Should Theatre Artists Encourage "Shareholder Activism"?

I said I was going to follow up on Adam's (muy excellente!) post about Endowed Artist Chairs and donor behavior. Having talked a little about his "quibbles" with the idea, I want to look a bit into his diagnosis of a key problem because I think it's important and spot on:

Most individuals who have the means to support arts organizations via donations, don't have a clue what artists get paid.

Yes, some may assume the artists make a ton of money.  Others may assume they are working for free.

But a lot of them just don't know.  Because they are never directly told by the people responsible for doing so, i.e. leadership within the organizations.

So they donate their money to an endowment, or an annual fund and then they trust the leadership of the organization to spend those funds (which are generally unrestricted) in any way they see fit.

It's the same with capital campaigns.  When a fundraiser walks in and asks for 100K for the building, that donor is thinking the same thing you are:

If they want me to give 100K for this building, then everything must be fine internally, or else why would they ask?

Hell, I know a few donors who, if they knew the employees of the organization didn't have health insurance would NEVER donate to a capital campaign.

We often make the mistake of assuming that the people funding these sorts of campaigns are as knowledgeable about life inside the arts as we are.

They aren't.  Basically these are laymen (and women) with a lot of money.

So the reason these people aren't funding the artists are basically:

1.  They think they are funding the artists by donating to annual funds and such

2.  They are directly asked to support capital campaign, which often leads them to believe everything is fine.

This is raised in the context of trying to raise money for endowed artist chairs instead of buildings.

(I want to pause here for one moment and digress: It's worth mentioning the context in which the idea of Endowed Artist Chairs was raised earlier. It was, essentially, in response to an oft-heard buildings-over-people argument... namely that donors want to fund something they can put their name on, and they won't fund artists, they'll fund buildings.  The EAC is a counter-argument idea: It essentially says "What about this? Other art forms have been able to do this. Why aren't you trying to do this?".  It appears the answer to that question is... "Because honestly we don't want to".  There's lots of reasons why institutions might not want to, which I want to address at a later point.)

Anyway, back to the points above... I've been thinking a lot about Saul Alinsky and his book Rules for Radicals (actually for another post that I haven't written yet). Towards the tail end of his life, Alinsky started working on something called Proxy Activism where essentially they would inform shareholders of the nefarious deed their companies were responsible for (and its worth noting that as shareholders, it is their company) and then getting this newly informed share holder to sign over proxy voting rights. Then they'd pool together these proxy voting rights and be able to actually have a large amount of influence on the actions of companies. 

This was a pretty brilliant idea for a couple of reasons. First, companies try to limit the influence of their shareholders by doing things like holding conferences in strange locations and not publicizing them that well. Also, if you hold a small number of shares in, say, McDonald's, are you really going to go the annual share holder's meeting hoping your .01% of the company will give you sway? No.  It's inconvenient and expensive and you got shit to do. But here's this nice labor organizer who is saying they're pooling together a bunch of smaller shareholders so they can collectively act through the organizer. 

Not bad.  Alinsky died not that long after writing Rules for Radicals and Proxy Activism never really took off as he was imagining it.  Part of what Alinsky was good at, however, was recognizing how the system works and, rather trying to change everything he tried to use his understanding creatively (and often humorously... he recommends using flatulence as a protest tool in the book).  It's the pragmatic part of his pragmatic progressivism.

Anyway... So this got me thinking.  Adam's right... if an organization doesn't want to fund artists over buildings (or is too scared to try) then they're not going magically create endowed staff positions for artists. Similarly, most subscribers and donors assume that theater's are run in a way that is somewhat ethical and considerate of their staff and the artists.  They don't know a lot about how the business end of it works. They assume that if you're raising money for a building, the rest of your house is probably in order.

Institutions care ultimately about survival and growth. This means that the are influenceable.  That's the good news.  The question becomes... how are we to have influence

Well, one way we have influence is through our unions.  The unions themselves are, of course, institutions at least as interested in their own survival and growth as theaters, they just answer to a different constituency, namely their member artists.  And perhaps there's something to be done there, although honestly, I'd need a deeper understand of Equity and how it works before I'd really start advocating that.

But another way we could have influence is through subscribers and donors. Maybe we need to find a way to have our own version of shareholder activism.  Institutions do respond to subscribers and donors.  I wonder if there is some what to essentially organize subscribers and donors to begin to agitate for things like endowed artist chairs etc.  I'm not saying i know how to do this. I just think that's the logical implication of what Adam is talking about.  

Anyone got any ideas?

Comments

[99]

I've been meaning to blog about this at my place, but here's a teaser: full, open-source budgeting. One of the vaguely unsettling things about the old Daisey-Olson throwdown (and one of the reasons I think it has fallen off that radar) was the way that ATC's budget and financials were somehow proprietary information. Which is a bit ridiculous for a non-profit institution supposedly set up to do a public good. So I say: open-source it. Theatres should, before the season, ask their donors to comment on their budget, as full and complete a budget as they can put together. Down to artist fees and salaries and including staff fees and salaries, physical plant costs, marketing, the whole kit-and-caboodle. Maybe it will be embarassing. Maybe the actual donors would prefer to have their money go to the actors rather than the artistic directors. Maybe they'll have a good idea of where to shave some money off. It could go many, many ways. But that would be one small step to making theatres healthier, I'd think.

[One NYC Stagehand]

I suggest that you check out some of the work of Ray Rogers and his work with Corporate Campaign, Inc. He has been the driving force behind the JP Stevens campaign, Hormel, Coca Cola, R.J. Reynolds and others. Also recommended is "The Death Of A Thousand Cuts" by Jarol B. Manheim, 2001.

Ultimately if there is ignorance about the conditions of artists and people working in the arts, it is our fault for not using the platforms we have been given.

[Tommer]

Bravo, Isaac!

[Adam]

I weigh in here:

http://missionparadox.typepad.com/the_mission_paradox_blog/2009/05/the-link-between-college-football-and-artists.html

[Ben TS]

If we're going after the really big non-profits (and we have to go after them if we want to create change), the truth is that the "conditions" they provide artists can seem a lot cushier than they are. Taking into account boarding costs, the really big regional houses (Guthrie, ACT, ART) shell out money that approaches Broadway salary levels.

So I agree wholeheartedly that targeting donors and subscribers is the way to go. But I think we have to argue that creating permanent artist positions is good for the commercial viability of the theatre. Because a lot of the stupid business decisions that impoverish artists are the same stupid business decisions that are killing American theatre financially.

A big thing that would help here is to create local "alliances" of theatre artists. Not unions, but groups of actors, directors and writers who can band together to accomplish specific goals: more local representation, resident positions, more community engagement. Producers in Boston, Seattle, and Philly have their own consortiums. Why the hell can't the artists?

[Sterling]

The only real solution to low wages in the performing arts is to come up with an efficient talent-driven business model that generates enough wealth to create a commercial need to acquire and reward talent with higher wages. Ultimately, any other approach will only be a short-term band-aid solution.

[August]

Great post, Isaac. I think there are some potential solutions emerging from social networking that could bypass institutions and connect audiences and artists directly in creating work. The post got long, so I posted it on the Flux blog.

http://fluxtheatreensemble.blogspot.com/2009/05/endowed-artist-chairs-vs-social.html

[cgeye]

The only people other than theatre staff listed in programs, no matter how poor the company or how minimal its advertising, are its donors.

Usually those upscale donors donate to other institutions, attend galas, have a trackable public face, plus listings of where they work or what their foundations are. It shouldn't be too hard to find out how to contact them discreetly, to sound out whether those individuals would respond to a greater shareholder activist posture.

[RVCBard]

A big thing that would help here is to create local "alliances" of theatre artists. Not unions, but groups of actors, directors and writers who can band together to accomplish specific goals: more local representation, resident positions, more community engagement.

The question now becomes: what's stopping us?

[Ian Thal]

Who says we're being stopped?

Small Theatre Alliance of Boston

Oh yeah, Boston isn't really a theatre city. Silly me.

[RVCBard]

Ian,

That wasn't me.

[Ian Thal]

Yeah, but Isaac has described Boston as "http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2010/02/give-em-enough-rope.html>a city not exactly known for good theatre", so I try to remind myself in case I get uppity and post about Boston theatre artists.