Post-Covid MMXLVII: Why Did THOSE Nonprofit Arts Organizations Succeed?

It seems only yesterday that the Novel Coronavirus of 2019 killed a lot of people, a lot of dreams, and a lot of arrogance.

Here we are, 28 years after the virus manifested. Thank goodness that after the third covidmutation of 2035, the combined leadership of Canaméxico’s Prime Minister Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pacifica’s new president Greta Thunberg overcame the stubborn incompetence of New Auschwitz President-for-Life Eric Trump and his citizenry. Getting Eric Trump not only to approve the construction of a virus-blocking dome surrounding his nascent nation was one genius action. Getting him to pay for it was quite the coup. So to speak.

Abraham Lincoln was correct when he said, “A house divided against itself will not stand.” But it took another 9-score years or so to determine that the most effective route to a stable house involves removing the dividing offender rather than forcing the egregious to capitulate for the sake of comity. Hence our new and decidedly more effective map:

Here in the sister nations of Canaméxico and Pacifica, where the viral and political machinations have already passed, nonprofit arts organizations have succeeded in using their unusually effective artistic tools to lift the spirits, the fortunes, and the people of their communities. How did we get here?

Back in 2020 and 2021, the most unenlightened companies tried to “re-open” rather than inventing themselves anew. They tried to promote a decades-old formula by which rich people donated to nonprofit arts organizations in order to keep them open. That way, these same rich people could attend those same nonprofit arts organizations. Needless to say, that led to a graying, insubstantial audience. Eventually, they would have died off on their own. That, in turn, would have ultimately closed these nonprofits down.

All the virus did was speed things along. These same older people were the most susceptible to dying of the virus. After the first set of vaccines, they were still loath to go out. And thus, those unenlightened companies closed down.

“It’s sad,” said one former artistic director, who only agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. “We wanted to leave a legacy. We wanted people to point to our building and say, ‘Something wonderful happened there.’ Even while we were going bankrupt, we thought people would want to be a part of that legacy.”

“What we didn’t count on,” they continued, “was that most of the community really didn’t care about us. And they certainly didn’t care about the building. They looked at us as a pleasant money-sucker, even in the best of times, because we didn’t do anything for them except produce art. Art is necessary for enlightenment - I think everyone agrees on that - but we completely overstated the case that our version of art was necessary for anything.”

“We should have known better,” they concluded, “but we were arrogant and ignorant, and that’s a fatal combination.”

Let’s look at a couple of the successful nonprofit arts organizations in today’s North America.

In Pacifica’s capital city of Seattle, 501 Repertory Company is entering its 20th year of producing plays. Its mission is to strengthen Seattle’s most impactful charities in an effort to level the playing field for the most vulnerable among us. Decades ago, an arts organization that excluded its art of choice in its mission statement would have been considered radically non-artistic. Isn’t it wonderful that we have collectively moved beyond that ridiculous saw?

The efforts of 501 Rep have succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations in large part because the plays it produces are meant to effect change, not merely to inspire it. Its activities include play production, educational competition, and advocacy. Each piece is new and is chosen for its value to a chosen 501 Rep partner nonprofit. For example, a nonprofit involved with voting rights would be paired with a play advocating for expanded voting rights – not as polemic, but in a way that is both entertaining and effective.

The company accepts no earned revenue at all, depending instead of two funds from which to pay its expenses. The Nonprofit Fund garners revenue meant to be split 50/50 with the nonprofit partners of the organization. The Arts Action Fund provides operational expenses so that the company can continue to aid in its goal of lifting worthy nonprofits across the area.

While it is financially thriving and has helped other nonprofits pass legislation, reduce poverty, end homelessness, and more, the money is not the goal of 501 Rep. Its impresario, John Q. Public, told us that the center of its description of success is this:

“501 Rep’s has firmly established itself as an indispensable activist nonprofit. Our goals are externally faced. We were founded on the notion that universal appeal is impossible. Harry Nilsson once said “A point in every direction is the same as no point at all.” When under-served people succeed – people who never thought they would ever benefit from a company that produces plays, of all things – 501 Rep has won another battle because the community is better off.”

Based in the central Canaméxican hub of Minneapolis, the breakup of the former Children’s Theatre Company has borne 3 remarkable children-targeted nonprofit arts organizations. Working together, and working with strict parameters, rubrics, and measurable results, the 3 companies serve as a nationwide artistic assembly line of sorts, with the intention of teaching life skills that will benefit them the rest of their lives.

The Primary Theatre Experience, with a mission statement of “to imbue children aged 5-8 with the confidence to be curious, expressive, and collaborative,” uses substitution and improvisation to help children disregard the self-defeating limits of attaining a proscribed potential.

PTE productions involve both the teacher-actors and the students themselves. The plays follow a highly acclaimed scientific process based on research determining the relationship between self-esteem, achievement goals, and academic achievement among the primary school students as being paramount to ascertaining student success.

The executive director of the organization, Jane W. Doe, took it a step further. “Thanks to one particular sponsor, we issue 2 sets of identical pants and shoes to each student. We also issue 3 shirts in the same style and fabric of shirt from which the students can choose among 10 available colors. In this way, we reduce socio-economic differences among the students, giving them a level playing field on which to achieve.”

The care taken to utilize positive reinforcement for good behaviors converts to a higher academic floor for each child, especially for those with developmental disabilities, basic needs insecurities, and for those who do not speak English. Their idea is to use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a guide and carefully move up that pyramid at least 2 levels (physiological; safety). The results have been staggering, as every child is skill-tested upon entry and right before graduation. The average increase in achievement has opened the eyes of government on attaining these crucial skills.

The Middle Grade Theatre Experience (ages 8-13) expands on the success of PTE by adding early playwriting and directing skills to the performers. They, too, use Maslow as a guide, reaffirming the students’ needs and adding the third and fourth levels of the pyramid (love and belonging; esteem). Due to their amazing results in raising the playing field, both PTE and MGTE have spread and now each exist in over 800 communities across Canaméxico and in neighboring Pacifica, serving over 5 million students every day.

The third group, the Youth Expression Success Experience (YES) takes former PTE and MGTE students and safely instills the highest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, self-actualization. In addition to the reliable state funding, YES utilizes a special sponsorship fund, The YES We Can Fund, to hold annual performance festivals. YES provides scholarship money given directly to winning students’ college funds in a competition devoid of sets, costumes, makeup, and anything else that might provide a level playing field for those students who have passion, drive, and intelligence, but no money to buy such trappings.

“We’ve seen the reports,” said PM Ocasio Cortez, “we’ve read the research, and we now see that because these three companies target skill growth for youth as its primary activity, students who have taken part have grown into today’s leaders. It is why the nation fully funds these programs each year, with no dissent from any of the political parties. It’s not as though they’re just putting on plays for kids. They’re growing them into fantastic leaders, no matter what their home situation is.”

None of these arts programs would have been possible but for the 2020 pandemic. The United States was too fragmented and cowering to special interests. Too busy yelling about what’s “good for my children” to notice that the system was failing almost everyone’s children. The freedom that came from those who treated what everyone used to call “the new normal” as an opportunity to invent (rather than as an opportunity to re-open) provided this amazing increase in achievement for everyone. Using the arts as a tool to achieve an end has proven to be much more exciting than using the arts as an end, in and of itself.

And that will be the legacy of the now-closed operations.

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This is the last (for now) of the Post-Covid Series. If you've missed any, have any questions, or need help in helping your board or company to move in the right direction, just DM me and click on the links below:

Post-Covid Article #1: Don't Ask

Post-Covid Article #2: Is It About the Car Wash or Is It About the Car Wash, or the Car Getting Cleaned? Steps Toward a Post-Covid Performing Arts Future

Post-Covid Article #3: The Sacrifice After the Sacrifice - Go Small or Go Home

Post-Covid Article #4: In the New Normal, You're Going to Need Some Mischief

Post-Covid Article #5: Shedding Egos and Empowering the Tribe

Post-Covid Article #6: A Rose is a Rose is a Rose – Don’t Let Data Get in the Way of Failure (because failure is the key to innovation)

Post-Covid Article #7: We're All Startups Now

Post-Covid Article #8: Just When You Thought It Was Safe...

Post-Covid Article #9: Remember the “Nonprofit” Part – It’s Way More Important Than the “Arts” Part

Post-Covid Article #10: The 5 Stages of Stages

Post-Covid Article #11: Are your impacts intentional? Incidental? And what if…?

Alan Harrison is a writer, father, performer, nonprofit executive, artist, blogger and impresario (in no particular order). He has led, produced, directed, promoted, raised money for, starred, and failed in over 300 theatrical productions on and Off-Broadway and at prestigious (and not so prestigious) nonprofit arts organizations across the country. He’s also a two-time Jeopardy! champion so, you know, there’s that. The arts invoke passion (mostly from artists), but nonprofit arts are only successful when they result in measurably positive change among those that need it most. When a nonprofit’s donors are also its recipients, then its mission is meaningless puffery, flapdoodle and codswallop.