Michael Kaiser Transcript 1
Michael Kaiser Transcript 1
Phil Gibby, Regional Director, Arts Council South West England:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I’m Phil Gibby; I’m the Regional Director for
the Arts Council in the South West of England. I’m very pleased to welcome you to
Watershed today for this stimulating session with Michael Kaiser.
Arts Council England has been very keen to adopt agendas around private-giving
and philanthropy which are going to become increasingly important, we feel, to
arts organisations over the next few years. We feel it is right to support
organisations as they make progress in those areas over the next four or five
years. At the end of last year we published Endowments in the Art, a report that
was commissioned by the Secretary of State, which outlined the role we intend to
play in moving some of those agendas forward. In the 2011 Budget the Chancellor
of the Exchequer announced a series of substantial reforms to encourage private
giving, including plans to simplify Gift Aid, to increase incentives to people to give
to charity through Inheritance Tax breaks and to consult on extending the
Acceptance in Lieu scheme from Inheritance Tax to other lifetime taxes. These
reforms were recommended in our Endowment in the Arts report and we hope that
the actions we take to invest in organisations, capacity and ability to incentivize
giving will be complementary to these actions going forward. In December we
announced that we would invest £50million over the next five years into an
£80million fund together with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, as well
as the Heritage Lottery Fund, for work to support philanthropy and private giving in
the cultural sector over the next five years. We plan over the next couple of
months to announce exactly how we’re going to use that money.
The announcement will include details of a matched funding scheme, a
programme to support capacity building within arts organisations and a related set
of advocacy activities. That investment process builds on a consultation process
that we’ve undertaken in a number of locations with the DCMS over the course of
the past few months.
We believe that progress in the area of individual giving will be effectively built
through action both to change the culture of giving in England as well as the
culture of asking by organisations, taking action to build up and incentivize both
the demand and the supply sides. Therefore, we see a role for ourselves in helping
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Michael Kaiser Transcript 1
raise the profile of arts and culture as charitable causes worthy of genuine
attention of philanthropists.
Now, without further ado, I’d like to introduce to you today’s speaker, someone
who has enormous success in his career, whether with Kansas City Ballet, the
Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, with the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and
indeed most recently with the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He says in his
excellent book, which I thoroughly commend to you, The Art of the Turnaround,
when he was young his father advised him to take a career in dentistry on the
grounds that it would be a good solid way to make a living; instead, he travelled
the more dangerous route into arts management and doesn’t seem to have done
too badly out of that.
Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Kaiser.
Michael Kaiser:
It’s great to be here today, don’t let the cameras bother you, we’re just going to
relax. This is going to be a really participatory session; it’s by no means a lecture.
It’s always interesting for me to come to England to talk about fundraising which I
do at least once a year, because the reason why we in America know how to do
fundraising is because you gave us the Puritans. The Puritans thought that music
and dance were evil and so we had a separation of art and state which continues
to this day in the United States, which meant that if we were going to have any art
in my country we were going to have to learn how to pay for it privately. So we feel
like we’re returning the favour by coming here to teach.
I do get a chance to teach all over the world; I’ve now taught people from 72
countries. One of the common feelings everywhere, no difference from country to
country, is that people find that fundraising is either challenging, difficult or
distasteful. I would love to hear from you why you find fundraising a challenge. So
please, anybody who wants to speak. Somebody.
Audience Member:
Because people don’t want to give very easily, it’s not easy to get them to give.
Michael Kaiser:
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You know I think that’s true, but I think we in the arts make a mistake a lot because
we think of fundraising as begging, as if we’re asking and if they’re nice they’ll give
to us. For me, fundraising is a real transaction. I’m giving someting in addition to
getting something. If we make it fun to give, and if we think and are a little bit more
vocal about what we’re giving back to the person who gives to us I think we’re
going to end up having an easier time. We’ll talk about some of those techniques
later this morning.
What else makes it challenging to do fundraising?
Audience Member:
I think particularly in this country people think that the arts are purely entertaining
and not the basis of our society, and I think it’s very difficult to explain to people
sometimes how important and necessary this is.
Michael Kaiser:
I think that’s right. I think that’s a marketing challenge that we have. I think that’s
our fault rather than their fault. I don’t think that we’ve done a great job of
explaining ourselves. Let’s compare us to a field that we’re always compared to
when it comes particularly to corporate giving. I think sports have done a much
better job making their case to the public than we have. That’s something we’re
going to have to think about as we go forward, and we’re going to talk about a
whole field of institutional marketing today that I think is crucial to making that
case. Because obviously I believe in my soul that that is true, otherwise I wouldn’t
be in the field.
Audience member:
I think we find generally that it’s actually a fantastic experience to propose, it’s
when you get that magic sparkle in your eyes, you really believe in your
organisation – that’s one of my favourite things to do. But the challenge, for me
certainly, is balancing the time that it takes to cultivate and to manage donors,
whether they’re prospects or they’re already giving, against meeting your targets.
Michael Kaiser:
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Absolutely. I think it’s a huge challenge – how do you balance the time it takes
versus the financial needs of the organisation? My approach to that, which we’ll
also talk about – I believe we don’t give ourselves enough time to cultivate those
we need to fund a particular project. I think we rush things a lot, and then we feel
very nervous and then we start questioning. If we gave ourselves more time we’d
have an easier time to do this in a way that is better for fundraising but also better
for art-making.
Audience Member:
I think in the UK people perceive that they are already supporting the arts through
their taxes.
Michael Kaiser:
Absolutely. Which makes it even more important to make it seem beneficial to give
and mean that you’re getting something back for giving, so it’s not just that you’re
giving again and not getting anything extra back. Absolutely.
Audience member:
As an extension of that point, we face an ideological challenge here, that so long
as the arts are publicly funded it can be for everyone, and that once you move into
a position of philanthropy you risk it being agenda-driven by people who can afford
it.
Michael Kaiser:
Absolutely. I think one of the crucial elements of being good at fundraising is
knowing how to set rules. What you allow the donor, what prerogatives you allow
the donor and which ones you don’t. That’s a very, very big challenge. I have to be
honest in saying when I was here at the Royal Opera House ten years ago raising
money, and everyone was saying “You have to watch out, those donors are going
to get too much authority, they’re going to pick the art etc.” I have to say that in my
career, which is now pretty long, I’ve never had any more pressure from anyone
more than the Arts Council England. I say that with all due respect, but it’s about
setting rules. There are things you allow a donor to do and there are things that
you don’t allow. I used to run this little ballet company in Kansas City called the
Kansas City Ballet, and if you’ve ever tried selling ballet in Kansas City which is
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essentially a cowboy town – selling anything in England’s a lot easier. After I left,
this local toy store came. They wanted to pay for and sponsor the annual
production of the Nutcracker which is done at Christmas time and toy stores sell
most of their toys at Christmas so it made sense for them. But what they wanted
was to put their mascot, which was a moose, in the last scene of the Nutcracker.
You don’t allow this. You have to be able to set rules. I think that as countries and
societies get more used to fundraising you’ll learn to set the rules a little more
stringently, but it’s a very big point absolutely.
What else makes fundraising challenging?
Audience member:
It’s that thing you just mentioned about selling ballet to people in Kansas City. The
perception is that when you’re outside of large cities or large areas that are
perceived as wealthy, and you’ve got a product that might be unusual or different,
it’s finding people, getting started, how do you prospect? How do you find the right
people in your area to make the ask? The research side of things, when you
haven’t got fundraisers and you’re a small organisation, perhaps with a small
profile. When you’re small, finding the right people to make that ask is challenging.
Michael Kaiser:
I promise I’ll talk about the institutional marketing we did with the Kansas City
Ballet because I do believe that especially small organisations need to do that in
order to draw people to them, because marketing does come before fundraising.
You have to have people who care about your work before you can ask for money.
Audience member:
I come from a second-generation immigrant community– I run an organisation that
has given voice to the British Asian contemporary experience. We find that our
communities give a lot of money, but they tend to give back to charitable things in
India or the countries that they come from. It’s very hard to convince people that
art is a charity.
Michael Kaiser:
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Michael Kaiser Transcript 1
Absolutely. I do a lot of work with organisations that serve specific communities,
and in the States individuals who provide the vast majority of the funding in the
States –and actually becoming the majority of the funding in England – in the
States it’s 60-65% of funding for the arts comes from individual givers. For
organisations that serve specific communities it’s 6%. This is a very big challenge
that I’ve been working on for the last twenty years because I do believe that we do
need to find ways – because I believe that there are so many more individual
donors and they’re so much more loyal; how do we start to change that in
organisations that do serve specific communities?
It’s very difficult; I’m not going to tell you that it’s not, but I am going to tell you that
there are ways to move the bar. I used to run a dance company called the Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater; it’s an African-American dance company. It’s faced
the exact same issues of not being... the African-American community in the
United States is incredibly generous, but they tend to be generous to church and
education, and not to arts. We had to move that, and I’ll talk about the way we did
that.
These are some of the challenges – let me talk about how I view fundraising, how I
think one has to do it to make it easier. First of all, in my experience, the one thing
that’s absolutely central and crucial to a successful fundraising organisation, but
also to a successful organisation, is exactly one thing – that is the quality and
excitement of the art. When I use the word ‘art’ I’m using that word very generally
because some of you are educational organisations, so it’s programming I’m
talking about – the quality of your programming.
I find that to do really good fundraising on a sustained basis you have to have
exciting, important, surprising, quality art. To me, this is the prerequisite. It’s good
news because that’s also what we need to fulfil the missions of our organisations.
It’s sad to me because I look around the world and I see so many organisations
and so many communities where art-making has lost some of its vitality, has lost
some of its dreaminess, where artists are so scared about money that they’re not
really making the art they want to make, and they’re not making art that’s big
enough, surprising enough or challenging enough. I see a lot of arts organisations
that do Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony one year and the Sixth Symphony the next
year, and the Third the next, and the Seventh Symphony the next year and they
think that is changing the art. They end up looking just a little bit routine and dull in
their communities. That makes it extremely hard to fundraise.
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Michael Kaiser Transcript 1
For me, creating important art is central to good fundraising. I have found that a lot
of arts organisations don’t give themselves enough time to create their art. Let me
ask you to raise your hands – for your organisations, how many of you plan your
artistic projects at least one year in advance? Great, that’s a very healthy number.
How many of you plan your art at least two years in advance? Good. How many of
you plan your art at least three years in advance? In four years in advance? Okay,
we’ve lost you there.
I’m going to make a case for planning art four or five years in advance, knowing
there are lots of caveats. Let me make my case, and then you can tell me why I’m
wrong. But let me start by making my case. I have a very simple chart that is sort
of my bible. I have the next five seasons, the ’11-‘12, ’12-’13... and underneath
each of these seasons I list all the projects that I think I want to do in those years. I
have typically more in the early years and fewer in the later years. I spend a lot of
time thinking about projects in the out years.
Let me tell you why. Number one, I find that if you only give yourself a year to plan
your project your years aren’t going to look that much different from each other
because you don’t have a lot of time to find the resources to do something bigger
or more special. If you only have six or eight months to find resources for a project
it’s not a lot of time to cultivate. Cultivation takes time.
This year my biggest project at the Kennedy Center was a festival of Indian
culture. We took five years to make this very large festival. We had the theatre, the
music and the dance of India; we had the poetry and the literature of India; we had
both contemporary and classical arts. We had the fabrics and the jewellery of
India. It was a very large look at the culture of India. It took us five years to put it
together. It took us a couple of years just to really investigate the field, figure out
who we wanted to bring, which of the artists were the best in their genre to build
relationships with the artists, to do the contracting – just to get the visas took a
year. To do the marketing and the fundraising. We took five years to make this
very large project. It was a big, surprising, exciting project that transformed my
Center for a month, and really surprised my audience. To me, that kind of project
is a goldmine when it comes to creating financial health as well. It starts from the
art, and what it is we’re trying to express. We gave ourselves the luxury of five
years.
Art can be more substantial, if you give yourself more time. But also you can raise
money more easily. The problem we have in the arts is if we’re only talking to a
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donor, mostly we do it for the next project we’re doing. We come up to the donor
and start talking – we tend to talk too much when we fundraise, and listen not
enough. But we talk and talk and talk about this project, why you need to support
it, how great it’s going to be. This donor, this prospect may have no interest in that
project. It just may not be of interest. Either they’ll give you a token gift or they’ll
give you nothing. Whereas what I do when I meet a donor is I ask them what their
interests are. It is not that I create a project to make them happy, I don’t do that.
But when I hear what your interests are I can pick from my menu of projects which
one I think is most likely to interest you. So maybe that one right there. Maybe
you’re really interested in Shakespeare and I’m planning a big Shakespeare
project. So rather than trying to force you to be interested in this project, I’m happy
to get you interested in this one. I find that you get much more gifts that way and
much bigger gifts. That’s where the big gifts come from. It doesn’t come from
forcing someone.
I really do believe in giving oneself the time to think through what it is you want to
do, to let your artists dream. Then, instead of saying “No, we can’t afford that
dream”, you say “You know what, we can afford that dream but we can’t afford it
today – let’s put it four years from now and give ourselves the time to find the
resources for it”, to me this helps also one last thing which is to reduce the tension
that often exists between the artistic side and the administrative or financial side.
In a lot of situations I see that the artists and the artistic director act like naughty
children – “I want this, I want this” – and the administrator acts like an angry parent
– “No, no, no we can’t afford it.” It’s a completely useless dynamic and it’s
completely wrongheaded, because the only job of the administrator is to make the
artist’s dreams come true. That’s it. That’s the job. When I’m an administrator it’s
to find the resources to allow the artists to do their work, not to say “This can
happen; this can’t happen.” What I do when I talk to an artist who says “I want to
do this, I want to do that, I want to do this” is start to array it over a number of
years on that list. Then go back to the artist and say “How does this pattern look to
you? If we do this this year, that next year, this the year after.” A lot of times they’ll
make changes, say “Can we do this first, this second?” But I always find they’re so
happy I listened to them, and that I really want to get them everything they want,
that we end up having a much more collegial relationship. That tension starts to
evaporate.
So for all these reasons I believe this is a smarter way to go. Now please tell me
all the reasons this is a bad thing.
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Audience Member:
Perhaps the patience of donors who want quick results for their cash injections.
Michael Kaiser:
We will always have projects we’re doing now. Once you get started on this you’re
always doing a full slate every year, and if there’s a donor who says “I need to do
something today” you find something from today’s list. But what I find is that there
are more donors who say “I’m not going to give unless this project really interests
me.” So, I’m trying to take care of that donor. Now for each donor once we get
started with this I’m constantly talking several years ahead with our major donors
so that there’s always something for them to fund in each year, but what they’re
funding is something that they first thought about two or three years before.
Audience Member:
I’m not saying this is a bad idea, but what I’m concerned about – our organisation
focuses on working with emerging practitioners, so often the artists we’re working
with are still in college in five years time. How does one develop this strategy for
planning while leaving the selection and the artistic decisions open?
Michael Kaiser:
That’s a great question. I’ve several answers to it. Number one, I do it in pencil. I’m
constantly moving things around. For lots of reasons – I have an idea; it’s going to
take a little longer. Or I have an idea I could actually move that one up. Or I have
an idea, and it’s a bad one, let’s take it out. I’m constantly moving things around.
Number two, I also leave some slots blank. I’m not saying every project has to be
planned five years out; I’m thinking about some of the bigger things we couldn’t do
unless we gave ourselves some time.
Then number three, a lot of times I’m thinking of themes rather than thinking of
specific works. Does that make sense? Or I’m thinking about an artist I’d like to
work with, but don’t know what the work’s going to be because it’s going to be a
new work. Last year I did three plays by the American playwright Terence McNally.
Two of them – Master Class and Lisbon Traviata – existed; those I could program.
I wanted him to write a new play. I had no idea what it was going to be, but I could
work with him early enough to get in his calendar. So when we did this project I
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had the new play. Does that make sense? I find that a lot of times arts
organisations say “I could never work with this artist, with this great playwright,
with this great singer or actor or director because they won’t care about me.” And
it’s true, if you say “Can you work with us in six months?” they’ll say “No, I’m busy.”
But if you ask to work with them in four years very often you can get on their
calendar, and they feel like they have the time to plan a project that would be
interesting to them. So I find that even for newer work that starting to think early
really can be helpful.
Audience member:
I just wanted to mention that in England we are very, very stuck in the rut of
looking for funding from charities, the Arts Council etc. All of those are very hatch,
match and dispatch. So we’ve got to completely change the way we approach
things here. But for us, starting afresh and shifting away from those organisations
– how do we gain trust and a belief from the corporate sponsors that we can even
deliver? We’ve got no track record for doing this basically.
Michael Kaiser:
Well there’s some in this country, maybe not as much as you would like. I’m not
saying you get rid of the old funders; I’m saying that if you want to build your
fundraising you’re going to have to amplify with new funders. What I’m concerned
about is always going back to the same 3-5 donors for every project. If you only
give yourself that six or eight months you’re almost doomed to always go back to
the same funder because you don’t have time to cultivate the new ones.
Let’s take the India festival I mentioned. We raised 80% of the money we had to
raise – and we had to raise a lot, it was a big project – we raised 80% from donors
who had never heard of us five years earlier, or if they had it was just very bland in
the far distance – they had never funded us. We had the time to research and
cultivate and then to solicit a whole new set of donors because we took the time to
do that, and we had the length of time to do all that work. So, I believe that if you’re
going to build your funding base away from Arts Council to major foundations and
one or two corporations and maybe a couple of individuals – if you’re going to
broaden the base, which I think is crucial, I absolutely believe that this way makes
it easier to do that because it gives you the time. Try it with one project – don’t try
to do it with everything. Just pick one project you would love to think about. Sit
back with a glass of wine in your living room in a nice cool place and just dream
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about a project you’d love to do, that you could never imagine doing in a one year
timeframe. But just start dreaming about a project and plan it for four years from
now. See if you can’t make that work. I think what you’ll do is be seduced into
finding that actually this makes it easier to raise money, and also we’re doing so
much planning as we go along and so much discussion as we go along that when
we get to the project we’re not running around crazy because things have been
thought through.
At the Kennedy Center we do 2,000 performances a year. If we didn’t spend a lot
of time thinking about them early we’d be going bonkers every day, because there
are five different performances a day.
We find this becomes a necessity. Not for every project, but for the bigger ones. It
really allows us to think things through and to make things be in place and to make
the money be in place.
Audience member:
Just following on from Carolyn’s question. I think it’s absolutely right; we’re going
to have a real culture change. My question is: the issue around how do the people
who work in development work with the programming teams?
Michael Kaiser:
Can you hold on with that for a minute? I promise I’ll get to that in ten minutes. If I
don’t do it well enough you can jump on me, okay? Thank you.
Audience member:
We’d find ourselves in a situation where we’ve got six months to find money to
enable us to have five years planned – some of us have got fragments for five
years plans in place, but aren’t going to be able to reach that unless we address
April next year. Have you got tips, please?
Michael Kaiser:
Yes, you have to work on two fronts at the same time. You have to work on the
current – because there’s no point planning five years out if you’re bankrupt in six
months – so you have to work on two fronts. What I’m trying to say is to get your
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organisation started on this longer term thinking, because what you’ll find is that as
you get closer to that longer term event you could start to change the way your
organisation functions. I have to do some short-term fundraising as well. But the
rate of my fundraising is now longer-term, and that makes it easier for my
organisation and it lets me sleep better. You’ve got to work short-term, long-term
but over time the rates are going to change. If you started today 95% of your time
is going to be in the short-term. Over the next three years you’ll move more and
more of it into the longer-term and that’ll make it easier to make money,
particularly from new donors.
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