Creative Economy Practitioner's Toolkit: Taking Advantage of Campus and Community Resources (Part 1)

This toolkit is excerpted from a paper that reports on a research and technical assistance effort to examine creative-economy initiatives in upstate New York and how they can be translated into strategies for community and regional development in small and medium-size cities*. We focus on the potential role of higher-education institutions in building local creative economies and lay out specific strategies for community and regional economic-development planning. These strategies include: stakeholder gatherings, super-collaborators, local and regional arts councils, festivals and special events, collaborative organizational designs, service-learning arts projects, student-led community arts projects, research collaborations and arts-based brick-and-mortar projects. The toolkit is followed by research references and an appendix of useful
national and New York State creative-economy resources. View the project Web site (with photos), New York Creative Economy. To access the entire paper, download it from the Cornell University site.

Strategy 1: Setting up an initial stakeholder gathering

One way [we] can begin organizing for participation is by establishing a core participation group that can help [us] develop a participation plan and begin the process. Collaborative stakeholder involvement is a very sophisticated form of participation and requires significant preparation, care in selection of participants, use of a trained facilitator, and time and patience. (Virginia Tech’s Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, para.1)

An initial stakeholder gathering can be used as a focus group to gather information, elicit support for ideas and generate new ideas. These meetings are excellent opportunities to breathe new life into stale local processes and challenge conventional attitudes and assumptions as well as to neutralize dominant players by giving everyone present equal time and equal voice. Traditional leaders need to be involved but the roles you want them to take during the initial gathering should be clearly stated to make the most of their expertise and the energy of new participants.

Putting Strategies into Action

It is important to get a commitment to attend from several community leaders who have a positive and far-reaching reputation. Rely on these leaders to suggest other contacts and then call them or schedule a personal “interview.” Garner their help in developing an agenda for the stakeholder gathering by describing very broad goals for the meeting. Ask them to describe some past successes and obstacles to community cultural programs.

Case study: Cortland and Penn Yan-Keuka Campus/Community Consultations

Based on our 2004 survey of campus representatives and directors of arts councils across the state, we explored the impact community-college connections have on creative-economy initiatives in upstate New York and provided technical assistance for two campus and community partnerships in Cortland County and Penn Yan-Keuka. Our goal was to develop a plan for a specific, actionable intervention, in consultation with community representatives, to be initiated and completed by the end of 2004, and to lead to further collaborative action between the campus and community.

In both communities, the college campuses, SUNY Cortland and Keuka College, have a significant presence and are dominant players in the provision and consumption of cultural products. Over a dozen phone interviews of stakeholders in each community were conducted focusing on the local cultural landscape, the strengths and challenges of local creative economies, existing and proposed cultural partnerships and viable cultural providers in each community. Stakeholders helped to prepare the agendas for the two initial meetings and over 20 people attended each meeting. Reading lists and a baseline definition of the “creative economy” concept and how it might be shaped locally were provided to the participants. The researcher facilitated the Keuka meeting and the economic-development leader was the facilitator for the Cortland meeting. Minutes and participant contact information were circulated to all participants.

At each meeting, representatives of the educational institution, arts-related businesses, artists, art teachers and local arts councils and arts institutions described their current projects and plans and, in the case of Keuka, brainstormed ideas for future collaboration. In Keuka several representatives from local social-services agencies attended and in Cortland representatives of local politicians attended, reflecting the interests and connections of each gatekeeper who helped arrange the meeting.

The Cortland meeting resulted in the further support of a new organization for arts education and presentation that went on to open its doors in June 2005. In Keuka, the researcher led a sub-group of mostly social-service providers to develop a proposal that would mesh the missions of the college and the agencies by providing an after-school arts program. The group, including the grants writer for the College, continues to discuss the project for future implementation.

Challenges

As an outside organizer, control of the meeting, providing equitable discussion time for all participants, and developing trust with and within the group may be challenging. You may have to accept that there were no positive outcomes or find a way to acknowledge individual and group credit if there are positive outcomes. The best advice is to spend enough time in the planning stage, talk to many people representing diverse groups and interests, and be prepared to practice your leadership skill and patience during the initial meeting.

Strategy 2: Managing the Super-collaborator’s Role

Six degrees of separation doesn’t mean that everyone is linked to everyone else in just six steps. It means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few…These people who link us up with the world…who introduce us to our social circles – these people on whom we rely more heavily than we realize – are Connectors, people with a special gift for bringing the world together…they are people whom all of us can reach in only a few steps because, for one reason or another, they manage to occupy many different world and subcultures and niches…their ability to span many different worlds is a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy. (Gladwell, 2000, p. 37-49)

In any community, there are a few special people with far-reaching reputations for upholding the values (both stated and not) of the community. They have deep and thick networks of relationships of both the “bridging” and “bonding” variety (Putnam, 2000). In other words, they are deeply connected and identified with a few specific groups and then they are shallowly but positively connected with many more groups. They have deep reserves of trust. They are often charismatic with great energy and excellent communications skills. Often, they are able to bridge between arts and business, arts and education or between social classes or ethnic groups. These are the super-collaborators.

Putting Strategies into Action

Find Super-collaborators through conversations with stakeholders. Their names will keep popping up as ambassadors to a group of people or representatives of an organization. Perhaps they will be identified simply as someone who gets things done.

When approaching Super-collaborators, acknowledge that you are tapping into their stature and reserves of respect. Do your homework and find out which projects this person has been aligned with in the past and what roles he or she has played. Ask yourself what you need this person for: a stamp of approval, as a co-organizer, for advice, contacts or funding ideas. Be specific and know what aspects of your project will appeal to this person. Cultivate this relationship carefully and diplomatically, being sure to work toward a win-win scenario in which the Super-collaborator can imagine a return on his or her investment of social capital.

Case study: Super-collaborator Lynne Mishalanie, Utica, N.Y.

Founded by super-collaborator, producer/director Lynne Mishalanie, Utica Monday Nite works in cooperation with the Downtown Utica Development Association (DUDA). In 1997, Mishalanie persuaded this economic-development group that the key to revitalizing downtown Utica was to create an "arts economy" in order to attract and enhance tourism. From its inception, the goal was to advance the arts as an integral part of the economic, political, educational and social fabric of the "cultural corridor" of the Mohawk Valley. Her vision was to make the arts and humanities available and accessible to all. Utica Monday Nite accomplishes these two goals by presenting a summer arts-and-humanities festival in downtown parks and public spaces on 13 Monday nights from June through August. Events and activities are offered free to the public. The key to the success of this festival has been the cooperation of many arts organizations and businesses based in Utica as orchestrated by Super-collaborator Mishalanie.           

Utica Monday Nite doubled its attendance in its second season and a 50-70% increase in restaurant business was reported in its first season. New activities added to the project include opportunities for refugee and new immigrant artists to exhibit their works during Utica Monday Nite, the Heritage Park celebration of the ethnic diversity, and the Bridge Builders Coalition weekly discussions on increasing tolerance and understanding among the city’s diverse populations.

In the 2000 season, "The Passport to the Arts" program was initiated to expose young people to the arts, cultural and historical opportunities in the area. Working with area schools and cultural organizations, the "Passport to the Arts" program gives students who attend at least six events at Utica Monday Nite free admission to other events in the Cultural Corridor throughout the year. (Utica Monday Nite, para. 1-6)

Challenges

One of the problems is that Andrea (or Jackie or Tom or) wears about 48 hats. (Newcomb)

Super-collaborators are notoriously overextended. Though they may be supportive and enthusiastic about your idea, they may have little time left to support it. Make good use of their limited time by suggesting to them a role to play. Identify which of their connections are vital to the project. While it is important to know and involve super-collaborators, ask them for specific advice and involve other volunteers as well.

Strategy 3: Engaging Local and Regional Arts Councils

By design, arts councils ARE networks and are organizations that provide services to a network of artist-members. They typically have low returns in terms of funding, but hopefully have high returns in terms of coordination. They provide visibility and opportunities for their members and are invested in animating the public spaces of their communities. Because they cover specific geographic areas and promote the unique culture of a place, they share interests with local Conventions and Visitors Bureaus, Chambers of Commerce and other retail and tourism organizations. Arts councils can be facilitators and collaborators in the design of creative community projects. Arts councils may have members who identify as artists, craftspeople and/or owners of creative-economy for-profit businesses and directors of not-for-profit creative-economy organizations. Thus, they are an important connection to the workforce of the creative economy (New England Council Report, p. 4).

Putting Strategies into Action

Call your local arts council and arrange to interview the director to discuss your project. Your area may be geographically part of both local and regional arts councils. It may be useful to connect with other nearby arts councils to tap into their networks and their ideas and knowledge about how things work in your community and the arts community. You may also want to connect with state organizations, such as the New York State Council on the Arts, popularly known as NYSCA (niss-kah).

Arts councils can be particularly effective in suggesting funding sources for projects, providing services such as grant-writing workshops, and spreading the word via network newsletters and e-mail blasts about projects and programs. At their best, they are proactive in forging partnerships and finding funding. They are facilitators of creative collaboration, accessing ties and resources beyond your local community.

Arts councils vary in terms of their ability to function. Some operate smoothly, others barely limp along and may do more harm than good. Follow your instincts when assessing your local arts council. If a situation seems chaotic or otherwise dysfunctional, avoid it. Work with informal groups of local artists and writers, meet artistic directors of dance companies and theaters and talk to gallery owners and festival organizers to gauge the impression these prominent individuals have of the local arts council and its effectiveness.

As with the Super-collaborator, arts council directors are often people with rich connections, trust and far-reaching reputations in the community. Find out about their past projects and special skills before attempting to persuade them to support your idea. Always strive for win-win relationships.

Case study: Canvases…just down the road

“Canvases…just down the road” was a cultural tourism initiative from 2000-2003 in the southern Finger Lakes of New York. The arts council in Corning, New York, ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes, commissioned twelve area visual artists to create works of art around a theme. Each work was blown up to 25’x12’ and mounted for this billboard project, "Canvases…just down the road." The ARTS was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America grant for the expansion of its billboard project to include artists from northern Pennsylvania as well as from New York’s Chemung, Schuyler, and Steuben counties. The ARTS created the “Canvases…” project as a millennial celebration to promote regional artists and cultural tourism, in response to the regional public/private branding initiative, “Finger Lakes Wine Country…just down the road.” The canvases idea was the brainchild of the director of the arts council and fully realized by her, with the help of area partners.

Challenges

The staff of arts councils are often overworked and underpaid. Public funding for the arts is politically dependent and is inherently unstable, sometimes making it difficult to take risks and try new things. The success of arts councils appears to be based on the skills and ambitions of the individuals running them. Entering a relationship with an arts council should be done after much critical analysis of its programs and strategies.
Some arts councils, although they have limited capacity, try to be all things to all people, muddying their mission and agenda. Serving the needs of both creative commercial enterprises as well as individual struggling artists may stretch resources to the breaking point or simply create a situation where no one’s needs are being met. Successful arts councils identify both the exchange value and the use value of artistic enterprises and understand the boundaries and synergies between the two.

Strategy 4: Building Capacity with Festivals and Special Events

Planning a festival or special event is a terrific entry point for a community trying to get started with creative-economy initiatives. Festivals and special events can be designed to be very flexible, provide opportunities for inclusion and satisfy multiple agendas. These events provide communities (and visitors) with evidence of successful collaboration and cooperation, accomplishment, capacity, diversity and liveliness. Organizers can design the events to be one-time endeavors and then assess their contributions after completion and decide whether to mount them again or not. In this way, they carry relatively low risk. Typically these events have little economic impact but have the ability to address and meet the other shorter-term economic and non-economic needs of localities such as: public relations, marketing, identity building and boosting community spirit. These events have a perceived multiplier effect, linking audiences to restaurants, lodging and retail stores as well as special crafts, fashion and food sales.

Putting Strategies into Action

Often festivals are started by performing and visual artists and the artistic content of events decided by artists. This is more effective than aesthetics determined by people without grounding, training or experience to make the best decisions. It is important to allow artists the freedom to make good decisions about who to invite to perform in a music festival, for example, or who to exhibit in an outdoor art show. On the other hand, having a committee of artists making these decisions is ideal, in order to correct for extreme aesthetics and nepotism.

Many successful events start small and idiosyncratic and grow in popularity as their aesthetics are accepted over the years. It is true that artists are often taste-makers for the rest of us and can anticipate changes in forms and show them to us before we are ready for them. Even these temporary or short-term events can take year-round planning.

Use your community stakeholders to describe past local and regional festivals and discuss their successes and challenges. Often, a past festival is remembered fondly and no one can quite remember why it was discontinued. Consider reviving it with a new twist. Find others who have produced these types of events and are willing to share their experiences.

Organize your volunteers based on competency. Listen to the artists for vision, drive and entrepreneurial skills to bring a long-imagined project to life. Identify volunteers with organizational strengths to manage the logistical details that accompany a complex project. Over time, the “managing director” and the “artistic director” of a project or event learn skills and language from one another and both are able to “talk aesthetics” or “talk permits” with fluency to each other and with the rest of the community. Though these events are typically held outside in the summer, they don’t have to be. Ithaca, New York’s “Light in Winter” takes place in January and has the advantage of little competition for the leisure time patrons at that time of year.

Case Study: Waterfire, Providence, R.I.

Eighteen years ago, Providence artist Barnaby Evans wondered if there was a way to enliven and animate downtown public places through programming that would attract visitors and residents to the place. He envisioned fostering individual and collective associations, memories and relationships around the place, promoting Providence as “The Renaissance City.” Since its first “lighting,” his piece, “WaterFire,” has grown from a temporary sculptural work to a Rhode Island institution that attracts thousands of visitors to the downtown area to eat, drink, shop and stay overnight.

A WaterFire lighting begins at sundown with a flotilla of four boats, filled with wood, parading up the river. Each boat bears a lit torch. The lead boat holds a person banging a gong. The boats are black as are the clothes of all the crew. The mood is somber. The banks on either side of this narrow river are thronged with people watching and walking. The lead boat lights a pyre in a brazier in the middle of the river: WaterFire has begun. The gonging stops, recorded music fills the sound space. The lead boat goes on to light pyres on 100 braziers spaced roughly 25 feet apart, lining the center of the river. For the next five or so hours, the sky darkens, the music plays and the boats pass silently up and down the river, refilling the braziers with logs and otherwise tending the fires of “WaterFire.” The simplicity of the piece is its power. A few gondoliers and small tour boats bring passengers up and down the river during the lighting. Auxiliary music or theater performances or sale of food or trinkets are, by design, kept well away from the sensorial reach of  “WaterFire.” In 2006, WaterFire was be staged 18 times, during a season that runs from the beginning of May through October. Each WaterFire cast member is a volunteer. WaterFire is funded through public and private sponsorship. (Monagan, 2005)

Challenges

Festivals and special events are typically short-lived, labor-intensive and seasonally dependent. The challenge is to build off the momentum and energy created by a festival to populate the working groups that will address the deeper community’s economic development problems such as jobs and keeping young people in the community.

Strategy 5: Collaborative Organizational Designs that Enhance Creative Connections

In 1995, the United States had 1.6 million nonprofit organizations (Salamon, p. 22). Thousands more are created each year. Though only a small percentage of these are arts organizations, looking at the sector as a whole gives us a sense of the fierce competition these organizations face when searching for funding, board members and sophisticated and knowledgeable staff. Combined with the already difficult organizational challenges in low-density areas, this competition can force these organizations into counter-productive struggles for survival.

Strong strategic designs capitalize on what’s already there – facilitating rather than creating new organizational structures. They are the lubricant, not the engine. Arts organizations and individual artists should be left to do what they do best – create and/or present art. Good strategies for collaborative organization design can allow several low-capacity organizations to pool limited resources and cooperatively assume functions such as marketing and fundraising. These designs break through institutional boundaries, develop new audiences through cross-fertilization, extend the reach of smaller organizations, and lead to the successful “branding” of an area.

Putting Strategies into Action

Beg, borrow and steal. The simplest way to change is to graft a well-functioning collaborative design onto your own specific context. Look at other organizations using the design and evaluate what works well and what does not. Still, it is important to objectively analyze the local context for the appropriateness and sustainability of any collaborative strategy. If there is little buy-in for the proposed design, the collaboration will not move the organization in any direction, good or bad.
           
Start with stakeholder groups, but creatively compose them to fit your purpose. For example, you may want to connect for-profit and nonprofit music composing, teaching and presenting organizations and private individuals. You may want to link all the art and cultural organizations that are associated with a local immigrant population, such as a Central American migrant farm worker community. You may want to organize all the organizations and individuals currently using a specific space for rehearsal and performance.

Assemble the group and do an assets and needs assessment (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993). What are the needs and individual capacities to meet these needs? What resources (money, volunteers, time, etc.) are the organizations presently spending and what benefits are there to pooling resources and sharing services? For example, several organizations may want to retain the services of a development director, a grant writer, a marketing manager, a box-office system, a graphic designer or a subscriptions manager. Though individually these groups may be able to hire for these positions on an “as needed” basis, it may be more efficient and effective to cooperatively hire one stable, knowledgeable staff member who is committed to the position at the same or lower total cost.
Once an appropriate collaborative design is agreed upon, clarify the rights and responsibilities of all organizations or individuals toward the partnership. The board members of all organizations should be involved in the selection and implementation of the proposed design. A written contract can describe the rights and responsibilities and list any associated fees or charges and penalties for withdrawing from the partnership. Regularly scheduled meetings and an annual evaluation can monitor the progress of the partnership and make necessary changes. Networks of individuals could follow the same process.

Case Study: Genevarts, Geneva, N.Y.

In 2002, the arts and economic leaders of Geneva, New York, submitted a request to the state’s Industrial Development Agency to fund a feasibility study for a Cultural Arts Center in their downtown area. The study results indicated that the community did not have the capacity to support such an endeavor and that the proposed arts programming would not attract the market that would financially sustain the project. At this point, the community decided to explore the idea of linking the many arts-related activities that took place in and around the city during the summer and to coordinate and market them as one--the Geneva Summer Arts Festival. The Geneva Arts Development Council (GAD) was formed and undertook the mission

to promote the arts in the City of Geneva, in order to improve the quality of life for our residents, revitalize our downtown and enhance our appeal to commerce and tourism. To accomplish our goal, we will make use of Geneva's historical and architectural significance, rich cultural diversity, distinctive lakefront location, exceptional educational facilities, and the unique Smith Opera House
(Geneva Arts Development Council, para. 3)

The philosophy behind that first Geneva Arts Festival was to “build from what we have,” and to link existing programming at the Smith Opera House, the popularity of the annual “whale watch,” the proximity to the wealth of musical talent at the Eastman School at the University of Rochester, and participation of local performers and performing groups by creating and/or presenting new work under the aegis of the Festival.

From the beginning, GAD understood that it would need a strong Board to lead the effort to collaborate as well as the support of the city and the Chamber of Commerce. GAD registered for 501(c)3 status and immediately began building a Web site to meet its networking needs. It focused on branding the city as an arts-focused environment and repeating that message using multiple sources. The Web site has an events calendar, a listing of area artists, links to area restaurants, shops and hotels, an online ticketing resource and downloadable area maps.

As would be expected, GAD faced the resistance of potential partners to collaborate due to fears of lost identity and being overwhelmed by dominant partners. The success of the first three summer festivals created an attrition of partners, with continued involvement of those who are best served by the collaboration and others to operate independently. GAD has added a film festival to its promotional efforts and the Geneva Art Works Gallery to present the work of local artists. Its most ambitious project to date has been spearheading an effort to develop artists’ lofts on the second floors of downtown retail spaces, offering tax waivers and subsidized loans to landlords who participate in the program, and incentives to the artists who occupy them.

Challenges

It makes sense to adopt organizational designs that have been successful elsewhere and to collaborate with other arts-based organizations when possible. But collaborations take hard work and it is important to share the responsibilities and the credit for the success equitably. Analyze both the organizational design and its implementation as you consider creative-economy designs that have been successful in other communities.

Part 1 of 2 > Go to Part 2

Susan Christopherson, Ph.D., an economic geographer, is a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Suzanne Loker, Ph.D., a consultant in the apparel industry, is a Professor and J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise, Department of Textiles and Apparel, Cornell University. Susan Monagan, B.A., is the manager of audience development and special projects in the Department of Theatre Arts, Ithaca College, Ithaca, N.Y., and is engaged in several projects initiated by Cornell's CARDI (Community and Rural Development Institute) where she is pursuing an M.P.S. degree that looks specifically at using art in community development, focusing on interviews with community arts practitioners. Monagan’s thesis, "The Artmaker as Active Agent: Six Portraits,” was published on CAN, and she was the subject of a cross-sector interview on CAN, both in 2006.