Dear Neighbor,

As you are probably aware, we are entering an election season, and the Ward 4 city council seat is one of the positions up for election this spring.

I have some real concerns for our neighborhood. Will the opening of Wal-Mart cause more of the small businesses on Georgia Avenue to close, and what’s the plan with that? Will the closing of Walter Reed mean more excess office/retail space for our area, and reduced property values? With Michelle Rhee gone what is the plan for our Ward 4 schools?

I’m interested to hear what the Ward 4 candidates have to say on these and other issues so I’ve invited a few of them to my house, and I’m inviting you to join us.

Join me Tuesday October 18 from 7:00-8:30 to meet two of the candidates: Keith Jarrell and Max Skolnik. Each candidate will have five minutes to introduce himself, and then we get to ask them questions. The formal question and answer period will end at 8pm, and from 8-8:30 we can chat informally.

I’ve never met either of these guys, and don’t know if I like either of them. This is not an endorsement. I just want to hear where they’re at, and why they’re running. I plan to do another one or two of these with more candidates including the sitting Ward 4 councilmember in the months to come. I hope you’ll come by, and let me know if you have any questions. PLEASE RSVP by email so we know how many to expect.

Your neighbor,

Rob

p.s. – In case you’re interested, the website for Max Skolnik is www.voteformax.com, and the website for Keith Jarrell is www.keithjarrell2012.com.

From the Body Retreat
This overnight retreat at Richmond Hill in historic Church Hill in Richmond VA is based on my semester-long, university class and at-home workshop. It relies on our physical self and subtle energy to generate embodied writing and movement that arises from metaphor, sound, innate rhythms, vibration, improvisation, the unconscious, and integrative awareness. We write, meditate, move, embody awareness, create, astonish ourselves, make new body/mind/write connections and deepen already existing ones.

The retreat includes three meals, a shared room, and access to Richmond Hill grounds, labyrinth, and chapel. It takes place from Friday, Aug 4 at 5pm to Saturday, Aug 5, 4pm. Enrollment is limited. The cost is $150 by July 22; $185 thereafter. Reserve your space for $55 to let me know you’re coming or send the entire amount.

See more about Cheryl here and you can email her at cheryl@cherylpallant.com

Arts education in the District is threatened. Non-profit arts education providers and the populations they serve are like the character in the movie Hustle and Flow who says, “I’m sitting here trying to squeeze a dollar out of a dime and I ain’t got a cent.”

There has not been a single community, or business, untouched by the recent economic decline.  The National Opera was forced to reduce from 7 performances to 5 for the past season, and in 2012 will be absorbed by the Kennedy Center in an effort to stave off further collapse. The budgets of most organizations have shrunk, and non-profit presenters are feeling a trickle up effect; with fewer rentals many theater spaces are struggling to keep the lights on. Washington, D.C. is not at all unique in these struggles. Last week one of the great orchestras in the United States – the Philadelphia Orchestra –– declared bankruptcy. Among surviving organizations, arts programs serving poor communities are in decline, as non-profit businesses focus on earned and donated revenue possibilities.

Sometimes we forget that non-profit businesses are just businesses, subject to the same forces that drive expansion and contraction in the rest of the economy. The DC Chamber of Commerce 2011 Policy Agenda states,  “The past year has proven to be a test for many of our members as they work to survive the economic downturn. And over the past year, the Chamber has been able to stave off legislative and regulatory initiatives that could harm our members’ ability to operate successfully and help grow our economy, create more jobs, and improve the District’s competitiveness regionally.” And that is where the DC Advocates for the Arts find ourselves as we prepare for Arts Advocacy Day – April 27, 2011. We are fighting to maintain support for DC students, and to protect opportunities for DC arts organizations and artists. Will only the wealthiest children in Washington, D.C. have access to the benefits of arts education? The outcome of the current budget fight will provide some of the answer.

Increased funding for DC’s arts agency, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), is necessary to maintain access to arts education for lower income populations. Funding for the DCCAH has been gutted in the last three years, from over $14 million in FY 09 to under $5 million in FY 11. The District’s FY 12 proposed budget contains further cuts; the current proposal is $3.92 million to serve all of the arts organizations, artists, and arts education providers in the District. That is $3.92 million within a total District FY 12 budget of $10.8 billion. Contraction in the non-profit arts community is to be expected in this economy, but policy-makers need to protect those least able to bear additional burden. Just like Homeless services, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and general education funding, arts and arts education funding must be protected.

Music education teaches children discipline as it validates their individual voices. Private schools see how these kinds of opportunities drive student achievement not for individual children, but in the breadth of student populations. We don’t know which children don’t drop out because of music education. We don’t know which children focus that little bit more closely because they feel better about themselves due to music education. DCYOP and programs like DCYOP are reaching families week in and week out, and we need your help.

To support DCYOP and all of the arts providers in the District, on Wednesday April 27, 2011 – Arts Advocacy Day – please take a minute to ask policy-makers to support arts education in the District’s FY 12 budget. Contact Mayor Gray via email at eom@dc.gov or by phone at (202) 727-6300, and Council Chair Kwame Brown at kbrown@dccouncil.us or (202) 724-8032. We need your voice to maintain public support for arts education.  Please ask the Mayor and the Council Chair to support arts education, and to do that by restoring funding for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to FY 2010 level – $5.16million.

You could say that a single grant – say $10,000 dollars – doesn’t make a difference in a career. But I’ve seen how good business people turn that 10 into 30 and that 30 into 300. And without that ten, that thirty, it’s impossible to get off the ground.

Sitting here this evening working on the brochure for our FY 12 advocacy day I’m trying to revisit some key turning points for my own business. In the last administration I submitted 14 grants and got none. I know I make strong well crafted art. I work hard, and I’m a nice person. And I’m also a good writer. How did I not get any of those grants???? Not one? Many reasons, sure, but here’s one turning point I’m aware of:

The position of Executive Director at any government agency or foundation is one of tremendous influence. The Executive Director is like a Council-member; they may not have direct budget spending authority, but they carry massive influence on decision-making at all levels.

One way to influence granting is through the stacking of granting panels. Hypothetically, judging done by these independent expert panels is just that. In reality, DC is a very small community, and commission staff are directed to ask/pick the folks to be on the panels. And, being on a panel is a lot like jury duty: you don’t get paid for it, and you have to take off work, so it’s a self-selecting self-interested group that is even willing to serve. In a small city, then, these independent panels put together to judge grants are highly insular, and can either represent a thoughtfully independent cross-section of the arts community, or an insular cross-section of the arts community. It’s important not to be on the outs.

That the judges consider projects and programs in the same panels from organizations with annual budgets from $5,000 to $50,000 to $5,000,000 dollars annually is in some ways lovely, but in other ways terribly dumb. In the quality and attention given by full time staff not only to the projects but to the grant applications themselves it’s clear that panels return predictable results, and the volume of “repeat winners” is neither random nor efficient.

During the last several years of economic downturn, with decreasing budget the agency might reasonably have reduced programming and focused on preserving granting pools for artists and arts organizations threatened by the downturn. Agencies in many states and municipalities did that. But the DC commission began a proud, loud, and costly marketing campaign and expansion of assorted non-core programs (some quickly abandoned.) Let’s be clear specifically about what a marketing campaign (taking out paid ads) did and did not do for grantees. Anyone in marketing knows that to work, ads take more than one impression. If you have 500 grantees, when you’re “marketing them” you’re actually just marketing the agency.

The way the commission chose to accommodate the downturn was by directing panels to spread the money further. They increased the actual number of grants given, but gave fewer grantees the full award. This might have been a real efficiency were it not for the volume of repeat winners panel to panel to panel to panel.

Growing the local advocacy organization – as I did – in that kind of environment was obviously a challenge. I’m watching this happen, and I’m dialoguing with politicians fighting for arts agency budget, and they’re talking about demanding greater efficiency, and I’m making these suggestions to the agency but have no control, and I’m being perceived as a bitter pill, and I’m aware that the agency is spending money on ‘innovative’ marketing programs and pop-up arts shops rather than sustaining arts organizations experiencing the worst recession in fifty years or investing efficiently in small new ones… And I dissented vocally and I’ve paid a price for that bad relationship. And bad relationships really do have a way of spreading. Understanding it doesn’t make the denial of opportunity, or the stamp of failure from all those rejections, easier to bear.

Sitting documenting the importance of grants to all these artists and arts organizations it’s hard not to be just the tiniest bit hardened by my story not being among them. I’ve dedicated my heart and soul to this path, and I know I’m a worthy investment. It’s four years later. How do I heal those relationships and how do I lose my own bitterness over the experience? I’d appreciate any reader input.

That the folks in the room didn’t assume my humor really does speak to the hyperbole that regularly occurs in these kinds of conversations. I am confident in my leadership of the DC Advocates for the Arts.  But I do still regularly question it, and have it questioned for me, and I don’t think that’s a weakness. I almost wish I was like a Luddite, or Randian protagonist, interested only in my own success, but in fact, I am not.  I hope that my leadership is a part of something larger than myself, and if it is, my leadership is replaceable. To me that is not in conflict with my confidence, professionalism, commitment, or leadership, but it does temper my self-promotion.