Our Community Responds: How Funders Can Support Arts Education Despite COVID-19

We’ve all been moving extremely quickly to be able to rapidly address the global COVID-19 pandemic. Our major concern is the global ecosystem of artists, educators, and community leaders who support the next generation of creatives who are poised to solve our world’s greatest challenges.

On March 13, a number of organizations from across the arts education field, hosted a community conversation of teaching artists and arts education stakeholders, which revealed an immediate need to help inform arts education funders to ensure the vitality of arts education programs and practitioners in communities around the world.

Immediately following, a small research team was contacted to begin working on the design of a survey instrument to elicit a fast response set of opinions from the field to inform philanthropic stakeholder and grantmakers.

We started off by conducting a brief literature review of recent publications produced by the philanthropic, arts and culture, and education and youth development sectors to synthesize what actions and tools have been created for grantmakers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We wrote this up into a blog and published the findings. Next we formed a survey tool – which is discussed more later on in this blog – and sent it out to our network of stakeholders.

Four days later, we had data – and BOOM, here we are with a new report.  Check out what we learned below and forward this blog (and report) to your favorite philanthropic friends!

The Big Takeaways

 You are welcome to download the report here and read all 40+ pages, or you can get straight to the findings below. There was lots of data, but two overarching ideas emerged. Here they are:

  1. Funders should think about shifting available funding to benefit the most financially vulnerable members of the arts education community: teaching artists, independent contractors, and freelance educators and artists by providing direct-to-individual, one-time grants, and broadening the structures and criteria for grants which support – financially and through wraparound services – their ability to fill their unique role in the ecosystem. Other “blue sky” ideas included the formation of a national teaching artists (in the US) union or WPA-style intervention.

  2. Funders should pivot to address immediate needs of individuals and organizations, including increased funding; adapting services, pedagogy, and educational techniques for digital learning; managing changing finances and budgeting; and developing and implementing organizational continuity plans.

Over 271 respondents supplied their opinions to three major questions to help us derive the above information. The first two questions, asked them to tank pre-determined (form the literature review) concepts in order of priority.

When asked to rank the following funding opportunities or changes which would be most beneficial to your work or organization, the following items emerged as top priority for respondents

  1. Short-term, direct-to-individual emergency funds for teaching artists/independent contractors

  2. Rapid response funds to organizations

  3. Conversion of program grants to general operating support

When asked to rank the following services which would benefit their work or organization, the following “immediate need” priorities emerged:

  1. Adapting services, pedagogy, and educational techniques for digital learning

  2. Managing changing finances and budgeting

  3. Developing and implementing organizational continuity plans

Lastly, respondents were encouraged to dream big and propose ideas which might address the needs previously articulated.  A vast number of responses were garnered, with several big themes consistently being mentioned, including:

  • Immediate financial relief for teaching artist, independent contractors, and freelance educators and artists;

  • The unionization of teaching artists in the United States; and

  • Support for the distribution of technology, compilation of resources, and professional development in relation to distance or digital learning.

 

Our Process

Now that you know the data, let me tell you a bit about our process to find it.

After completing a brief literature review and survey of similar initiatives in the philanthropic, arts/culture, education/youth development sectors, the survey instrument was developed and opened for four days starting on Wednesday, March 18, 2020. It closed at 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, March 21, 2020 receiving 271 unique and validated responses. 

The survey tool was divided into four distinct sections: 1.) contact information of the survey completer, 2.) the preferences of changes to funding offered in the arts education field, 3.) the preferences of changes to the supports offered by funders to the arts education field, and 4.) an open-ended response to capture miscellaneous ideas from the field.

The tool was distributed to 11,239 from a database of self-identified members of the global arts education sector and circulated broadly. In total, it was completed by about 3% of the target population. 

Data Synthesis by Questions

Now, if you are a ‘data-nerd’ you may want to read the full report, or spend some time in the below section, where we will share a bit more information, question-by-question, which helped us reach the conclusions outlined above.

Here goes….

Question #1: When prompted, “Please rank the following funding opportunities or changes which would be most beneficial to your work or organization” respondents (n=271) ranked each of the below responses indicating their 1-5 priority, generating 1,350+ data points.

Through our analysis of the data, we have concluded that respondents' priorities are as follows:

  1. Short-term, direct-to-individual emergency funds for teaching artists/independent contractors

  2. Rapid response funds to organizations

  3. Conversion of program grants to general operating support

  4. Pooled funding with other donors

  5. Extension (or elimination) of deadlines for grant reporting and applications

Additionally, respondents were provided with the opportunity to provide additional priorities (n=132) that were not in the list, which included several major themes, including: honoring & expanding commitments; broadening criteria to include teaching artists/freelancers/independent contractors; one time grants for the following purposes; extending existing support; long-term technological shifts; and long-term structural shifts. 

 

Question #2: When prompted, “Please rank the following services, which would benefit your work or organization” respondents (n=271) ranked each of the below responses indicating their 1-5 priority, generating approximately 1,900 data points.

Through our analysis of the data, we have concluded that respondents' priorities are as follows:

  1. Adapting services, pedagogy, and educational techniques for digital learning

  2. Managing changing finances and budgeting

  3. Developing and implementing organizational continuity plans

  4. Messaging to constituents

  5. Navigating HR, labor, or employment law/policies

  6. Transitioning to remote work for administrative staff

  7. Addressing racism and bias in communities and services

It should be noted, however, that items marked “Least Important” above, are not prioritized at the moment, due to their existence in the current workplans of the organization (e.g addressing racism and bias in communities and service). It’s not that they are not important, but that they are already in motion and not a ‘new’ priority due to COVID-19.

Additionally, respondents were provided with the opportunity to provide additional priorities that were not in the list (n=79), which included several major themes, including: advice and consultation; long-term planning; fundraising and engagement; and connections to each other. 

Question #3: Respondents generation a long list of ideas (n=255) in response to the prompt:

Please identify any new opportunities or innovations, which should be supported through funding, to address issues on a field-wide level for teaching artists or within the arts education field. (this is the time for big, wild, out-of-the-box ideas!)

Below, please find a distillation of themes generated: 

  • A centralized immediate relief fund for teaching artists, independent contractors, and freelance educators and artists (n=42)

    • Emergency micro-grants

    • WPA-style employment to contribute to several of the below ideas

  • Teaching Artist Union in the United States to support TAs and their pay equity (n=54)

  • Healthcare for teaching artists/independent contractors/freelance educators and artists not tied to employment (n=38)

  • Online platform for artists and educators to create shareable content with fair compensation (n=21)

  • Additional clauses in contracts (beyond “Act of God”) to allow for compensation during a crisis, enable online creation/participation, avoid streaming fees (for licensed artistic works) (n=13)

  • Democratization of technology (laptops/tablets) and reliable internet for purposes of digital/distance learning for schools, households, and community organizations/teaching artists (n=44)

  • Additional professional development for educators, artists, and organizations on how to enable digital and distance learning as part of their practice (with technical support from service organizations and suppliers) (n=29)

 

Question #4 Additionally, the final question of the survey allowed for respondents to provide any additional comments that were not already covered by the previous three questions. With a large array of responses (n=211), one overarching theme was covered by 79% of respondents: Money and Financial Relief.

Conclusion

This type of fast response survey tool enables the field to quickly provide timely and relevant opinions forward to key stakeholders willing to hear them. In the case of this survey, the finding reveals some rather obvious immediate needs of organizations and individuals, as well as highlights long-standing systemic issues for the field.

The findings should underscore the two-pronged approach for funders as they evaluate their strategies in the short-, medium-, and long-term.

We, at Creative Generation, look forward to supporting funders, organizations, and practitioners in our newly developing work in this space and congratulate those first, early-movers addressing the need.

Please be sure to download the full report here and pass it on to those who need to see it.