Alice Devitt says why she thinks arts organisations administrative functions are deserving of better resources, attention and respect.
Its heart-warming to see some of our more self-believing colleagues travel the world in search of big thoughts that will help them become tomorrows cultural leaders. Visioning, leadership programmes, business mentors and the fifty successful habits of important chief executives are all being co-opted to help develop arts sector managerial capacity. This is a good thing. Its also very sexy and very saleable.
Paper pushers needed
I still have a feeling that we have missed a trick. The more I analyse organisational need and practice, the more I am convinced we are starting at the wrong end. We need to get our administrative house in order. If the Lorenzo di Medici of our era, Mrs Duffield, really wants to help the arts to evolve into a competent, effective and necessary part of British life she probably needs to rethink her scholarship programme. We may need a Clore Duffield programme to develop process-driven, anally retentive paper pushers.
Effective organisations never really highlight administrative systems and often take them for granted. Youll rarely attract senior managers to a Filing course. Your Arts & Business mentor, an inspirational corporate futurologist, or an alpha corporate competitor set up by reality TV to publicly humiliate aspirant millionaires, will all start from the same place. They assume youve got the admin and systems straight and that youre hoping for insight on the difficult stuff.
The value of admin
The arts have tumbled headlong into the difficult stuff, finding it comparatively easy. Vision, creativity and thinking big often come naturally to the sort of clever, creative people valued in the sector. Strategy has been widely acknowledged as a compelling need. It helps enormously that this cerebral and abstract way of thinking doesnt require enormous levels of practicality. Its so much easier to talk than do, especially in a rhetorical, theoretical fashion without consequence. In the arts the gap between the quality of day-to-day administrative practice and high-level vision is often dangerously wide. Income generation suffers as a result.
Administration is rarely valued or properly resourced in arts organisations. We dont recruit the right people for the job and there is often little career progression. I have been told by many administrators and personal assistants that they applied for the wrong job in the right organisation to get a foot in the door. This is not surprising. We are privileged to work in one of the most interesting and rewarding areas of work. For someone interested in the arts what could be better? Whats administrative aptitude between arts junkies? We also pay very little for our administration, and offer even less power and respect, so no career administrator would touch it. We rather despise the whole process as a tedious, bureaucratic bore of regrettable necessity. This stuff is not important. Its annoying its not done better, but its never prioritised. We only really notice when something goes badly wrong and we miss an important opportunity.
Failing systems
It is increasingly clear that poor administrative planning, resourcing and practice are undermining arts organisations ability to generate income effectively. Fundraising, marketing, facilities hire and contracting all require effective, trackable systems and administration. Good customer service is now a commercial imperative. Sales leads must be followed up. Evaluation is crucial to demonstrate value. Time and attention are devoted to ensuring the menu and flowers for a donor reception are perfect. But there is often a complete failure to address the need to hand-process every invitation to the event. The database is in disarray and donor details are carried in the heads of fundraisers with no particular aptitude for, or interest in, effective administration.
There is also a temptation to think that buying the latest ticketing or contact database will prove a panacea. I have heard many CEOs and artistic, development and marketing directors eulogise a particular system. Yet none of the individuals had ever used databases properly or understood the measures by which they could be evaluated. Somehow it had become the industry buzz that it was the answer to every prayer. It is, however, only the answer to the prayers of the sorts of organisations that have similar contexts to the organisation it was originally developed for. Any competent IT professional could tell you that. It is often easier to spend hundreds of thousands on a technological virility symbol than ask the people running the system what they need to work more effectively.
IT professionals and database administrators know that, before buying the latest piece of kit, it would be far more beneficial to invest in regular, data-cleaning. Data capture management that ensures uniform inputting of information could transform direct marketing and day-to-day fundraising. I think we will have to wait a very long time before that ever becomes a point of discussion at high level receptions. I dont expect to hear board members boast that 97% of their theatres records are spankingly accurate anytime soon.
Respect
Interestingly, Finance is often treated with rather more respect. It is mostly undertaken by staff who may be interested in the arts but are primarily recruited for their technical skills. The chief executive is often directly responsible and boards require regular business updates. Most organisations at least try to comply with Finances needs. Is this because there are scary consequences for those who fail to meet the requirements of funders and the Inland Revenue? What can we learn from that? Perhaps we need to grant greater respect, power and visibility to administrators.
I am completely committed to developing a long-term and strategic approach to arts management and fundraising. We need vision and leadership. At the same time most of my strategic, organisational audits have identified a compelling need to overhaul and strengthen administrative systems. Until administration is identified as a high-level organisational priority and offered the necessary resources, attention and respect, we will continue to offer over-arching cultural responses to societys challenges and still go bust because we didnt get it together to follow up funding leads. I dont think our arts establishment really wants that.
Alice Devitt runs Mongoose Arts Marketing.
t: 07766 635552;
e: mongoosearts@yahoo.co.uk