Making Exact Change
How U.S. arts-based programs have made a significant and sustained impact on their communities
By William Cleveland

• Table of Contents
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: Case Studies
• Part Three: Findings
• Part Four: Recommendations

Part Two: Case Studies

Manchester Craftsmen's Guild

Manchester Craftsmen's Guild ceramics studio. Photo courtesy MCG

Basic Facts

Snapshot

With a $12 million yearly budget and the motto that “Creativity is the catalyst for change,” a Pittsburgh arts center and training program uses the creative arts to inspire inner-city kids and adults to create better futures for themselves. The Manchester Bidwell Corporation (MBC) not only teaches the arts, but also houses a center for jazz performance, a record label and a real-estate office, which leases office space. It’s all part of founder Bill Strickland’s mission to harness the arts to inspire inner-city kids and adults to create brighter futures. “The worst thing about being poor is what it does to the spirit — the arts reconnect people to their spirits,” says Strickland, who believes the arts also pave the way for successful entrepreneurial thinking…

The MCG/BTC budget comes from a combination of fundraising and business revenues. The MCG Jazz Center includes a jazz record label, MCG Jazz, and a performance space that draws some of the best names in the business. …In that same building each year, 400-500 teenagers from the Pittsburgh Public Schools sign up for after-school classes in ceramics, photography, drawing and design. MCG says last year a remarkable 86 percent of the participating seniors went on to college, as opposed to 30 percent from Pittsburgh’s public schools at large. And alongside these arts programs, job-training programs draw on the stimulating artistic energy of the place, and offer associate-degree and diploma programs.

Strickland believes his project works, because, first of all, “Art helps people reconnect to their spirits.” When people engage in the arts, he says they get in touch with themselves again, and accomplish the not-so-small feat of making life worth living again. And he says art and entrepreneurship go together. “Artists are essentially entrepreneurial: an entrepreneur always starts with a blank canvas. Artists say, ‘Hey, I see this image in this canvas,’” says Strickland. “That imagination is the same part of the brain where entrepreneurship lies: the place that visualizes and institutionalizes that kind of thinking.”

—The Osgood File, 2003[1]

Description[2]

History

As a teenager growing up in Pittsburgh’s North Side, Bill Strickland was not much different from other kids in the neighborhood. That was true until one morning in school when he passed the open door to the art room where teacher Frank Ross was working on the potter’s wheel. Awestruck by the sight of a skilled artisan raising and forming the walls of an urn, Strickland approached the teacher. Over the coming months, the relationship that Ross and Strickland initiated with a revolving mound of clay began to give form to the future vision of Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild.

In 1968, Strickland established Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild to help combat the economic and social devastation experienced by the residents of his predominantly African-American North Side neighborhood. The Guild initially offered an informal art program and exhibition space for inner-city minority children. Strickland and his father built a kiln in a garage and acquired a few potters’ wheels. Photography was soon added to address the interests of community members and because Strickland understood that artists needed good pictures to promote and help sell their work. Grants from federal employment programs and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts soon made it possible to hire part-time teaching artists for both the ceramics and photography studios.

Because of his successful track record with Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Strickland was asked to assume the leadership of Bidwell Training Center, a vocational education program in the same community. In the mid-1980s, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild received a $250,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts requiring a three-to-one match. This grant was a key component of a $7.5 million capital campaign to construct a 62,000-square-foot vocational training and arts center. Opened in 1987, this facility offered vastly improved and expanded studios as well as a 350-seat concert hall, classrooms and workshops. By the 1995-1996 school year, over 350 high-school students from communities throughout the City of Pittsburgh regularly participated in Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild after-school programs. During the day, staff artists reached an additional thousand students by going into the schools.[3]

Mission/Values

Mission: Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild is a national model for education, training and hope. MCG reshapes the business of social change through the arts, entertainment, entrepreneurship and community partnership.[4]

Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild is a multidisciplinary, minority-directed, center for arts and learning that employs the visual and performing arts to foster a sense of accomplishment and hope in the urban community. It accomplishes this by:

• Educating and inspiring urban youth through the arts and mentored training in life skills
• Preserving, presenting and promoting jazz and visual arts to stimulate intercultural understanding, appreciation and enhancement of the quality of life for its audiences
• Equipping and educating leaders to further demonstrate entrepreneurial potential

Success and Change

Goals

• Improve academic achievement of participants
• Improve career-development skills, options and outcomes for participants
• Enhance community environment through the creation of artworks
• Create partnerships that cross academic disciplines and link the school with the community
• Support academic concepts with creative and practical problem solving
• Increase awareness of future educational and career opportunities among students
• Explore the creative process while developing critical and analytical thinking skills
• Develop critical life skills by identifying choices and forces that differentiate between survival and success
• Encourage students to become reflective about their actions, behaviors and accomplishments
• Apply creative problem solving to daily life situations
• Inspire youth in the discovery and mastery of artistic interests that give voice to mind and spirit
• Advance the fields of jazz and visual arts

Defining Success

The Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild team believes that success involves all those affected in the process of education. MCG addresses the context of the environment in which learning takes place, in its own facility as well as in schools throughout Pittsburgh. Partnering with teachers through its Artists in Schools programs, MCG brings technical expertise and artistic imagination to the classroom. Scholarships are available for evening studio courses at MCG to any classroom teacher interested in acting as a change agent who promotes the arts as a pathway for learning.

• Improved graduation rates for MBC participants
• Improved academic achievement in partner schools
• Improved education and career outcomes for participants
• Improved economic development in MBC targeted communities
• Continued community support for MBC

Critical to Success

• Programs designed and implemented based on the assumption that students will reach a high level of skill, knowledge and creativity when high expectations are present
• The provision of professional quality tools, materials, facilities and the highest quality instruction available led by practicing artists
• Dedication to the idea that lives can change through relationships built around art mentoring
• The combination of skill development, discussion and experiences that link to community and higher education
• A belief that attitude and willingness to learn are more important than talent or previous accomplishment
• Developing social networks around art and culture that often counteract the negative stereotypes and boundaries that academic tracking, school feeder patterns and age-old neighborhood rivalries sometimes reinforce
• Educational programs designed according to the following standards:
  • Use the highest quality tools and material and instructors.
  • Use a rigorous and sequential curriculum that is linked to prevailing school standards.
  • Provide low student/teacher ratios.
  • Link curriculum and learning to careers and social issues.
  • Apply high standards of artistic, technical & intellectual engagement.
  • Emphasize teamwork among students.
  • Create a community environment of support.
  • Seek parental involvement as a key to academic success.
  • Embrace the potential of every student to succeed.
  • Recognize teachers as the primary change agent for students.
• Performances and presentations by living masters
• Affordable accessible programs interested and motivated students

Outcomes

More recently, programmatic change and external conditions that affect program have required Manchester to be more formal in the planning, implementation and tracking of programs. This has taken place due to the increasingly competitive funding environment, demands of accountability from the school district and the need to maintain quality as programs, audiences and staff size expand. Documented outcomes include the following:

• From 74 to 80 percent of participants in the Apprenticeship Program go on to college, compared to 20 percent in the community.
• 250 of these are students served on an annual basis.
• A study of a three-year arts-infusion program in four of Pittsburgh’s academically underperforming middle schools identified intermediate outcomes that included improved overall school climate, teacher efficacy and parent and community investment in education. Ultimate outcomes included improvements in student academic, behavioral and attendance performance and success in transition from middle school to high school.
• Dramatically improved academics, maturity, self-reliance and social competence were observed among participants.
• Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild cultural programs, including exhibitions, lectures, receptions and concerts by internationally recognized artists, have changed audience members’ perceptions of the North Side.
• Tickets for approximately 30 concert dates each year are sold to capacity. Art events attract approximately 1,500 visitors per year, over and above concert audiences. Combined with the approximately 5,000 middle- and high-school students, their family members and teachers, the number of community members that now associate Manchester as a cultural destination rather than a blighted neighborhood is substantial.
• Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild students have been invited to participate in conferences on leadership, technology and entrepreneurship. Additionally, they have won thousands of dollars in scholarships dedicated to the arts and community involvement.
• Manchester Bidwell construction and program development has provided 125 jobs. Adjacent commercial real-estate development has taken place both simultaneously with the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild construction of 1986 (UPS) and subsequent to it (Mascaro Construction), creating or relocating approximately 300 additional jobs to this once blighted section of Pittsburgh.
• Dozens of artist-driven community-improvement projects have provided school and park beautification, community gardens, community festivals and family celebrations.
• MCG and Bidwell team members are widely respected and play leadership roles in the arts, education and workforce development locally, regionally and nationally. Sitting on boards ranging from major banks to arts organizations, contributing articles to professional journals and sitting on national boards of accreditation are some of the indicators of the organization’s influence.

Nuts and Bolts

Environment

According to 2004-05 school-year data, Pittsburgh Public Schools, the second largest school system in Pennsylvania, enrolled 32,661 students in its 86 schools (53 elementary, 17 middle, 10 secondary, two alternative programs and four special schools). Of those students, 59.9 percent are African-American, 37.8 percent are White, 1.5 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.7 percent are Hispanic, and 0.1 percent are Native American. PPS shares the challenges of many large, urban school districts with regard to meeting the academic goals and standards set by the states for children. Over 68 percent of MCG students come from low-income families (according to PPS 2004-05 free/reduced price lunch data) and 74 percent live in single-parent homes, factors that research identifies as contributors to low achievement and risk for academic failure. Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild serves students and teachers from all of Pittsburgh’s public high schools and many of its most economically disadvantaged middle schools.

Leadership

MCG is an organization still under the leadership of Bill Strickland, its visionary founder. Bill Strickland is a phenomenal storyteller and spirit whose hopes for all young people are shaped by his own life’s trajectory. We rely on the compelling nature of this story and its resonance with many of our students to describe and teach the Guild’s organizational culture and standards to students, family members, teachers and staff artists. A central part of Bill’s approach to leadership is that he believes that all people are capable of great things if offered the environment and resources they deserve. He expects staff — artists, clerks, managers and program directors — to be both brilliant and extremely dedicated on a regular basis. Because Bill is also entrepreneurial, he is constantly seeking ways to expand his vision through new ventures, partnerships and replication efforts. The work environment is not for the faint of heart. There is a strong desire to create and contribute from the bottom up.[5]

—Joshua Green, MCG director of arts and education

Resources

The budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005, for MCG Youth is approximately $1.7 million; MCG as a whole had an operating budget of approximately $3.7 million. The total budget for MBC and affiliates is approximately $10 million.

Development: Manchester has annual contracts with Pittsburgh Board of Education and the state and federal departments of education. Both the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and Bidwell Training Center have benefited from a large donation of technology by the Hewlett Packard Foundation and a partnership with Steelcase Furniture. Strategic alliances with companies including PPG, Heinz and Sony have helped with the start-up of the Drew Mathieson Center for Horticultural Technology and the MCG Jazz recording label. Significant support from the Pittsburgh region has come through grants from the Heinz Endowments, the Allegheny Foundation, the Grable Foundation, the Pittsburgh Foundation, the McCune Foundation and the Eden Hall Foundation. National Foundations that have supported Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild at different points in its development have included Surdna, Ford, Kellogg, Nathan Cummings and the Wallace Funds. Corporate giving from the Pittsburgh region has come from Bayer, Nova Chemical, PNC Financial Services and Equitable Resources.

Governance

In February 1999, the previously separate and autonomous boards of Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and Bidwell Training Center merged into a unified governing identity known as Manchester Bidwell Corporation. This change reduced the total number of members serving on the two boards from a high of 50 to a single board that has fluctuated from 22 to 30 members. Manchester Bidwell Corporation provides services that are critical to the operations of both organizations, including financial management, public relations, fund raising/institutional development and human resources. The development of the Drew Mathieson Center, Harbor Gardens and replication efforts made it increasingly challenging for funders to discern between the overlapping missions and identities of Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild’s and Bidwell Training Center.

The creation of the Manchester Bidwell Corporation has helped create a broader audience of operations in a more global sense. Corporate leaders and businesses in both the private and social sector see MBC as a community organization serving youth and adults bringing full-circle the sphere of influence back to the community. The reach of MBC is seen not just in terms of career training or youth development ñ itís a counter-attack to many of the risk factors that plague inner-city communities, namely a devalued sense of education and economic stability.

The reorganization of the governance structure was accomplished in an effort to respond to those concerns while allowing the two entities to maintain distinct organizational identities specific to programs. Organizational expansion and new program development is under control of the central corporation. To some degree, this may have slowed the progress of new initiatives in an effort to insure they remain consistent with the MCG/Bidwell vision and are phased in so that they do not overwhelm the organization’s resources.

Partnerships

• The most significant partnership for MCG Youth is with the Pittsburgh Board of Education. A contract for services from the board constitutes 10-20 percent of MCG Youth’s annual operating budget. Additionally, MCG and the Pittsburgh Board of Education have recently begun to seek federal funding through programs that require partnerships between lead educational agencies and community-based organizations.
• MCG Youth has instituted a partnership with the Community College of Allegheny County to develop a dual-enrollment summer program that enables rising juniors through recent high-school graduates to earn free college credits.
• MCG Youth has conducted four biannual residencies with the Penland School of Crafts, enabling 25 Pittsburgh teens to work with nationally recognized craftspeople at Penland’s North Carolina campus.
• For more than five years, MCG Youth distributed more than $90,000 in scholarships annually to young Pittsburgh art students through a consortium of Pittsburgh arts organizations, funds and institutes of higher education.

Training

MCG Youth has established a commitment to ongoing staff development that is job-embedded. The guild has played host to the Pittsburgh region’s first-ever arts-education leadership symposium conducted with the Arts Education Collaborative. Guild staff members meet one Friday each month to engage in lesson study and/or curriculum development. Each year the Guild hosts a district wide in-service for 300 arts and music teachers who work in Pittsburgh Public Schools. Past presenters have included artist Faith Ringgold and researcher/policy analyst Nick Rabkin. Guild staff members engage in an annual week-long orientation to review policies, procedures and performance goals for the upcoming academic year. In past years additional sessions have been devoted to intercultural communications and learning, studio-specific art practices, technology, standards and assessment.

Constraints

• Funding: Though Manchester Bidwell Corporation has weathered difficult times better than other nonprofits, many of its programs are still reliant on funding conditions that could change dramatically on an annual basis. Their reliance on foundation support has left them vulnerable to unpredictable financial stability. Such funding is rarely reliable for long-term support of programs, even though they may be effective. Manchester’s current challenge with funders is to refine a model of educational and community impact that can be more sustainable. To validate and ground future efforts they are working to align their educational programs with current research models and become more effective at data collection and usage. Nonprofits with the complex and somewhat hybridized identity of Manchester Bidwell do not fit neatly into current funding categories. Current public policy does not let tax dollars flow easily to community-based organizations that offer viable and valuable educational assets that enrich schools and the communities they serve.
  
  
• Reorganization: Some staff and departments more accustomed to working under the old order may find that the current system slowed efforts to engage in new ventures. As the organization has grown larger and more complex, risks involved in new programming endeavors or entrepreneurial efforts have implications that impact greater numbers of staff and community members affected by programs. The effort to shield staff from the stresses of new endeavors so that they can focus on currently operational programs has also resulted in a sense of distance from the processes and ramifications of replication of initiatives. The ideal is that the governance board has the responsibility of centralizing complex and varied programs into a clear, unified picture. This picture should guide future MCG Bidwell growth.
  
  
• Transportation: Because Manchester’s location isolates it from the surrounding residential neighborhood, the program has found that transportation is a significant barrier to increased school participation.
  
  
• Educational Programs: The crisis in urban education and the response to the No Child Left Behind Act and other state-based standardized testing has made access to students and teachers a challenge for Manchester. Testing and test preparation use time that was once dedicated to teaching and learning. Many schools and teachers are not permitted to engage in alternative approaches such as the arts without showing how the experience will contribute to increased scores on math or verbal tests. The case for these programs will be difficult to make in an environment that does not tolerate experimentation.

Advice to Funders

• The great dream is that funders will become more interested in sustaining longer-term relationships around programs that work rather than regularly changing focus. Institutions like the Guild have a high rate of staff burnout. The work is demanding, and often wonderful artists have a difficult time balancing their creative and educational capacities. Community and youth arts organizations could benefit through support for professional-development opportunities that help teaching artists maintain and intensify their commitment to creative work and personal development. Opportunities to attend symposia, participate in residencies and even pursue creative research over an extended period through sabbaticals could help stabilize the field and propel it to new heights.
  
  
• Youth employment opportunities through community arts programs have become fairly pervasive. Too often funding opportunities for these initiatives have severe family-income guidelines that restrict and in some cases homogenize the population of youth eligible for these programs. Over time, students return to the Guild years after graduation and report that the experience of diversity at the Guild was different from anything they encountered in school. Alums report that this feature of the Guild, more than any other thing, has helped prepare them for life in higher education and the workplace.
  
  
• Much emphasis continues to be placed on establishing a scientific model that can demonstrate causal effects of the arts programming on student academic achievement and attitudes. Unfortunately the worlds of research and youth-arts practice seem to interact for only brief moments. Research in this domain might be enhanced if there were opportunities for Youth Arts practitioners and educational researchers to meet and educate one another on some ongoing basis. Why not create a residency for a researcher embedded within a model youth-arts program? They would benefit through direct observation and participation in art forms and become more engaged in the organic process of change that occurs in the studio. Re­searchers could also become involved in staff development in ways that could lead to much richer analysis of a field that is of great concern but still little understood.
  

[Next: Case Study: Mural Arts Program]  [Table of Contents]

Notes

1.Osgood, Charles, “The Osgood File” (CBS Radio Network, July 31, 2003)
2. Much of the information contained in this and following sections is derived from organizational materials, Web sites and survey responses.
3. Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild History: http://www.manchesterguild.org
4. Ibid.
5. Green, Joshua, in response to the Making Exact Change survey, 2/2005