Partnering with our Peers: A Report on the Peer Arts Service Organizations Partnership Project

Consortiums of organizations working together is a great idea - especially in the initial enthusiastic phases when funding is being secured, and the opportunity for projects are being dreamed up.

But in reality, it takes tremendous commitment on the part of the individuals and groups involved to forge long-lasting partnerships which actually make good on their promises. Energy to attend long meetings and work through a group process when there may be conflicting agendas, volunteering organizational resources to follow through on the activities discussed and desired, and most importantly, patiently making the time needed to build relationships of trust and consensual agreement among the organizational representatives - all are in increasingly short supply among overworked arts non-profit staff people.

In spite of the potential pitfalls, the National Association of Artists' Organizations (NAAO) has gone ahead - with funding from the List Foundation - with a far-reaching model plan to convene nine arts service groups to define the issues facing us all, and investigate and act upon the ways our various arts service organizations can sustain themselves as resources disappear. The goal is to find concrete ways we can work cooperatively to develop new methods of providing services for our collective member constituencies.

In the last six months, I've represented NAMAC at two national meetings that NAAO convened with the eight other arts service organization representatives. Those other participants have been: Tricia Snell, Alliance of Artists Communities; Adora Dupree, Alternate ROOTS; Ruby Lerner, Association of Independent Video & Filmmakers; Carla Roberts and Tex Wounded Face, Atlatl; Celia O'Donnell, Council of Literary Magazines & Presses; John Thorpe, Network of Cultural Centers of Color; Abel Lopez and Rudy Guglielmo, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture; and Carla Peterson, The Association of American Cultures.

These long weekend meetings, locked up for hours on end in small hotel rooms with nine headstrong leader-types, have been both challenging and rewarding. While ideals and visions were never lost, they were inevitably tempered by the realities of practical implementation and the seriousness of the issues our organizations were facing. In other words - the ideas are great but who's going to do the work when we all go home to face our own piles of projects and pressing demands on our time?

Using the Technology of Participation Methodology, facilitator Carla Roberts skillfully moved the group towards consensus on some long-term strategic plans for cooperative projects, while simultaneously encouraging us to find links of common interest and build trust among members.

As a group we crafted this mission statement:

"The purpose of this consortium of peer arts service organizations is to enhance our role as public advocates for artists, the creative process, and ours arts organizations. Toward this purpose we will coalesce and unify our grassroots arts movements and identify and cultivate new leadership to address the quality of life for cultural workers. We will use available tools for efficient communication of information and stabilize operational practices to create sustainable resources."

Acknowledging that our collective working relationships will only develop slowly and methodically over time, we agreed on several reasonable projects to be launched and accomplished in the next two years. These activities primarily focus on our service organizations, but the intention is that they will resonate with our member constituencies and benefit all in the long-term.

The projects we all agreed to were: to create a resource inventory of all participating consortia groups; to write a position paper on issues facing small and mid-size arts organizations to be distributed and publicized widely; to further develop model peer mentorship programs (the first is the 1997-98 NAAO/NAMAC/NALAC Technical Assistance Project); to formally archive our organizations' institutional files and chronicle our organizational histories; and to initiate a national internship program in order to develop our arts non-profits' leaders of the future.

Regardless of the disciplines each of our organizations serve, these meetings are proving that we all share common agendas and must - by necessity - find new ways to work together to strengthen our arts movements. Although our consortium projects are practical, we are finding that they are informed by a spirit of collective unity to willingly face the challenges we've identified together.

HELEN DE MICHIEL is the National Director of NAMAC.

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