Detroit Partnership Day

Also known as “DP Day“, this event brought over 1200 volunteers to spend a day bettering the city of Detroit.  Volunteers participated in a variety of projects such as: helping to erase blight by demolishing abandoned homes, beautifying neighborhoods with urban gardens, creating friendlier spaces for children by cleaning up parks and schools, and changing the landscape of neighborhoods by painting murals.

Below is a picture of a volunteer working with Public Art Workz.  The major focus of their work is the “Papillion Effect“.  Volunteers painted butterflies to be placed around the city.  The butterflies are symbolic that Detroit is on it way to reemerging into a more beautiful and lively city.

In addition, volunteers were able to see Public Art Workz hang a beautiful mural of Barack and Michelle Obama dancing above a local building to be appreciated by all members of the community.  (Picture below, but unfortunately mural is small).

D-SIP alumni, Joseph Sutkowi and Amanda Olson were instrumental in the success of the day.

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The Apollo 15 mission put a U of M placard on the moon. Pretty cool but…

is D-SIP cooler?  Check out this video to find out!

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7921281/

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Ask, Why?

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to see the movie – a hilarious and, at times, heartfelt depiction of a less-than-typical family. The movie followed The Kids are All Right the West Coast clan through its ups and downs (probably more downs than ups) until it arrived at the universal reminder that, no matter who you are or where you come from, family life, as wonderful and supportive and reassuring as it can usually be, is difficult.

I am thrilled to be working this summer for an organization that operates like a family. Almost every member of the administration knows each other not only professionally, but personally as well. And not only that, but the staff that more than doubles in size with the addition of its 100 or so summer employees treats the newcomers as if they were around for the other nine months of the year. Everyone looks out for one another in ways that range from picking up work that just can’t be finished to inviting a colleague to join the lunch table.

In the non-profit sector, most organizations can’t help but operate this way. In a world where the workload is huge and the rewards are not always as great, people have to rely on those around them for support, friendship, and reassurance that it’s all going to be okay.

For most non-profits, the family extends beyond the administration and staff. Where I am spending my summer months, there is the full-time staff. And the summer staff. And the artist-faculty. And the students. And the donors. And the Board of Trustees. And a few other governing bodies whose roles are (still) a bit unclear to me.

It would be ridiculously unreasonable to expect smooth sailing twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and three hundred sixty-five days a year around these parts. With thousands of peoples’ interests to keep in mind, who wouldn’t expect the occasional bump (or ditch) in the road?

In any family, it is important to keep in mind the purpose. In my family, when the going gets rough, I find comfort in the fact that, no matter what, these are the people who will be there for me through thick and thin and who will, without question, always love and support me. Are there times when I want to switch off my cell phone, shut down my e-mail account, and flee thousands of miles away? Of course. But, in the end, I remind myself that I am there for my family because they are there for me.

In a non-profit organization, there is one never-fail, trumps-all, not-to-be questioned answer to any kind of conundrum. Ask, Why? Why should you help out the colleague who, on a particular day, is driving you crazy? Why should you apologize to the donor who is accusing you of being wrong when you are seven thousand percent sure that you’re right? Why should you put your personal interests and agendas aside?

Because it’s what is best for the organization.

In any family – personal or professional – it all comes down to sacrifice. We spend time with people we sometimes aren’t crazy about and sometimes do things we really don’t want to do because it’s what is best – both for the home you’re a part of and the organization you work for.

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Who Benefits from Benefits?

On my third day of work this summer (which was, in spite of my disbelief, almost a month and a half ago), I went with some co-workers to a panel discussion in which our Vice President for Institutional Advancement (in other words, my boss) was speaking. The title of the discussion was “Making Friends with Benefits” (hah, hah, hah) and included contributions from leaders of non-profit organizations in the area about special events and what worked and what didn’t when producing such functions. The information I heard that morning was interesting, but hardly seemed relevant at the time. Now, several weeks later, I have helped plan, implement, and staff two benefits (and a third is just a few weeks away). Needless to say, the information I heard on day three suddenly seems relevant.

Among the thoughts, accusations, and criticisms I have heard (or thought) regarding benefits this summer are:

The long days and hard work that goes into producing and event are not worth the outcome. Tasks in which I was involved when planning for these events include: Working out the night’s seating chart. Placing complimentary ticket requests to the box office. Calling guests to confirm attendance. Doing more work on the seating chart. Working with a decorator to order, organize, and place a large order of orchids and alstroemeria. Crafting several different displays for the event’s silent auction. More seating chart work. Helping to prepare talking points for the President for the words he would deliver throughout the evening. Making place cards. And, of course, finalizing that darn seating chart mere minutes before the event was set to began.

Benefits get too detached from what an organization is all about. The overarching conclusion from the panel discussion I attended earlier in the summer was that, in order for an event to be worthwhile, it has to be wholly mission-driven. But, as a friend pointed out to me last night, “You can only make a sit-down dinner so mission driven. I mean, it’s dinner. There are only so many things you can do.”

People who attend benefits are clearly snobs because they spend so much money on an evening. On one hand, a benefit does raise money. In the arts, patrons of special events do pay more to hear a performance and have dinner than most would ever dream of contributing to a night out. A few weeks ago, following our annual Opera Benefit, I heard a student of the institution where I work ask, astounded, “Did those people really pay [x] dollars to have dinner and see the opera!?”

Benefits are not worth the trouble unless the event’s income meets budget. Today I sat it on my institutions’ monthly board meeting. It probably comes as no surprise that the questions on everyone’s mind when the topic of Saturday’s gala dinner came up were, “What was the budget for the event?” “How much did the event make?”

Clearly, there are many roadblocks that can easily pop up when an organization is considering hosting a large-scale special event. And, the truth is, many of these points are often valid. Sometimes hard work doesn’t pay off, and events are left poorly attended or coordinated. Sometimes a dinner is just a dinner, and could be serving as a function for anything from a music festival to a law school. And sometimes attendees are really more concerned with spending an evening out with friends than they are about supporting the cause at hand.

But (hopefully, more often than not), an event is hosted that shatters these thoughts. The Season Benefit I helped organize met budget on Saturday evening, allaying the fears of our board members. And, our donors were far from the snobbish stereotype that seems to exist in so many minds. In fact, they were delightful, charming, and thoroughly appreciative of the hard work that had gone into planning the evening. I was reminded that our donors knew they didn’t have to spend so much money on a night out (instead of coming to our Opera Benefit two weeks ago, they could have seen the same opera the next night for…well…much less), but that they chose to do so to show their support for our organization.

There was a moment when I walked into our gala dinner on Saturday evening and was overwhelmed by what I saw. Our dinner (totally and completely linked to our mission) was held, following a performance, on the stage of the massive auditorium that houses hundreds of performances every summer. Three glittering chandeliers hanging from the ceiling towered about the magenta and fire tablecloths. The vibrant light display that illuminated the stage was the perfect juxtaposition to the night sky that surrounded our intimate gathering. And, on top of it all, everyone was happy. Laughter echoed throughout the hall and smiling faces toasted what we would later learn was hailed as one of the best events ever held at our festival.

I don’t know if it was the fact that we were on stage or that we had just come from a spectacular recital given by one of our generation’s preeminent performers, but, at that moment, I knew I wasn’t surrounded by just any philanthropists – I was surrounded by patrons of the arts. Not being the hugest sports fan myself, I was a bit doubtful of Wesley’s mention a few weeks ago of the comparison between the arts and sports. But, on Saturday night, and again today when my boss delivered her report on our event, I couldn’t help but elatedly think to myself, My team is winning.

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Different Similarities

On Friday, one of my colleagues ran through the offices in our Development Department practically jumping up and down, chanting, “Let’s go get Mendelssohn tickets!  Let’s go get Mendelssohn tickets!”  She was referring to that evening’s performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s classic Violin Concerto, performed by none other than classical music superstar Joshua Bell.  As members of the Festival’s staff, we are entitled to free tickets for the summer concerts.  Because this was an especially big event, it made sense for us to get our tickets that morning to ensure we had decent enough seats for the performance.

On our walk back from the ticket office, my colleague explained her excitement.  She told us that, when she was pregnant with her first child, she listened to the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto every day for nine months on her way to work.  Her drive to our office is about a half hour; the piece lasts just under thirty minutes.  “It is just my most favorite piece of music,” she gushed, her face practically glowing with excitement (although, the glow might have also been a result of the fact that she is now pregnant with her second child).

That evening I sat next to my colleague during the performance, and she explained to me that she loved Mendelssohn’s work because he put so many different emotions into the piece.  “I’ve been playing it for my daughter,” she said.  “I’m trying to explain emotions to her, and at the beginning I tell her, ‘Listen, it’s  just so sad.’  Now, every time she hears the melody, she says, ‘It’s so sad!’”  She continued on to say that, by the end of the piece, the mood is totally different all the way to the finish.

Fortunately, the performance of my colleague’s favorite work was above and beyond what she could have imagined.  Say what you want about Joshua Bell (the larger than life persona the artist has developed coupled with his oftentimes overly emotive performances can be a turn off for some), but no one energizes and unites an audience like this particular soloist.  His entrance to the stage was met with applause usually reserved for the end of a musical work, and, after his performance, he was called back to bow three times by the ignited audience.  He received the same ovation following his encore, a dazzling fantasy on “Yankee Doodle.”

In my second-round interview for D-SIP, on a cold morning in February 2009, my future supervisor asked me, “Why music?”  It didn’t take me long to answer, “Because it’s the same in every language.”  [NOTE:  This response may have been subconsciously triggered by my love for the 2004 movie Mean Girls, where the heroine gives a similar answer when asked why she likes math.  I promise my answer was supported by my own unique and valid reasons.]

I was thinking of the previous summer that I had spent playing music in Italy, and how my program’s Italian audiences didn’t need to speak our language to understand what we were trying to say from the stage.  (In fact, in some instances, they had the advantage – our production of Mozart’s opera Le Nozze de Figaro was performed in Italian, and I was the one who found myself feeling without exactly understanding.)  Regardless of language, the reaction of our Italian audience showed us that they experienced something during our time in front of them.

Music does have the ability to transcend any cultural barriers, but my recent experience with my colleague taught me that its precise meaning is completely individualized.  Leaving the concert on Friday evening, I found myself in awe of the fact that hundreds of individual experiences of Bell’s delivery were what made up the united celebration of his artistry following his performance.

For my colleague, it was remembering her first pregnancy; reflecting on the beautiful daughter she has, anticipating the child yet to come, and thinking about how she will pass along to her children a fervent love of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.  For others, it might have been as simple as a crush on one of classical music’s more attractive figures.  For me, it was remembering the last time I saw Bell perform:  on a chilly winter evening almost four years ago in Ann Arbor’s own Hill Auditorium.

Friday night’s performance was a reminder of why people support the arts in the first place.  It could be the pieces performed, or it could be the artists who appear on stage, or it could be the work of the organization itself.  Or, for some, it could be the sheer force of leaping to their feet after the final notes of a piece and, for just a moment, having something in common with the hundreds of people standing around them.

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Please, check your ego at the door.

On one of my very first days of sixth grade, my English teacher wrote a quote on the blackboard.  She made a point of, every few days, sharing with my class a well-known quotation to stimulate our minds through the struggle to find meaning in foreign combinations of words.  On that day, “Ignorance is bliss” was printed in chalk in script that was already a comfort to me even after just a few days of classes.  Once we determined the meaning of the words in front of us (I had always heard the word ignorance but never fully understood what it meant), she posed a question.  “Is it?” she asked.

I remember knowing my answer immediately.  For most of my childhood and young adult life, my sensitive self was resistant to all things new.  I thrived on safety and security and, to this day, my go-to coping mechanism has been a resolute state of denial.  (You know those shirts seen around Ann Arbor that say “Michigan Music/Mom/Engineering/Whatever?”  Once I thought I saw a shirt that said “Michigan Denial.”  I was oddly disappointed I was when I found out it actually said “Michigan Dental.”)  On that day in sixth grade, I can’t remember if I shared these feelings aloud, but I’m sure that my thoughts joined together to form a resounding Yes! to my teacher’s question.

That was almost eleven years ago.  I have to admit that, at twenty-two years old, there are days where I think it might be better for me to stick my head in the sand and ignore what is going on around me.  However, for the most part, I’ve come to understand that the more I know, then the more informed I am about what I am saying and, perhaps more importantly for someone working in development, the more attuned I am to what is being said to me.

At the University of Michigan’s recent (ish) Spring Commencement, President Barack Obama encouraged his audience members to embrace differing viewpoints from their own.  I recently had a severe moment of déjà vu during the Student Convocation I wrote about in my last post.  In an interesting parallel to President Obama’s words the President and CEO of the arts institution where I work encouraged faculty, staff, and students to always be willing to listen across the table to ensure both a maximum level of artistic creativity and cooperation among the different levels of organization.

In the arts, the symbolic dance to which all members of the community must try to learn the steps is a delicate one.  On the one hand, there are musicians.  Some musicians work for themselves – they enjoy the way creating art makes them feel.  Some musicians work for others – sharing their craft with an audience brings them endless joy.  Many musicians are motivated by a combination of these two spheres.  Regardless, the act of becoming an artist can become unquestionably self-involved.  In few other fields is talent so rare and does skill have such an ability to dazzle.

On the other hand, there are arts administrators. Some were artists at one time or another and decided to explore a different facet of their interest.  Others were never artists and entered the field for reasons varying from intrigue to necessity stemming from a job offer.  Some arts administrators successfully blend their work, continuing to deliver performances while simultaneously shaping the future of the field to which they are so passionately dedicated.  Either way, work on the administrative level can become so goal-oriented that its employees become distracted from the ultimate goal:  furthering the art itself.

Where is the solution to what is, without a doubt, one of the art world’s most difficult conundrums?  Where can artists and administrators meet and not only hear but feel what the other party is sharing?  I have to admit that I am writing this post amidst the gathering of a massive personal search party to find the answer to these questions.  President Obama said what he did at the Big House but continues to be criticized for his lack of gumption.  Arts leaders know what needs to be done in their field but, according to Andrew Adler in a recent issue of the Louisville Courier-Journal, “…have a lot more trouble turning…talk into action.”

One thing is for sure.  The answer to any problem will not be found unless all pertinent information has been gathered, shared, and comprehended.  I was told that one of the most important skills to have when working in development is the ability to listen, but only recently did I realize that listening goes far beyond hearing.  It is only through the act of integrating information into understanding that we can blissfully leave ignorance behind and enter a new realm of progress.

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Open Casting Call

At the beginning of my very first class with the oboe studio of Dr. Nancy Ambrose King at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Dr. King opened the session with a few words about herself, her teaching philosophy, and her hopes for the members of her studio. “Look around you,” she said. “Behind you, next to you, in front of you. Respect everyone in this room, because you never know when you will run into each other again. Someone in this room could be in the place to recommend you for a gig, and you would hate to have burned that bridge back in college.” (OK, that was almost four years ago so that might not have been exactly what she said, but the gist is there.)

Dr. King began every year with that same speech, and every year I realized a little bit more how true her words were. However, it wasn’t until last week, when students began arriving at the music festival where I am working for the summer, that this message hit home harder than the storms I hear have been tearing through Ann Arbor over the past several weeks (my phone still gets text messages from UM’s Emergency Alerts System).

The idea of never knowing when you might run into someone again is true of most fields, but I think it holds a particularly remarkable truth in the arts. Musicians are probably some of the most mobile professionals I know; if you are a performer, it is unlikely that your sole source of income is from one stable position in a symphony orchestra. More often than not, musicians are gigging around the cities in which they live, playing with many different people in a given week. Sometimes musicians might be in and out of different cities in a particular region. And it is more than likely – for younger musicians in particular – that summers are spent studying or teaching at a festival far away from their home bases, mixing with musicians from all over the world.

Last week, I was in the main administrative building of the music festival where I work when I noticed a package addressed to someone I studied with at Kinhaven Music School in high school. I saw him at lunch the next day; with him was yet another person with whom we had shared a music summer. The following day I ran into someone else I had gone to Kinhaven with. And then someone I knew from Michigan. This past weekend I was out with a friend, who is currently a student at the festival, and he introduced me to a new friend of his. Turns out she and I played in orchestra together two years ago at an opera festival in Italy.

These sentiments were the message behind the keynote speaker’s address this morning at my institution’s Student Convocation. I think her words summed the idea up perfectly; she said, “Look around you. These are your colleagues for life.” She spoke the truth. My experiences last week were a huge wake-up call – the people I have performed and worked with as a musician have the potential to be in my life forever. Whether I am performing or working in the arts at the administrative level, I remain a member of the (sometimes frighteningly small) arts community.

In addition to the keynote speaker, the Festival’s President and CEO delivered some brief but eloquent remarks. He spoke about the word ensemble, initially referring to the exceptional brass choir that had opened the ceremony with a regal serenade, but then morphed his observations into commentary about the “ensemble” of the Festival as a whole – the mutual respect and understanding that should exist between the students, faculty, and staff.

That’s the thing about this lesson I’ve been gradually learning over the past few years. The message that I learned from Dr. King and that was reinforced in the words of the speakers today has been lost in the professional jargon of “networking” and “making contacts.” Somehow, navigating the professional world has become such a priority that the importance of our own “ensembles” has disappeared. Maintaining a positive and fulfilling way of life is full of exciting and unique interactions, each with its own purpose, but ultimately needs to be about recognizing the common humanity in everyone’s own cast of characters.

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Money’s Not-So-Ugly Stepsister

Before my initial experiences in development, to me, the word ‘philanthropy’ was almost synonymous with the word ‘money.’ When I heard ‘philanthropy’, I thought of large donations that made the names “Carnegie” and Rockefeller” the household words that they are today. Philanthropy was not only just about money, but it was also about a lot of money. I thought that people who gave $10 to their local symphony orchestra couldn’t be called a philanthropist; they had to have given enough to have the entire hall named after them. Or at least a row of seats.

Over the past year I learned that philanthropy is not defined by the size of the gift made. Just a few weeks ago, Wesley Ellison drove this point home with the astute observations she made in her post, “Small Donations Go a Long Way.” Amount is not what should be taken into account when assessing the value of a gift; rather, the passion behind the contribution is what makes it so valuable.

Today, this point was illustrated for me in an indirect fashion. However, the importance of passion was not stressed by seeing the effects of a small (or large, for that matter) gift coming from a fervent source. Instead, I saw belief in a situation that didn’t involve money at all.

Today, on my first day of work in development at summer’s epicenter of classical music, I spent some time working with three elderly volunteers. We were stuffing letters soliciting support for the institution’s annual fund in a last push for support before the organization’s summer performances began. I have no idea whether or not these volunteers were donors, but, regardless of that fact, they had invested just as much in the festival as anyone writing a check.

We were mailing probably somewhere around 1,000 letters. These volunteers knew more than half of the recipients by name.

Discussion about the organization in general naturally ensued, ranging from comments about the institution’s leadership to its repertoire for the Summer 2010 season. The volunteers participated in intelligent commentary worthy of anyone with any sort of involvement in the festival.

And when I asked how long they had been involved in this kind of work? I was floored upon learning that they had been participating in the organization for over fifty years.

The investment of volunteers in any institution cannot be discounted. Volunteers are perhaps the driving force behind any activity; they are the face of what true investment means in any organization. Volunteers give their time, energy, and ideas for usually no return at all. They aren’t hired to do the work that they do, meaning they aren’t chained to the promise of a paycheck after a certain period of time.

On the outside, it might appear that they receive little in exchange for their efforts. Materialistically, that might be true. However, my experiences today taught me that the satisfaction and pleasure found in supporting a cause near and dear to their hearts is worth all the money in the world.

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Handwritten Thank-Yous

This afternoon, I came home from work with a handwritten envelope addressed to me and I was just hoping that the letter inside was just the same.  To my pleasant surprise it was! And better yet, it was from my younger brother who has never in all 21 years of his life written me a letter by hand and actually sent it via snail mail. Letter writing truly is dying amongst younger generations as they (we) have turned to text messaging, emailing, and social networking to communicate with one another – a very sad fact. So it put a huge smile on my face that my brother took up the pen to thank me instead of sending the usual (effortless) text for a small gift I sent him a few weeks ago.

There is no better way to thank someone than writing a note. Something about the style in which each person writes evokes a much stronger emotional connection and personality to the physical words on the paper. I could just hear my brother’s voice, tone, and sense of humor come through in each sentence when I read his note out loud. I felt so appreciated and I knew he was truly thankful.

My parents ingrained the importance of writing thank yous for EVERYTHING from something as trivial as getting a ride home to as extravagant as a hefty check or simply a friend inviting  me over for dinner. They were adamant about writing a thank you and consequently I am so thankful that they instilled this habit in me (I should write them a ‘thank you’ for making me write thank yous!).

Being on the receiving end of a ‘thank you’ note makes me want to continue to give more, whether that be to a particular person, cause, organization, what have you. Knowing that there is a person behind the words makes it that much more meaningful.

I will note that I got a lovely handwritten note from a current D-SIP intern this month and it made me smile to see that letter writing may not yet be dead after all.

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Small Donations Go a Long Way

Many people, especially us youngins, are intimidated by the huge figures we see donated to projects like the multi-million dollar contributions made regularly by philanthropists like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, our very own Stephen M. Ross, and so forth.  Right now we simply don’t have the means and may never have the means to give on such a grand scale. It makes you wonder does my measly $100 or even $500 matter in the overall scheme of things…and the answer I’ve come to learn through listening to countless development professionals, donors, and foundation directors is that it ABSOLUTELY matters.  I remember my former D-SIP supervisor explaining the importance in fostering the culture of giving in young people because while they may only be able to commit small gifts now by encouraging and showing gratitude for every gift, big or small, you are potentially creating a lifetime giver whose gifts hopefully become larger as he/she becomes more financially stable over time.  He pointed out that nearly the entire annual fund for the Law School derived from smaller donations ($500-$2,500 range) which basically supported the operating costs of the school.  In hearing this, I was truly surprised by how effective a single small donations from many people can be in supporting such an incredible school as Michigan Law.

I started thinking about the role of smaller gifts while reading an article, Small Donations with Large Numbers, Online Help in NY Times Museums Section about how a rural small town Neversink Valley Area Museum needed to raise $11,000 for architectural renderings for their new building and decided to use a new method for raising money that depended on the help of small donations with large numbers (as the title of the article alludes to). So rather than relying on the traditional fundraising methods of the past (cold-calls, mailings, forging relationships with one or two major supporters) they raised $11,000 in 90 days with 69 different supporters through a website called, Kickstarter.com.

This was a huge accomplishment for this small museum given the fact that most of its donations came from people who had never even heard of the town, Cuddebackville, NY where the museum resides. The executive director, Seth Goldman attributes the successful pledge  to using a more innovative fund-raising process Kickstarter has developed known as “crowd funding”. Crowd funding is basically raising money through spreading the word to as many people as possible through social networking sites, email, sharing on blogs, and of course word of mouth.

The site is an incredible tool for artists, filmmakers, musicians, designers, writers, athletes, adventurers, illustrators, chefs, performers, illustrators, curators, all creative people to get support for his or her creative endeavors. Given the today’s economic climate, funding for the  arts has become more and more difficult to attain, which is why I highly encourage that you check out the vast array of unique and engaging projects Kickstarter.com is helping find support so that they can come into fruition. It also enables you as a donor to engage with the artist, community leader,or  filmmaker by being a part of his or her creative process.

The site basically serves as a fund-raising platform for creative persons to start a project and garner support for that project.  The project creator sets a specific fund-raising goal and time line to meet the goal. Kickstarter is unique because it requires projects to be financed on an all-or-nothing basis; so if a project can’t meet its goal within the set time line, it doesn’t receive any of the pledges. The competitive athlete in me finds this all or nothing methodology to be a very motivational because you can’t make excuses – you have no option other than making it happen.  It’s just like a game, you win or you loose. This method also encourages creative people to try different concepts or ideas without having to take a huge risk since if you don’t receive the support you need, you don’t have to carry through the idea or concept. As a former performing artist (well not quite “former”),  I find the process very comforting, yet also inspiring as if I ever decide to start a project I know I have to work hard to spread the word in order to gain support for my idea.

So for all those aspiring creative people out there that need funding,  consider starting a project through a site like Kickstarter.com or even just setting up a blog or facebook page where you can share the creative process you are looking forward to take on and through that sharing you will likely attract small donations from both friends and strangers alike.

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