being too busy. Not stop, not stop communicating with other people. Stop being too busy. Find a way. Find a way. There are ways people do it all the time.
You're only on the planet once. Why are you working yourself to death? There will be nothing on your tombstone about how wonderful you were as a, you know, as an associate development director of a. Of an arts organization won't be on the tombstone. What will be on the tombstone is that you live to be 55.

So I'm, I'm trying to now think of, with, with, with all of those series of, of key takeaways, um, how do we look towards kind of creating our own internal scene change within our organizations? How do we, you know, is it a case that we should prioritize, that we should look at utilizing the resources that we have?
Is it. You know, improving internal communications around, um, you know, um, like our, our own kind of, uh, employment, well being, how, what, what would step one look like if one of our listeners was to go away tomorrow and to think about that?

My father was a CPA, a certified public accountant for about 50 years, but he never worked with a, a charity.
He only worked with, uh, commercial organizations. And because I had been working with charities for 30 years, he, he asked me at some point during all of that, he says, so I have to ask you a dumb question. He said, sure. And he says, who owns your company? Is there an owner? Are you the owner? I said, no, I'm the executive director.
I run the company per se, but I don't own it. Oh, so, uh, does the board own the company? No, they represent the people that do frankly, dad, you own the company. And he said, you know, don't be. Uh, don't be glib about it. I said, no, no, no, really, here's the deal for a charity to exist. Charities don't pay taxes.
It's called a nonprofit and you become tax exempt in certain organizations. And there are a whole bunch of taxes you don't pay because you're a nonprofit. Well, somebody has to pay those taxes. Who pays them? The community, why they gave you permission to go be a nonprofit issuing you a license, whatever it takes to In the States, it's a state by state thing and other places it's different, but it's basically you were given permission somewhere along the line, a license to be a charity, to be a nonprofit organization.
So the people who pay your taxes, they own your company, which means your community owns your company, because they're the ones who gave your permission. The board is there to represent the community. They're not in charge. They're there to pass on what the community is.
They don't actually own the country. They don't even own their own districts, but the people of the district sent them there to represent them. And that's what a board is comprised of members of a board or MBs instead of MPs. Um, so if that's the case, then what you need to do is to go back to your, uh, group, back to your, your, your core of your organization, of your arts organization, and let that include board members and staff members and executives, and then everybody in between and say, look, we are not fulfilling our mission.
Responsibility as a charity, we might be fulfilling our responsibility as a presenting organization, and that's fine. And in fact. There are for profit versions of this that are that work just fine and we can just switch to that. If we want to, we can get investors and we can pay them back and people who believe in what we do.
And then all we have to do is sell tickets because that's what investors want to see. That's what a shareholder wants to see. That's what Manchester United wants to see. But if we're going to be a charity, and we're going to be a charity. You know, on the, from the cash coming from our community, then it's up to us to work with the members of the community and see what are the biggest needs that the community has is really in dire need of what is a terrible, terribly worded question.
But what is the community really need is what I'm trying to say. And don't just guess. You go to the leaders of your community and might be the mayor. It might not be the mayor. It might be, uh, you know, just other nonprofit leaders and say, what do, what does this community need? And you also do your own research along the side.
And when I say you, I mean, everybody in that group, and you come back and say, you know, they, none of them said, we need to do more plays or more or more concerts or more. They never more was not the question. Quality was not the question. They want to see their people get smarter, better, more fed, more housed, more clothed.
Uh, they want more justice in their life. They want to get rid of pay equity issues. And there's a great way of doing that in the book of gender equity. I discuss it briefly. In the book, because it's really easy to solve pay equity in your organization, you just have to want to it's that intent thing again.
Um, so you, you have to do that. That's what your community, the people paying your salary want you to do. Then that's what you need to do. If you are intent. And you should be on producing art to make that happen, then find the path yourself, because it's different with every community and every arts organization within every community to get from A to Z, you have to find B through Y on your own.
What are those, excuse me, A to Z, you have to get B to Y on your own. And those are the steps that get you from being a merely an arts organization that produces art. yay, to an arts organization that helps people in a quantifiable fashion, and then you report those findings. But you also have to include folks who don't get it.
And that would include your government officials, that would include your, your leading foundations. You have to find a way to get into the, those folks there and say, look, you're funding, you're funding the wrong things. If you continue to give large amounts of money to a large organization, just because they happen to bring in a whole bunch of people who buy tickets, then just give the money to Man U, they're doing a better job of it.
And they're providing entertainment too.

On, on that note, um, I just want to thank you for your time on the podcast today. Thank you for kind of, I suppose, challenging us to think very, very differently as well. Um, you know, there are conversations out there that, you know, theaters and, um, live entertainment, it is, it's absolutely, it's competing against, you know, whether or not audience members go to Man U, whether they go out for a pizza, whether they stay at home and pay for the Netflix, like there's, there's lots to, to think about.
And our, our are kind of our place or our role as well in, in where we lie is, is, I suppose it's, it's, it's, it's very much a part of the brand of whichever organization you're, you're working with. But thank you so much. Just one final question. Um, you know, where's the best place that our listeners can, um, connect with you and, you know, can purchase a copy of Scene Change?

Easy. If you want to purchase a copy of Scene Change there, you know, it's at Hive. It's at bookshop. org. It's on Amazon. I know I should speak better of Amazon because they're in my city, but, you know, so if they're at any, any bookstore will have it. If you are having trouble finding it, uh, go to Dean change book.
That's S C E N E change book. com. And there'll be a whole list of bookstores. You can just click on any of them and order it. Um, and beyond that to get ahold of me, uh, you can go, also go to scene change book.com. The full name of the book is Scene Change, Why Today's Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact. I'm available to speak at any, uh, gathering, and I do it all the time. I talk to boards. I talk to in fact, that usually what happens is if the whole board buys a copy of the book at a discounted price, because you're buying 25 of them or whatever, then I'll go ahead and and throw in a consult.
free of charge to walk you through some of the aspects of the book that can help you and help your organization be better. Uh, and I've done it with an organization in Australia and I've done it with an organization in, uh, in the UK. So there's no reason I can't do it for you. And, uh, mostly that's the way to get ahold of me.
I think if there's anything else, uh, certainly Lucy can help you find me. So just go back to her. I hope to hear from you.

And we'll put all of those links into the show notes of this podcast episode as well. This has been a great conversation with Alan Harrison.
I'd like to one more time, just, just thank you, Alan, for your time today and a reminder to our listeners to like, subscribe and share this episode of the Arts and Everything in Between podcast.

Ella (02:35):
The TicketSolve workshops are coming to you this June, July and August. Join us at one of our 14 workshops led by our expert customer success and support teams. The TicketSolve workshops offer hands on learning experiences, sharing valuable tips and tricks, connect with colleagues and peers from neighboring venues, gain valuable insights, and bring bright new strategies that will transform your organization across ticketing, marketing, memberships, revenue growth, and much more.
Spaces are free but limited, so secure your spot today.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Redefining Impact: Alan Harrison on Transforming Arts Organizations for Community Succes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

Redefining Impact: Alan Harrison on Transforming Arts Organizations for Community Succes

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce