Eugene Dancers Against Cancer!
Here is another strong example of how dance is a powerful tool in a dancers greatest struggles. Hopefully it will help encourage you to join my team in the Eugene Komen Race for the Cure 10/10/10. You don’t have to be a dancer, or even walk. Just help us raise as much funds as possible to help the Komen Foundation in their quest for a cure for breast cancer in our lifetime. Thank you!
http://race.komenoregon.org/site/TR/Race/EugeneRacefortheCure/1141881737?px=1976886&pg=personal&fr_id=1140
“…and curtain”
The term is coming to an end, and many of us are absorbed in our final research paper. As I write mine about DanceAbility and other community dance programs’ contributions to bridging social capital, and creating cohesion in diverse communities, I’m pleased with my educational growth. It’s great to get a better understanding of how the work I’m doing fits into the greater context of the nonprofit sector at large.
I loved having the benefit of learning from our graduate teaching fellow, Sarah Collins, who happens to be a specialist in my area of arts and education…how convenient for me. Our professor, Bob Choquette gave us good overviews of the history of the nonprofit sector from its roots, such as Andrew Carnegie’s philosophy of helping people help themselves, and outlining who’s got the money and what they are doing with it. The world of private and community foundations was interesting to me (especially since that is probably where I’ll be getting some of the resources for my DanceAbility projects). It is interesting to think about things like, we know Bill Gates has most of the money and he is giving the most, too, but families like Sam Walton of Wal-Mart don’t seem to be sharing so much. Through the blogs that Sarah so persistently nurtured us to create, and class discussions, I found our well-informed students to be perhaps the most valuable resource of the class. The work they are doing already in the nonprofit sector, and the research they have shared has inspired me keep blogging and tapping into networks like this. Our guest speakers brought experiences from the real world to our classroom and very patiently addressed all of our pressing questions the best they could.
I feel better prepared to represent DanceAbility International in communications with other nonprofits, funders and policy makers, and to plan my projects and workshops in ways that may help fill the gaps that are missing in the nonprofit arts sector at large. I plan to use portions of my research in grant applications and reports (and will share portions with you here if you check back). I’m grateful to Bab and Sarah for their advice and assistance in my process of getting the Individual Artist Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission last fall which helped me attend the DanceAbility Teacher Training in Uruguay, and I’m looking forward to hearing the result of my application for a Community Arts Grant from Lane Arts Council soon for my workshop/performance project with DanceAbility in the fall. Please stay in touch here and at www.danceability.com for more information. I would love to end up with some dance students from our class! I also believe my education from the PPPM department helped me write an effective application that was successful in winning me the Osher Re-entry Scholarship for returning students of UO, which will help enormously to fund my final year here next year.
Next Wednesday I will be attending a meeting in representation of DanceAbility, to discuss arts services in Eugene with the Arts & Business Alliance of Eugene (ABAE) and the Oregon Arts Commission, who has retained Bill Flood, a community cultural development consultant. In the words of Lane Arts Council’s Douglas Beauchamp in an email (6/2/2010),
“The ABAE was spawned two years ago by the City and the Chamber of Commerce as a response to one of five high priority items identified from “CPR Report” (Cultural Policy Review) adopted by the City Council in 2007 after a year-long study by Wolf-Brown. This was supported by a budgeted $250,000 for arts planning approved by Eugene City Council in 2005.
There is now an interest in how arts services may best be supported in Eugene. This responsibility of an “Alliance” was described in detail (pp 23-25) of the June 2007 CPR report. The City staff stated the ABAE had been formed to address those purposes.
Meanwhile, though the ABAE has a work-plan and received, in November 2009, at $50,000 grant from the Oregon Community Foundation, it now says it “does not envision fulfilling the role of a traditional arts service agency,” and seeks to “identify ways to develop and sustain such a local arts service organization.” Lane Arts Council looks forward to helping this move forward…At time when the Oregon Arts Commission, the City of Eugene and 4J School District are facing further budget cuts for the next fiscal year, it is most welcome that leaders, such as the ABAE, continue to advocate for fundamental support for services for artists and arts organizations.”
I will report!
Best wishes to all my classmates, Bob and Sarah. See some of you in Strategic Planning in the fall. It has been a very fulfilling, inclusive dance, where we found our common ground and through it every member of our diverse group was able to contribute their gifts to the whole community. Well done.
Until next blogpost, Celeste
Research on Social Capital
I have come to at least a starting point for my final research paper topic. After blogging about the benefits of diversity in DanceAbility projects, and the need for cohesive communities in today’s American society, and my experience of entering the dance nonprofit world, I have found some fascinating sources that study these topics. I plan to focus my research on the challenges in and benefits of arts organizations like DanceAbility International in restoring cohesiveness in diverse communities and increasing social capital.
I’ll look into the publications of Robert D. Putnam including “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” (Simon and Schuster 2000) and “Better Together: Restoring the American Community.” Putnam describes the decrease of community cohesion and states that in the long run diversity is a benefit, but in the short term, diverse communities tend to be less cohesive, unless they create their own sense of “we.” Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Dancing in the Streets: A history of Collective Joy” (2007) is about the Christian church’s suppression of public festivals and rituals.
Love Endures
I am distracted and disturbed this past week because our class has suffered a great loss. We received the news last week when our professor made the announcement that class was canceled and our classmate, Susanna Gabay had passed away. I did not know her, and know no details of the circumstances, but I am struck by the news. I, as most of us, have lost dear friends at unexpected and unfair times, and I know this loss has deeply affected many people’s lives. I have read her blog posts, and they are beautiful and insightful. I’m very inspired to continue discussing some of the important points she started to share with us.
Much of Susanna’s posts discussed the importance of love, compassion and community in nonprofits and in life. She was recently apparently profoundly affected by what she learned at a Heart of Now workshop in Eugene and an event called, ““Working Across Diverse Communities Within an Organization.” At both events, speakers and facilitators discussed the importance of compassion and “soft skills” in business and honesty and love in our interactions with others. In fact, this also related closely with Susanna’s previous post about the importance of close-knit communities in our society and the lack of them contributing to problems in the social services sector. She said exactly what I was thinking. She put it so well with this statement, “many of us are directly and individually dependent on things that are not directly and individually dependent on us. I feel that that creates a very different mentality than when people depend directly on each other.” It’s so easy today to get information and answers to questions from our little hand-held electronic devices, and things we need from big national chain stores where you don’t even have to give your money to a person, we have lost touch with the people who live next door and our relatives who have scattered across the country. Before there was welfare, social security and financial bail outs, there were these things called neighbors, friends and family.
Those personal connections are also very important in business, especially nonprofits. “Soft skills” are those little things people tack on at the bottom of their resume’s, like, “self-starter, creativity, good communication skills.” We often think of them as secondary in importance to technical skills and work experience, but I feel that they are of equal importance, and a balance of both types of skills is key. In an article on www.guidestar.org from an organization called Commongood Careers called, “Transferable Skills Open New Talent Pools to Nonprofits,” soft skills are supported by stating that, “in a recent inquiry conducted by Commongood Careers, a group of 20 nonprofit hiring managers ranked cultural fit and personality traits above more traditional hiring considerations of experience, skills, and education.” One of the great things about have a strong set of soft skills is that they are transferable to many different job positions. In nonprofit organizations that can be especially important since many organizations require one person to wear so many different hats.
Another interesting article in Bloomberg Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/feb2010/ca20100211_143324.htm) is called, “Women Leaders:The Hard Truth about Soft Skills.” The article quotes Mary Fontaine from the Hay Group and her description of the results of a study of successful business women’s management styles. “The outstanding women,” Fontaine notes, “used a better blend of what we think of as traditional masculine styles—being directive, authoritative, and leading by example and as well as feminine ones. They also knew when to be more nurturing, inclusive, and collaborative…Fontaine says. “If you’re going to be successful, you have to know how to influence, collaborate, and subtly gain the trust of others—skills women may inherently be better at than men.”
The Heart of Now organization in Eugene includes in their workshop offerings a course on business skills such as, “communication, proactivity, and awareness.” (www.heartofnow.org) They also focus on, “appreciation, power structures, effective meetings, dealing with difficult relationships, self-care and preventing burnout, and meeting basic human needs at work, depending on the needs of your business.” As a wife, mother, student, teacher, employee and ALMOST middle aged woman, I have to agree that these are essentially feminine characteristics, since women in all times and places in the world have had major rolls in performing and maintaining all those aspects in their families, workplaces and societies. Of course, men absolutely have those qualities, too. I am not limiting it to women only. I am only once again expressing the need for a balance of elements in organizations and their leadership positions of hard and soft, firmness and flexibility, masculine and feminine qualities, but above all else, trustworthiness and commitment to accountability, for your own actions, and to those who depend on you. It may be something Susanna was searching for, and something we can all learn from her.
Oregon Daily Emerald – Reclaiming a zest for life through dance
Oregon Daily Emerald – Reclaiming a zest for life through dance.
Emery Blackwell and Celeste Peterson
ART WITHOUT BORDERS
William S. Burroughs said, “Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.”
Art is present in all aspects of life. Some would say life is art, but in the United States it is separated into its own category like an extra-curricular activity or specialty rather than a natural behavior of humanity. That is why the arts and culture category of the nonprofit sector is so difficult to define and measure, and why I am choosing to discuss the three categories of arts and culture, advocacy and international nonprofits in one entry, because the organization I am affiliated with and discussing behaves in ways that are included in all three.
Joint Forces Dance Company, as I have mentioned, is a Eugene based nonprofit dance organization focused on the art of contact improvisation, with a program called DanceAbility International which uses dance and elements of contact improvisation to provide the common ground for diverse groups of people to creatively express themselves. Contact improvisation is a dance form that utilizes touch and weight-bearing as a means of establishing communication and forming relationships between dancers. It is very effective when dancing with people who cannot speak, or see or perhaps move or support their own body through space. Dance, which is art, is a universal language for all people, and its benefits cannot be fully utilized by limiting it to people with one type of body. DanceAbility’s purpose is to create, teach and perform dance. It is not intended to be therapy, advocacy, spiritually enlightenment, or political reformation. The effects of the work of DanceAbility on those involved do spread out into categories other than simply arts and culture, though, including advocacy and international understanding.
Joint Forces principal dancer and board chairperson Emery Blackwell has been an active and effective advocate for people with disabilities for many years. The following is quoted from his biography on www.danceability.com. “Emery is a dancer, choreographer, musician, composer, and teacher. He has cerebral palsy, and has been involved in promoting civil and human rights for many years. He was one of the first children with cerebral palsy to be mainstreamed into the Oregon public school system. He has been a member and president of Oregonians for Independent Living, a group that was instrumental in the passage of a bill guaranteeing every Oregonian with a disability the right to live in the community instead of in a nursing home or other institutionalized setting. Emery has worked with Senior and Disabled Services, the Department of Human Resources, Lane Council of Government’s Senior Services Advisory Board and the Oregon Research Institute. Emery has studied under Alito Alessi and has been dancing with him since 1989, and says of his performance work, “I have reached more people through dance than I ever did through lobbying at the legislature.” He told me that when he lobbies he talks and talks and it is hard to get his idea across, but when people watch him dance they can more easily relax and and relate to what he is trying to say. Yeah, a picture is worth a thousand words (sorry for the old cliche). Using the language of movement he is able to communicate better than with words. Watching able bodied dancers and dancers with disabilities move together on the same stage, support each other, influence and encourage each other, and say the same things with different movement vocabularies, can certainly expand an audience member’s understanding of other people’s experiences and encourage him or her to pass that greater understanding on to others and effect public policy and societal behavior in general. R.D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community p.411 explains, “art is especially useful in transcending conventional social barriers.”
Arts and culture nonprofits make up a small amount of the nonprofit sector and receive a relatively small amount of philanthropic giving, but I think it’s important to note that that should not influence peoples opinion of the importance of art in general. Art is an important element of many other nonprofit categories. It aids in education and improves people’s physical and emotional health. In for-profit businesses art is extremely valuable in advertising and marketing products, and art itself is successfully marketed and sold. In government, art improves city design and records historical events, and communicates strong messages between officials and constituents, or between foreign nations.
For DanceAbility International, the last comment is particularly evident. In the teacher certification course I participated in last February in Montevideo, Uruguay, 30 people from eight different countries worked together for a month, learning and practicing ways to use dance as a common ground for creative expression and communication between people who have vastly different physical and mental abilities and speak different languages as well. We all came from different cultural backgrounds, family structures, geographical areas, had differing opinions and religious and political views, different economic situations, but we were productive together. The basis of the teaching method we studied is in finding the common denominator in any group of people, and growing an educational and creative experience from our common language. We awaken our intuition to sense what is happening in our bodies and in the space, use our physical vocabularies to form relationships with each other using elements of space, time and design. We acknowledge our varying senses of time and space. What is fast for one person may be slow to another, but if we are alert to each others’ experiences we can effectively work with those differences in fun, interesting or even profound ways. It is a powerful example of how art transcends many kinds of barriers, and improves all our lives no matter who we are, where we live or what we can do.
Cancer Research: Health and Education
Our class has been approaching the sectors of Healthcare and Education. They are two of the largest sectors of the nonprofit world, and certainly some of the most necessary. What I want to discuss here sort of combines the two; Cancer Research. Speaking of what I believe in, it’s hard not to discuss this topic, since the most important drug in my breast cancer treatment was only released by the FDA ten years before my diagnosis, and had a long, rocky journey to acceptance because of some of the weaknesses in the cancer research realm.
Our textbook (Nonprofit Nation by Michael O’Neill) has very little mention of research organizations, but does include the fact that “research funding is chronically deficient”. This fact was confirmed to me at the American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting in 2009, which I attended as an advocate for the HER2 support group, at www.her2support.org. At a forum called “Impact of the New Administration’s Priorities on Cancer Research” William S Dalton, the current President and CEO of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, addressed the concerns of cancer research organizations following Obama’s election. The new administration did increase funding for cancer research, but what the Dalton was stressing was the importance of “sustainable funding” for research. Without funding stability, clinical trials may be cut short before the new treatment reaches FDA approval. Increased funding one year may help start new trials, but those trials take years to complete. Dalton also stated that basic biomedical research was not sufficiently supported in the health reform equation. He added that “comparative effectiveness research” is essential for determining the benefits and risks of interventions, which allows us to make better medical decisions and effectively reduce unneccessary medical spending. Good point!
There is a wonderful video clip on this subject called, “It’s Our Time” at www.aacr.org or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pobQRfz0No&feature=player_embedded#!. In it you will see facts such as, “The first monoclonal antibody for cancer treatment was approved by the FDA in 1997. Today there are 10.” The second monoclonal antibody approved by the FDA was called Herceptin, and it saved my life. In the book, HER2 by Robert Bazell you can read the fascinating story of the development of this exciting new drug. The story was also made into a Lifetime movie starring Harry Connick, Jr. as Dr. Dennis Slamon, the researcher who believe in Herceptin and fought relentlessly to get it into clinical trials and to the patients who needed it. The cancer causing oncogene that Herceptin targets (HER2/neu) and often defeats was discovered in 1979, but was ignored until it was rediscovered in 1984 when the protein it creates was also discovered. Dr. Slamon eventually began researching it when he discovered its link to breast cancer. In 1988, he had created the antibody for HER2, but it still took another 10 years to complete testing, which was almost cut off altogether because the drug company was so resistant to testing something so new that might not work. Now we know it works, and thanks to the dedication of researchers like Slamon we are discovering more new treatments at a fast rate.
So the nonprofit dilemma I am not prepared to answer, but put here as a question for all, is how do we push for funding of new experimental cancer treatments that pharmaceutical companies just won’t invest in. There are numerous natural sources of cancer treating agents, like red grapes, grapefruit and green tea, but since drug companies don’t supply it, they won’t investigate it. Often, naturopathic physicians notice that many herbal supplements are made illegal to sell around the same time that synthetic versions are made available by drug companies with prescriptions…hmm. I often wonder if research for natural remedies can be funded by agricultural industries who may be able to profit from it…to be continued. The fact is everyone profits from any medical advances we can make, and we can’t afford to put off making those discoveries any longer. It is our time.
What do you believe in?
In the dance of nonprofits and charitable giving, the religion category would be the prima ballerina. Like a principle performer, religious organizations are awarded many privileges and benefits others are not, and they are enormously successful at attracting attention, “fans” and gifts. I generally avoid discussing religion with others, because you never know who you’ll offend, but it’s difficult to discuss the nonprofit sector without the subject, so I’ll do my best to discuss it objectively without my personal opinions about religion itself, but with a couple personal theories about its relationship to charitable contributing and the third sector.
Religion is in many ways the largest category in the nonprofit sector, the wealthiest and survives almost exclusively on donations. It’s difficult to measure these things because religion is the only category that, because of separation of church and state, doesn’t have to register or report to the IRS, but that doesn’t stop the bean counters from trying. I don’t prefer to dwell on numbers, but I can tell you from my reading that the number of religious organizations and the amount of donations they receive are enormously higher than the other categories of nonprofits. In regard to percentage of charitable giving in the U.S. (according to the American Association of Fundraising Counsel) religion is way above the rest, and at the bottom of the scale we find arts, culture and humanities, environment and animals, international and foreign affairs.
It seems clear from that list where most Americans’ priorities stand. At first that chart made me feel a bit sorry for those important categories at the bottom, and I admit I still do, but upon further consideration and reading Nonprofit Nation: A New Look at the Third America by Michael O’Neill, I realized that much of those donations to religious organizations are directed into programs for human services, health programs, international programs, education, arts and culture and environmental activity.
Since government agencies and most large foundations generally avoid promoting a religious affiliation or theology in order to keep church and state separate or attract diverse contributors, giving to a religious organization may be in my opinion as popular as it is because people can feel comfortable doing it because their chosen religion has the same values and priorities they do and they assume the organization will spend their money in ways they will approve of. In Nonprofit Nation, O’Neill writes about some conflicts that have arose when organizations take moral stands. When the Boy Scouts fought for their right to exclude gay men from scoutmaster positions, they lost funding from they United Way and other sources. The Salvation Army lost government support in San Francisco because of their refusal to serve the gay community. In the 90′s the United Way attracted more beneficiaries by allowing donors to have options regarding how their donations would be distributed, but it also resulted in less funding for some large, longtime recipients who depended on the funding.
I feel this subject stresses the importance of showing our support to organizations we care about and need in our own communities. Some may have a very hard time acquiring funding because their specific activities, staff, members or clients may be in a minority and not supported by the major funding sources large, more ambiguous organizations benefit from. Many arts organizations, for example, push many boundaries and challenge beliefs with their art. What would life be like if we had no modern art galleries or venues for local aspiring talent. There are so many ways to show support besides financial contributions. Nonprofits need volunteer effort and supplies and facilities. They need outreach support and event attendance. There are a lot of big stars in the nonprofit sector that do very important things, but that can’t overshadow the importance of the supporting cast who also deserves our applause. They are the grass roots for creating the future we strive for.
Intro to Nonprofit Sector:Put your money where your heart is.
First, I will tell you where I’m coming from. My name is Celeste Peterson and I am 33 years old. I have a husband and a six year old son. I grew up with the dream of being a dancer. In 2001 I was a senior dance major at the U of O but left school to pursue my sewing and costume design work, start my family, and so on. In August of 2008 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, stage III. After a year of rigorous and traumatic treatments I was apparently disease free and remain so to this day. The process was a challenge, but also an opportunity for a new beginning. I decided in order to be happy and healthy I had to go back to dancing, and the director of DanceAbility International provided me with the perfect avenue to bring me back.
Which brings us to today. I have returned to the University of Oregon to complete my Bachelor of Arts in Dance and add to it a minor in Nonprofit Administration. I spent the month of February in Montevideo, Uruguay in an intensive teacher certification course with DanceAbility, thanks to an Artist Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission. I am a part time production assistant for DanceAbility as well as a teacher, and will be teaching my first workshop on May 15th at the Hilyard Community Center in Eugene, OR from 10:00 to 3:00. I plan to teach often in the Eugene area and soon across the United States and abroad.
So I’m taking my first steps into the Nonprofit Dance world and sharing my view of it with you. From what I can tell nonprofit organizations, especially in the arts, are a constant dance between the heart, or the mission, and the bottom line. One of the reasons nonprofits exist is to provide services that may not be particularly profitable, therefore they are not being provided by commercial businesses, so how do you make a living doing it? That’s where the IRS comes in. Since nonprofits don’t pay taxes and peoples donations to them are tax deductible, many arts organizations can thrive on donations and grants. Still, much of their operations usually must be performed by volunteer efforts, which is where the heart plays its part! The endearing quality of a nonprofit that attracts the necessary donations and volunteers is its MISSION. Arts and culture organizations are generally small compared to the giants of the religious and healthcare sectors, but they can exist and be successful if they have a strong mission that some portion of the population feels strongly about. It reaches their hearts.
DanceAbility International’s mission
“is to encourage the evolution of mixed-abilities dance by cultivating a common ground for creative expression for all people. The mission is accomplished through performance, educational programs, teacher training and workshops. The work of DanceAbility International helps decrease prejudice and misconceptions about diversity in the field of dance, and by extension in society.”
They serve people who are not necessarily welcomed into other dance programs. People who never imagined themselves as dancers often discover a whole new world they never thought was possible when they experience a DanceAbility class.
I’ve found that sometimes the smallest organizations (in regard to their revenue or staff size) are the most important, because they are serving a minority population that may be lost without them. Another organization I am involved with is HER2support.org. They have an online resource and support group forum for people who have been affected by breast cancer that has tested positive for the HER2 gene which causes the cancer to spread more aggressively. Men and women like me who have had to experience this disease are forced to make very serious decisions about the treatment and their lives very quickly with very little knowledge about what they are doing and very few people around them who understand. Crisis is a common instigator of nonprofit mutual benefit organizations.
Arts and culture and humanitarian nonprofits quite often help to fill the gaps in our large, busy society by creating opportunities for people to experience a sense of community, cooperation and support that is so often lacking elsewhere. They can be networks that help to protect individuals from failure or trauma by giving them a safety net, or a supportive boost through helpless moments. They can offer a strong voice to the masses or government for people who can’t be heard by themselves. I believe, they help our society evolve. The nonprofit sector has a flexibility that the state and commerce sectors aren’t allowed, therefore there are things that can be accomplished in this “third sector” you just can’t find anywhere else.
I hope you’ll continue with me in this exploration as I dig deeper into what some of those possibilities are!
Welcome!
Thanks for stopping by. This is Nonprofitango, where I share with you my journey into the non-profit dance business. It is also an assignment for my Intro to the Nonprofit Sector class at the University of Oregon. Hope it is useful to you in some way. Please let me know what you have to say about it. I’m here to learn.
Thanks, Celeste
