Developing Partners: Inside Three Arts Organizations

This essay is excerpted from "Exploring Partership Development & Evaluation: Inside Three Arts Organizations," a thesis by Takiyah Nur Amin for her MFA in arts administration at Virginia Tech in May 2004. The entire thesis may be accessed as a .pdf file.

Partnerships and partnership development in the arts proved to be of interest to me as my graduate career unfolded. In learning about different arts organizations and the work they do, I began to realize that their artistic and administrative tasks are seldom accomplished alone. Partnerships are becoming commonplace for many arts organizations that are seeking to fulfill their missions and visions.

My goal was to look at specific arts partnerships and examine not only their development but what informed the creation of these particular partnerships in addition to examining the ways in which they were/are being evaluated.

As an artist/activist, I have a moral and values-based approach to my work and my interests tend to lie with organizations that I feel reflect my deeply held personal ideologies. As such, the case studies in this project were chosen based not only on their varying size, scope and focus, but also on my interest in and fundamental respect for the partner organizations.

The three partnerships reviewed for this project were chosen because they varied in size, scope and purpose and their subsequent evaluation reflected different philosophies and approaches. This project examines these partnerships while seeking to gain an understanding of how real-world arts organizations evaluate their partnership performance. Chosen partnerships include 651 Arts-Africa Exchange Project, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and the Five College Dance Department’s reconstruction of "Bushasche" and Carpetbag Theatre Inc.’s Café Noir project, in partnership with Knoxville College.

Understanding Partnerships

Because partnerships have many uses and may vary in structure and scope, it may be useful to follow certain protocols in developing a sustainable partnership. After identifying the problem or need that could be best served by a partnership, steps in development may include:

1. Deciding to partner
2. Identifying potential partners
3. Formalizing the structure of the partnership
4. Planning
5. Setting of objectives
6. Defining leadership
7. Defining membership
8. Identifying resources
9. Mobilizing resources
10. Integrating with the community environment
11. Implementing the partnership
12. Evaluating partnership
13. Promoting sustainability

While the above list is not exhaustive, it is indicative of the time and commitment needed in developing a (successful) partnership. It seems that sustainability and evaluation pose serious challenges to many partnerships, as evidenced by the three discussed later.

Varying partnership structures can be employed in order to address specific needs, issues and goals. Types of structures include informal networks, committees, coalitions, strategic alliances, joint ventures and mergers.

Helpful Tools for Evaluating Partnership Success

One of the issues of partnership development is that many organizations begin without employing the steps outlined above, or conducting any sort of assessment to determine whether or not a partnership is appropriate to meet their needs. Many organizations ignore or do not thoroughly engage the behavioral or power dynamics that may be key to the undoing of a partnership. As demonstrated later in this paper, the success of the partnerships of interest for this project have been significantly undermined due to the lack of resource assessments, both material and managerial.

The “success” and “effectiveness” of any partnership is likely to be seen in different ways by different partners. This poses a unique challenge to partnership evaluation and makes it imperative that a range of perspectives and viewpoints must be obtained. Given this, an evaluation of any partnership would do well to include the following:

• How does one assess “readiness” when organization(s) are interested in forming a partnership?
• Were the values of the collaborators/partners appreciated maintained and supported throughout the length of the partnership?
• Was frequent communication characteristic of the partnership?
• Were the leadership and membership roles maintained and supported throughout the length of the partnership?
• Were adequate personnel and financial resources allocated and utilized efficiently throughout the duration of the partnership?
• Was the partnership flexible and amenable to change as it developed?
• Were the long and short-term goals of the partnership achieved and sustained, where sustainability was a goal?
• How does one assess the overall effectiveness/ impact of the partnership in question? What tools or rubrics are employed?
• What indicators will we look for to illustrate that the partnership is serving its purpose?

651 Arts: Africa Exchange Project

In 1987, New York’s Majestic Theater was renovated and reopened. Approximately one year later the Majestic Theater Advisory Committee in partnership with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Brooklyn Borough President’s office decided that the newly renovated space would best be used to house a nonprofit institution dedicated to developing multicultural programming for the borough. In the same year, 651 Arts (named for its Fulton St. address) was incorporated for this purpose. Now housed in the renamed Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Harvey Theater, 651 Arts has provided arts and cultural programming to the Brooklyn community since its inception and is currently engaging in its 15th anniversary season.

Poster for “The People of the Forest," an Africa Exchange Project collaboration between Alonzo King's LINES Contemporary Ballet and Nzamba Lela, a 16-member group from the BaAka Pygmies of the Central African rain forest, hosted by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, Calif., in 2001

The Africa Exchange Project is an international program of 651 Arts that “supports collaborations between performing artists from Africa and the United States.” The program is “designed to preserve, transmit and nurture African cultural forms within U.S. communities, create links between African and U.S.-based artists, explore new artistic forms and mutual influences among cultures, and encourage the creation of new and collaborative work.”

Established in 1995, the Africa Exchange Project was an outgrowth of 651 Arts’ Artists in Residency Program and Humanities Program. Initially funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation, 651 Arts under the leadership of Executive Director Maurine Knight on developed partnerships with the National Black Arts Festival, New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) and Global Works! These “primary partners” were chosen to inform and ensure the development of Africa Exchange as well as to curate and monitor residency activities in their own host facilities.

The primary partners first evaluated project proposals during an application period known as Phase 1. Their role was to “review the project based on artistic excellence, budgetary considerations, established commitment to residency/collaborative work, administrative and technical ability of the host organization to successfully implement the project, uniqueness and creative design of the project, and geographical diversity” before recommending the project proposal move forward to Phase 2 (meeting of the artists for project development) and Phase 3 (the collaboration/creation phase with the assistance of the “primary partners” in a major United States venue). The Africa Exchange Project did not require that all projects progress fully to and through Phase 3, though many successful projects did.

The “success” of the project was “measured” by the large number of completed collaborations between African and U.S.-based artists as well as auxiliary events (i.e., conferences, dialogues, etc.) that facilitated conversation on international exchange, artistry and aesthetics. Moreover, the fact that new audiences were exposed to contemporary African art inside and outside of Brooklyn, N.Y., indicates the “success” of the project to 651 Arts.

Since the sustainability of Africa Exchange was not seen as an initial goal or necessity of the project (due to the high costs associated with it), when the funding ended, “ownership” of Africa Exchange reverted back to 651 Arts solely as an in-house project. While 651 Arts maintains that the longevity of Africa Exchange was not to exceed its six-year life span as a project with primary partners and phases as such, the “sole ownership” of the project at present has alienated the initial “primary partners," as evidenced by their refusal to discuss the project at all. The former project manager (and past employee of 651 Arts) also echoed that sentiment. While the development of Africa Exchange as a “partnership” did not demand that steps be taken to preserve a network between 651 Arts and the “primary partners,” it is of note and of interest to the researcher that a relationship of that kind was not seen as a priority for the hosting organization.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar & the Five College Dance Department: "Walking With Pearl"/'Bushasche'"

Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar holds a BA in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and an MFA in dance from Florida State University. In 1984 she founded Urban Bush Women, a Brooklyn-based performance ensemble that had for the last 20 years been dedicated to “producing bold and life affirming Dance Theater based on women’s experiences, African-American history and cultural influences from the African Diaspora.”

Performance still from a recreation of Pearl Primus’ 1984 work “Bushasche” by choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar at University of Massachusetts, 2002. Photo by Frank Ward.

The Five College Dance Department is composed of departments at Amherst College Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts (all located in or near Amherst, Mass.) Students may study within all five departments during their tenure, making the Five College Dance Department one of the largest in the U.S.

Made possible by a grant from Dance/USA’s National College Choreography Initiative (NCCI), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar collaborated with students from the Five College Dance Department to create “Walking with Pearl," homage to dance legend, teacher, theorist and choreographer Pearl Primus and a recreation of Primus’s 1984 work “Bushasche.” Zollar was chosen by the NCCI panel to “reimagine 'Bushasche' and create a new work which reflects contemporary aesthetics and cultural concerns.” With support from Zollar and Peggy Schwartz of the UMass Dance Department, the Five College Dance Department hosted and developed a series of events to complement the creation of the work including open rehearsals, master classes and an art exhibit, panel discussions and lecture/demonstrations, all to complement the dance performances held in the Spring of 2002.

The project “partners,” essentially Zollar as a representative of UBW and Schwartz as a representative for Five College, maintained and acknowledged that the partnership was developed out of a “mutually respectful atmosphere” between the visiting artist, faculty and student dancers. Moreover, while Zollar had artistic license and complete control over her choreography, she embraced the need to participate outside of the dance concert in the panel discussions, lecture/demonstrations and so on, implying that the roles of the partners remained flexible and changed as needed over time.

While no formal tools for evaluating the “success” of the partnership were employed, the Five College Dance Department received national recognition, Zollar has continued with creating "Walking With Pearl” to be performed as a part of Urban Bush Women’s 20th anniversary season and the work of a dance icon that has gone often unacknowledged is making its way back to the concert stage in addition to the halls of the academy. The partners gauged these facts as markers of “success.” While the sustainability of a relationship between Urban Bush Women and the Five College Dance Department was not a goal of this project, an informal and personal relationship has been forged between Schwartz and Zollar as they work in tandem to preserve and promote the work of Pearl Primus.

Carpetbag Theatre Inc. and Knoxville College: Café Noir

Founded in 1969, Carpetbag Theatre Inc. is a community-based, nonprofit professional theater company dedicated to the production of new works. It exists “to give artistic voice to the underserved (by) address(ing) the issues and dreams of people who have historically been silenced by racism, classism, sexism and ageism; tell their stories of empowerment; celebrate our culture; and reveal hidden stories.” With an annual budget of $200,000, Carpetbag Theatre Inc. has had many community partners including African American Appalachian Arts, Inc., (another nonprofit arts organization in Knoxville, Tenn.), East Tennessee Coalition Against State Killing (an antideath penalty group) and the Beck Cultural Center (a historical center dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of achievements by people of African descent in East Tennessee). Through collaboration and improvisation techniques, Carpetbag Theater Inc.’s ensemble company creates new works reflective of community experiences.

Knoxville College was founded in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America to promote moral efficacy and religious leadership amongst newly freed African Americans. Since 1997, Knoxville College has situated itself in accordance with its initial mission to provide education to talented students with leadership potential who are “afforded little opportunity within society.” The College Work Program guarantees financial assistance to all students so that no qualified applicant seeking an education at Knoxville College will be denied due to financial limitations.

Carpetbag Theatre’s facilities, now housed on the Knoxville College campus, provided the impetus for developing Café Noir. Café Noir is a poetry-reading coffeehouse held one night per week on the Knoxville College campus, hosted and facilitated by members of Carpetbag. The poetry-reading evening is provided as a creative outlet for students on the Knoxville College campus to express their joys, triumphs and insights. Moreover, Café Noir creates a space where Knoxville College students, students from neighboring campuses and community members can share their perspectives and concerns. While not formally begun as an evaluated partnership, Café Noir was seen by Carpetbag as an opportunity to give back and contribute to the Knoxville College community in appreciation for the use of campus facilities to house the theatre company. Café Noir has evolved into "SWOPERA," a spoken-word opera, performed by members of Carpetbag.

Carpetbag does not use any formal methods of evaluation to measure the success of this project, but maintains that the high number of participants weekly indicates that Café Noir has met its goals. Knoxville College indicated that finding ongoing support for Café Noir is a financial strain and a weakness of the project. Finding adequate personnel to support Café Noir from Knoxville College to augment the work done by Carpetbag members at the event has also been a continuing difficulty in maintaining the partnership. Like many historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) Knoxville College’s financial hardships and difficulty in recruiting and retaining sufficient personnel to support academic and auxiliary programs has significantly affected the life of this project. Due to the fact that no assessment was done on behalf of Knoxville College or Carpetbag Theatre Inc. before beginning this partnership, the financial and personnel issues were not addressed prior to the onset of Café Noir. As such, though the number of participants at the event is seen as an indicator of “success” this project is highly under-resourced and as a result, means that the sustainability of this valuable community-based project is at stake.

Conclusions and Key Findings

The examination of these specific arts partnerships has yielded the following conclusions and key findings:

• Partners and/or partner organizations must answer the question “Who owns this project?” early on in the development of the partnership. If equal “ownership” of the partnership is to be maintained, this must be addressed and made clear to all partners with a system in place to monitor it. As evidenced by the 651 Arts Africa Exchange Project, the oversight of defining clearly who held final say and ownership of the project has led to an alienation of the initial partners upon whose participation the success of Africa Exchange depended.
• Partnerships do well if all partners have a clearly defined role but maintain a level of flexibility in those roles for the duration of the project. In the case of the Urban Bush Women/Five College Dance Department project, the fact that Zollar openly participated in the peripheral and auxiliary work of the project by engaging in the panel discussions, exhibits and so on, meant that the partnership was a more fulfilling and developed project with all stakeholders satisfied with the end result. The researcher cannot imagine that such would have been the case had Zollar restricted her role solely to that of choreographer in this partnership.
• Personnel and financial resources have to be examined and properly allocated if a partnership is to be truly successful and sustained. The Carpetbag Theatre Inc./Knoxville College Café Noir project is under constant threat week-to-week of not happening due to the fact that no funds or staff was allocated to the project at the onset. The continuation of this project is fledgling at best and as such, the life of Café Noir is severely compromised.
• Partnerships need to have a set of self-determined goals that they can use to determine the success and effectiveness of their partnership developed at the beginning of the project. Moreover, those self-determined goals do well to include an examination of the relationships created and/or maintained by the partners. In the case of all three partnerships examined, the completion of the project, number of auxiliary events to the project or number of attendees was the sole indicators of project success. In no way do these factors indicate the health of an entire partnership because they do not engage the question of relationships between partners and partner organizations, which is clearly something that undermined the success of the projects examined here. Specifically, the number of attendees does not indicate the stability of the Knoxville College/Carpetbag Theatre Inc. partnership anymore than the number of conferences held under the auspices of the Africa Exchange project indicate the health of the relationships held amongst 651 Arts, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, National Black Arts Festival or Globalworks!

Lessons Learned

When I first began this project, I was looking for a foolproof way to develop, implement and evaluate arts partnerships. I wanted the steps, the order and the tools — an explicit way to go about creating and sustaining a partnership. I wanted these things because I imagined myself working in partnership development for an arts organization at some point and I wanted to be able to do it well…more than that, I wanted to be able to do it right.

I have learned that there is no foolproof, perfect way to develop or evaluate a partnership. Moreover, I have learned that what may be a working structure for one organization may not work at all for another. What seems appropriate in theory might not work at all in practice. In addition, what seems a good evaluative measure for one project might be inapplicable to another. There is no universal standard or universal partnership implementation process.

What has been valuable in this project for me is that I have learned that key to forming any partnership is the development of a strong and healthy relationship between the partners. Other things eventually fail to matter if that initial relationship isn’t solidified and maintained throughout the life of the project. This stands to reason, in terms of evaluating partnerships, the “tools” we use or “ways” we determine or examine project success have to be informed by the self-determined goals of the partner organizations. Granted, those goals have to be inclusive of participant outcomes, attendance, project completion and the like but they must also take into account the health of the relationship between the partners. Perhaps a better question is how do we characterize partnership health or healthy relationships in general?

During the undertaking of this final project, my personal life has taught me that healthy relationships are characterized by honesty, openness, communication, shared resources, full disclosure and shared good. These ingredients that inform healthy interpersonal relationships are the same things that inform healthy interorganizational relationships. Too often, organizations are characterized as soulless, faceless entities that function by rote. In my growing understanding of partnerships or what it means (personally) to be a partner, I have come to know and understand that organizations are made of people: people with values and goals and perspectives and ideals that have to be considered in the undertaking of any project or partnership in order for it to be successful.

More than anything, I have learned that if I ever work in partnership development for an arts organization, it will be incumbent upon me to act out of the understandings and lessons learned in this final project. Yes, partnerships are important but people are more important and it is the relationships of those people that in the end make a partnership successful. If I can facilitate the relationships between partners and encourage them toward optimal health, through the pathways of mutual cooperation and respect, then I will do the work I set out to do as a professional in the field.

Takiyah Nur Amin holds a BA in dance from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an MFA in arts administration from Virginia Tech. She has worked with the Dance Heritage Coalition, Carpetbag Theatre and Urban Bush Women. She plans to pursue advanced-degree work in dance and continue work as a consultant with Warm Spirit Inc., a self-care and wellness company.

Original CAN/API publication: August 2005