An Emerging Professional’s Adventures in the World of Arts Non-Profits

It’s true that the broader issues regarding arts organizations may be over the heads of emerging arts professionals. But, it certainly doesn’t hurt to start getting informed and find as many resources as possible to help you learn about your industry. Be ahead of the game.

I suggest Andrew Taylor’s entertaining and informative blog regarding arts management and cultural policy: http://www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager/ which also offers you the opportunity to receive weekly summaries of all posts by e-mail.

And in other news, Smith Farm’s gallery is looking for an un-paid intern. You can view the job listing here: http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/med/755694335.html and view information about the gallery here: http://www.smithfarm.com/gallery/index.html

Cheers,
Barb

For those starting out with very little arts management experience, naturally, you will have to make some sacrifices – and by that I mean, you will have to start out working for nothing. There is a fabulous up side, however, if you approach that non-paying opportunity in the right way.

Instead of going for the huge organizations, which will be hard to approach anyway, go for smaller, emerging non-profit arts groups. What you will find is that ANYTHING you can do for them will help them out. Many times, the founders of these groups are some type of artist or performer. They are not entirely familiar with some of the business aspects of the organization, and they need your help! Or, they may have some business-saavy people in their group, but these business types are not arts saavy!

As an emerging professinal, you are hip to the resources of the internet. The internet is usually where you can find lots of marketing and development resources for your organization. In my work for the small opera company in Philadelphia, I came up with the idea of recruiting pro-bono professionals (since the budget did lot even allow for paying these pros) for positions in development and marketing, and I used the internet to find them and entice them to come on board. Sometimes too, you can find lots of little databases and web sites to list your company’s web site, bio or other info. Every little posting counts, and usually the leaders of your organization have much bigger fish to fry and don’t have time to do this kind of painstaking research.

Working in these small organizations gives you the opportunity to take initiative and come up with cool ideas. The reward is amazing recommendations from the leaders you worked with and experience taking on a leadership role. You will also find that you probably get to work in a hands on way, setting up performances or exhibits, simply because there is no one specific yet in the company who does that sort of work.

Finding such organizations can be as easy as going to Google or Yahoo and looking up local arts organizations. Usually, you can find a number of very small starter uppers amongst the larger companies. I also suggest idealist.org and volunteermatch.com for other opportunities.

Take initiative! Tell them what you see they could be doing, and then do it for them.

Cheers,

Barb

My name is Barbara, and I am currently based in Washington, DC, although I have ongoing work in Philadelphia as well. I have worked on non-profits since the age of 14 when I started my own community service organization to help senior citizens in nursing homes. Using the internet, I recruited thousands of teens from all over the country to submit cards and letters which we then brought to local Philadelphia-area nursing homes. Through my experience, I won the McDonalds and Disney Millenium Dreamer Award for community service and a DoSomething.org grant.

Having been raised in a household of music and art, I grew up playing instruments and eventually delved into the world of professional opera performance. Thus, at the age of 18, I began work with non-profit arts organizations. I began as a Marketing Intern for a large performing arts organization in Philadelphia and moved up the next summer to Summer Marketing Associate. At that time, I also became the Webmaster and Volunteer Recruiter for a small opera company in Philadelphia, for which I have also done marketing, programming, and development work.

When I got to college and began a double major in art history and philosophy, I became more interested in writing about art and working with visual arts organizations, both commercial and non-profit. I have worked for The Barnes Foundation as a Development Intern and also for a small non-profit arts organization for emerging visual artists. My current work is at a commercial gallery in Washington, DC.

I continue to take short-term positions to learn as much as I can about arts management, especially the ins and outs of both commercial and non-profit gallery work. My goal in starting this blog is to record my experiences day to day as I learn new things about arts management. I am also attempting to attend, or at least, take note of, as many resources for arts professionals as possible, including lectures and workshops, which I will post as I find them.

I hope I can offer an interesting point of view on arts management, especially as a musician and as a young emerging professional.

Cheers,

Barb