Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation: Concepts, Prospects, and Challenges
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COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS FOR CULTURAL PARTICIPATION: CONCEPTS, PROSPECTS, AND CHALLENGES EARLY FINDINGS REPORT The Urban Institute 2100 M Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037 MAY 1999 THE URBAN INSTITUTE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is the report of early findings from the first year of the Urban Institute’s evaluation of the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund’s Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation Initiative. Primary Urban Institute staff for this project are Elizabeth Boris, Project Director; Christopher Walker, Principal Investigator; Maria-Rosario Jackson, Research Associate; Stephanie Scott-Melnyk, Research Associate; and Harry Hatry, Evaluation Specialist. The report was written by Christopher Walker, Elizabeth Boris, Maria-Rosario Jackson, and Stephanie Scott-Melnyk, with assistance from Robin Redford. Carol Steinbach edited the draft; technical assistance in producing the report was provided by Jeffrey Shumway, Pho Palmer, Amy Stackpole, Cory Fleming, Megan Weiss, and Diane Hendricks. The authors would like to thank Tom Brock, Holly Sidford, and Michael Moore of the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund for their comments and general guidance. We especially wish to thank all the staff at the participating community foundations who arranged site visits and interviews with local informants. Site visits were conducted by Elizabeth Boris, Chris Walker, Maria-Rosario Jackson, Stephanie Scott-Melnyk, Robin Redford, Harry Hatry, David Stevenson, Linda Lampkin, Daryl Dyer, and Marie Gantz. We would also like to thank the members of our Research Advisory Committee, Prudence Brown, University of Chicago; Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University; Lee Friedman, U.C. Berkeley; James Gibson, D.C. Agenda Project; Nicolás Kanellos, Arte Público Press; Steven Lavine, California Institute of the Arts; Mary Regan, North Carolina Arts Council; John Robinson, University of Maryland; Jocelyn Russell, Freedom Theatre; and Margaret Wyszomirski, Ohio State University. Needless to say, any errors contained herein are the responsibility of the authors. The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Table of Contents Overview The Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation Initiative ..................1 Early Findings from the CPCP Initiative .....................................3 Chapter 1 Overview of the Initiative — Principles, Design, and Evaluation ..................11 Chapter 2 Cultural Participation: An Analytic Framework for Understanding Community Foundations* Goals and Strategies .......................................35 Chapter 3 Arts and Culture Providers and Their Strategies ..............................47 Chapter 4 Community Foundation Support for Arts and Culture Providers ..................75 Chapter 5 Community Foundations as Intermediaries ..................................99 References ...............................................................127 Bibliography .............................................................133 Appendix 1: Summaries of CPCP Sites and Initiatives .......................................................147 Appendix 2: Evaluation Plan .................................................171 Appendix 3: Methodology ...................................................179 Appendix 4: Key Informants .................................................189 CPCP: Concepts, Prospects, and Challenges • Overview Overview The Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation Initiative Since its inception, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund (the Fund) has embarked on a broad-scale effort to extend arts and culture to more people in the United States. Currently, the Fund is pursuing a three-pronged strategy to enhance participation—working through leading cultural institutions, stimulating community-based initiatives, and using media and technology. The Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation (CPCP) Initiative is a component of the Fund’s community- based strategy. It is supporting nine community foundations, which are, in turn, helping art, culture, and other organizations in their communities to broaden, deepen, and diversify participation. Giving the average person more opportunities to experience the benefits of arts and culture requires art and culture provider institutions to change the standard ways they now do business. Arts and culture supporters and funders also need to change their approaches. The Fund is targeting community foundations to be catalysts for these changes because of the unique role such foundations play in their communities. Through the CPCP Initiative, the Fund also hopes to spotlight the importance of arts and culture to community life, and strategies to enhance residents’ participation in these activities. The nine community foundations in the CPCP Initiative are receiving four- or five-year Participating Community Foundations grants, ranging in size from $500,000 to $1,500,000. Foundations must match these The Boston Foundation amounts, in part to create a permanent Community Foundation Silicon Valley Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan endowment to support arts and cultural Dade Community Foundation activities. The community foundations each East Tennessee Foundation received a $55,000 one-year planning grant to Greater Kansas City Community Foundation prepare proposals to implement expanded Humboldt Area Foundation Maine Community Foundation community participation. The initiative runs New Hampshire Charitable Foundation from December 1997 through December 2002. In January 1998, the Fund commissioned the Urban Institute to evaluate its initiative. This document, the first report in that evaluation, reviews the progress of the participating community foundations during the first 10 months of the CPCP Initiative. The findings are based on very preliminary data and should be understood as a snapshot of the start of the initiative. In all of the sites, the initiative is evolving rapidly and has already progressed since the initial evaluation site visits in • 1 • CPCP: Concepts, Prospects, and Challenges • Overview May–July 1998. This report also presents a framework for understanding the outcomes of this initiative over the course of five years. Diversity Stressed in the Selection of CPCP Sites The Fund invited a select group of community foundations to participate in this initiative.1 The selection was based on the “quality of the community foundation’s work overall, its track record in supporting cultural activities, its success in raising funds, and its capacity to lead community-wide planning and produce concrete results based on that planning.”2 Importantly, the foundations represent diverse parts of the country. Each serves a different type of community, ranging from large urban areas, such as Boston and Detroit, to far-flung rural counties, including Humboldt County in northern California, and 19 counties in East Tennessee. The highest median household income among CPCP target areas (the town of Milpitas in Silicon Valley) is almost three times the lowest (the city of Detroit). Racial and ethnic compositions vary from Hancock County, Maine’s 97 percent white, to Boston’s 22 percent black, to Milpitas’s 35 percent Asian, to Miami–Dade’s 49 percent Hispanic. The economic base also varies by site, including Newport, New Hampshire’s industrial economy, Silicon Valley’s domination by the computer industry, and Miami–Dade’s focus on tourism. The specific geographic, demographic, and social dimensions of these communities have a significant impact on how the foundations implement expanded participation initiatives. The Fund is “encouraging the community foundations to develop plans that reflect the unique characteristics and assets of their geographic service areas and that address the interests and self-identified needs of local residents.”3 More details on the sites can be found in appendix 1 and in tables 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3. The Fund’s Goals for the Community Foundations To guide community foundations, the Fund established four goals. The foundations are being asked to exert strategic leadership, collect and analyze information, create sustainable financial resources, and work to raise the importance of arts and cultural activities in their communities. The CPCP Initiative contains special components to help community foundations achieve enhanced arts and cultural participation, including technical assistance. 1 The Fund initially invited eleven community foundations to participate in this initiative. One foundation withdrew; one deferred participation. (See chapter 5.) 2 Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund. 1996. “Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund: Grantmaking in the Arts and Culture: Recommendations for Refined Focus, 1996–2000.” New York: Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund, p. 8. 3 LWRDF. 1997b. “Overview of the Request for Proposals for an Evaluation of the Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation Initiative.” New York: Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund, p. 5. • 2 • CPCP: Concepts, Prospects, and Challenges • Overview Importantly, the CPCP Initiative stresses that being part of an audience at an arts or cultural event is only one aspect of participation. The Fund’s more ecumenical view of cultural participation incorporates artists, volunteers, donors, curators, production staff, and other cultural activities and professions. It includes individuals