A group of about 70 representatives of Richmond's arts and culture community, and a handful of curious residents, gathered at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond for an update on the Richmond Region Cultural Action Plan. What they got was a hearty download of data.
I guess that's what happens when you ask 2,800 people to fill out 22 pages of data.
"We've been a little quiet [over the summer] but I will tell you, if you are at the receiving end of these surveys..." exclaimed the Richmond History Center's Bill Martin, a member of the Cultural Action Plan's task force. Martin kicked off the evening by acknowledging the impact of the economic climate; plans for a series of public meetings throughout the region have been put on hold temporarily.
Martin quickly turned the reins over to Alan Brown, partner of cultural consulting firm WolfBrown, and WolfBrown's Rebecca Raskind.
"We set out to get as comprehensive and nuanced arts and cultural information about the Richmond area as possible," Brown began. He said the firm chose a two-pronged approach -- an online survey of some 2,000 area residents and a paper survey that garnered another 700 reponses, primarily from libraries, churches and senior centers in the area.
What followed was an ocean of charts, graphs and data. Exactly the sort of thing arts and culture devotees devour.
Let me lay my biases on the table before I provide some insight into the survey findings.
The folks behind the Cultural Action Plan are doing a lot of things right -- they're being intentional; they're attempting to be collaborative; they're seeking to build consensus through what appears to be a more open and transparent process than we usually see in this town. And, truth be told, through their analysis they're speaking a language that their corporate donors know and love -- data and numbers.
But are they missing the very same piece of the equation that strategic consultant Jim Crupi called Richmond's corporate leaders on the carpet for last November? Yes, the vision thing. Here's Crupi speaking in Richmond last year:
"There is capability here. There is intelligence here. But there is no sense of vision," Crupi told the crowd. Where, he wondered, is the "sense of the possible, a sense of the dream, a sense of really reaching out" to diverse voices?
In a nutshell, Crupi's latest report finds the Richmond region holding many of the right pieces of the puzzle but lacking in the leadership and shared vision to build a future distinct from the past.
...something is missing. The pieces are not tied together. It is as if the metro jigsaw puzzle is missing several key pieces that prevent the viewer from seeing the whole picture. Those working on the puzzle have no clear picture to guide them. There is no sense of what it will look like at the end. Some are holding onto pieces from another puzzle and keep searching for a place to put them. Those pieces don’t fit and the ones that do are difficult to place without inefficient, frustrated efforts. So people give up or come back later – hoping to make it work. Some start working on another puzzle – one less complicated. The result is a puzzle with holes. Many of the pieces are there, but there is no understanding of what it will all look like at the end. The individual pieces don’t fit together to support one another because there are too many gaps. There is no synergy and no leverage. While the picture could be striking if it were put together, it never gets done. (Crupi, 2007)
"Absent strategy, the default position is tactical," Crupi told the crowd at the Seigel Center. Richmond has been engaged in very successful tactical work for a long, long time. It's not, Crupi suggests, enough to make the region successful in the future.
And while the folks behind the Cultural Action Plan appear to be interested in trying to put their piece of the jigsaw puzzle together, I wonder what it would look like if their starting point was creativity, energy, dynamism -- rather than data.
Granted, the opportunity remains for the Cultural Action Plan to shake out a vision. The January 12 meeting (5:30 p.m. at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond) promises "to present a set of emerging themes and proposed goals and strategies."
But I can't help but go back to Alan Brown's call to action, of sorts, to the people in the room tonight. Go back to your organizations, he said, and distribute the findings from the survey and engage in conversation about what this means to your organization.
I counter that with a question from the audience as the evening closed, which essentially asked how this massive collection of data could be used to drive collaboration. The last thing Richmond's arts and culture organizations need to do in this moment in Richmond's history is squirrel themselves away and stare at their own navels.
That's what's held this region back from the get-go. What if, instead of gathering data the members of the Cultural Action Plan task force sat down for a day and had a working discussion centered on ways their organizations could work together to transform the region? That conversation may well emerge from this work, but I'd argue the data often shields us from the possibility.
Having said all of that, there was some interesting insight surfaced in the research results.
Not surprisingly, "people who attend events frequently, many of them are artists themselves," Brown noted. "So, personal involvement leads to attendance."
What keeps people from events? Depends on who you ask.
"The greatest barrier is lack of relevance or perceived lack of relevance," Brown said. Relevance both in the form of events or activities not being of interest, and in the very social sense that people participate in activities that they see people like themselves participating.
And for those who participate the least in cultural activities, the data shows, cost and a lack of interest are huge barriers.
Which raises many questions, including this one: What drives interest? If you build it, will they come? Or, will they come and ask you to build it?
Brown said supply creates demand in the culture world. But perhaps it is supply, plus a compelling message of social connectivity. One case in point, perhaps, would be the impossible dream of First Fridays. When launched several years ago, few expected it would become the social hub for Richmonders of all stripes. But it isn't as if the galleries weren't all there, having openings around the same time every month. No, what First Fridays did was create an event that threaded people and places together -- it made a whole out of many pieces.
That's the opportunity the Cultural Action Plan has.
The research suggests that location matters. "One over-arching point here -- culture happens in a lot of different settings," Brown said. "As consumers place more importance on convenience, it is getting harder and harder to attract them to locations even 20 miles away."
The research looked at 58 different activities. Is anyone surprised that music swept in almost every category?
"Music, music, music, music," Brown said. "So, a major observation here is that music is a dominant activity" in Richmond. People listen to it on the radio; they buy it; they hear it in church; they attend outdoor festivals and indoor concerts; the download music from the Internet. Apparently, large swaths of the region also sing.
Exploring family history is also big. Don't laugh, hipsters. There were 32% of the respondents who said they'd like to research their family history; and among African-Americans that number climbed to 40%. Here's an easy way to make a difference, and build your organization's reputation -- help people discover their roots.
Adding a social aspect to any event makes it more compelling for people, Brown said. Given a choice between staying at home and knitting, and joining a knitting circle -- or reading a book alone vs. joining a book club -- and odds are high that most people will gather around people like them and do some crafts. Or dance. Or sing.
"Again, look at social context as a motivator," Raskind told the group. "Social connection is the single most important motivation to get people to participate."
There are several meetings scheduled for the Cultural Action Plan to continue to share its work. All meetings will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. The two scheduled meetings are January 12 and February 9.
The Cultural Action Plan does not have a website, but WolfBrown has posted the complete results of its cultural census online.
