Elevate Your Pitch – Event Recap

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Creatives gathered at Pro Arts on Tuesday Oct 21st for the Elevate Your Pitch Workshop. The goal of the workshop was for participants to practice and improve upon their pitches, whether that meant a solo artist applying for gallery representation or a theater start-up organization pitching to investors.
 

 
Participants included, independent visual artists, performers, Theater Interns, and others working in the arts; as they entered the gallery they were introduced to the evening with a visual name game. Everyone was asked to illustrate the meaning/story of their name and to present that story to the group. The ulterior motive to this name game, later disclosed by the facilitators, was to get us all engaged in telling a brief story, one that we knew off the tops of our heads and felt deep passion or connection to.
 
This exercise led to a brief presentation on broader ways to look at our own pitches. Workshop co-facilitator Ebony McKinney, Independent Consultant and Fellowship Director of Emerging Arts Professionals of the SF Bay Area, touched on the nuanced differences between the business/venture capital and cultural/art uses of The Pitch. Particularly she referenced Alan Brown’s “Architecture of Value”  diagram as a compelling resource that dissect the levels of impact arts and cultural workers have on those around them. Ebony also introduced the ideas of Marshall Ganz, as a framework for pitches that tell the Story of Self, the Story of Us and the Story of Now and challenged participants to make these stories a part of a public narrative by allowing The Pitch to be more than conversation starter.
 
Co-facilitator Angela M. Wellman, Founding Director of the Oakland Public Conservatory, told her own personal success story which included always “having your chops” together. As a jazz musician, she practiced scales on her own until the moment came for her to step in and play – being prepared to impress, she says, is one of the best things artists can do for themselves. In a casual yet genuine way, all attendees were able to discuss their individual pitches with the leaders and each other, helping develop delivery style and even the ideas themselves.
 

Bios

Angela M. Wellman, Oakland Public Conservatory of Music/Founding Director –  Trombonist Angela Wellman, hailing proudly from Kansas City, Missouri, has performed with the McCoy Tyner Big Band, Joe Williams, Al Grey, Slide Hampton and other noted musicians.  Raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Ms. Wellman was nurtured in a musical family, and is a third generation jazz musician and music educator.  She grew up listening to the stride piano style of her grandfather, her father’s swinging ballad & blues piano, and the soul-stirring songstylings of her mother, Jyene Baker. Angela inherits her passion and understanding for the preservation of musical traditions through education from her uncle and mentor, Eddie B. Baker, Sr., founder of the Charlie Parker Memorial Foundation & Academy for Performing Arts and the International Jazz Hall of Fame.  Angela’s initiation into the world of Jazz as a player began while hanging out at sessions at the famed chitlin’ circuit Local 626, the once–Black musicians’ union in Kansas City, and now sanctuary for the spirits of jazz pioneers such as Ernie Williams (The Last of the Blue Devils), Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and countless others who got their start in that very place.

In 2005 she founded the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music to provide high quality, affordable music education for Oakland citizens. Angela divides her time between Oakland and Madison, WI where she is pursuing doctoral studies in Education/Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin. She also performs and teaches throughout the United States.  Her band, New Roots, performs spirited, contemporary music, creating new forms, styles, and roots in the Jazz tradition.

Ebony McKinney, EAP Fellowship Director, Independent Consultant – Ebony has a diverse range of experience in non-profit, philanthropic and government organizations. McKinney served as the founding director of Emerging Arts Professionals/SFBA, a network focused on empowerment, leadership, and growth of next generation arts and culture workers in the San Francisco Bay Area and was instrumental in helping to establish the statewide California NextGen Arts Leadership Initiative funded by The James Irvine Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She has held positions with Intersection for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission and the Kely-Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  McKinney has participated in grant review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oakland Cultural Affairs Commission and currently serves on the on the Citizen’s Advisory Committee of Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Ebony holds a BA in Communications from Chatham College and MA’s in both Cultural Entrepreneurship and Visual Anthropology from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Co-Facilitated  by: Angela M. Wellman, Oakland Public Conservatory of Music/Founding Director and Ebony McKinney, Independent Consultant & Fellowship Director, Emerging Arts Professionals SF/BA

Event Sponsors & Organizers:
Divya Balakrishnan, Administrative Gallery Coordinator, Pro Arts,
AJ Kiyoizumi, Curatorial Intern, Pro Arts,
Sarah Jo Neubauer, Capacity and Leadership Development Manager, Foundation Center-San Francisco
Ashara Ekundayo, Chief Creative Officer &OMI Gallery Director, Impact Hub Oakland
Katherin Canton, Network Coordinator, Emerging Arts Professionals/SFBA

 

 

Philanthropic Pursuits: Insights from Irvine Foundation’s Josephine Ramirez

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Josephine Ramirez was appointed Program Director at the James Irvine Foundation in January 2010, with overall responsibility for the Foundation’s Arts program. Before joining Irvine, Josephine was Vice President of Programming and Planning for the Music Center in Los Angeles, where she founded the programming department in 2003. Previously, she was a Program Officer at the Getty Foundation, managing funding in the areas of arts leadership development, Los Angeles cultural organizations, arts education research and arts policy. Also at the Getty, she was Research Associate at the Research Institute, creating and implementing a multi-year investigation of the connections between art making and civic participation. Earlier, Josephine worked as a Program Producer and Education Director at the Mark Taper Forum and was also an independent consultant to cultural organizations around the country. She was the Community Arts Coordinator for the King County Arts Commission in Seattle before moving to California in 1989. For the city of Los Angeles, she has served in several appointed posts, including Vice President of the Cultural Affairs Commission and Chair of the city’s Cultural Master Plan Advisory Committee. She is a former Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, an award that supported her research on informal, nonprofessional art making and its relationship to individual and community vitality. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Josephine earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Washington.

Josephine was interviewed by Leah Reisman, who is currently pursuing a PhD in sociology at Princeton and was a 2013-14 EAP Fellow.

 

LR: What pieces of advice would you give to someone who wants to follow a career path similar to yours?

JR: Well, first, about working in philanthropy, I think that unless you’re in the financial situation to head your own family foundation or give away your own money, a career in that part of the nonprofit field may not be the best place to set your sights on in any exclusive way, at least at first. While it would be fine to work towards that as an eventual goal, jobs in philanthropy are not exactly plentiful so narrowing your scope to just that when you’re starting out might not be a workable strategy. I mean, if you fall into it, great, but it might lead to some pretty frustrating years if that is your only goal.

Perhaps a better way to approach your career is to answer questions like, what do you want to do or change in the world? What do you believe? What are the things that are worth working hard for? Where do you feel like you could make a difference? And it very well could be that your answers will lead you to work that would, sooner or later on, make you competitive for a job in philanthropy.

LR: Right. So focusing on philanthropy is a kind of overly narrow approach, especially given the state of employment and just the variety of opportunities out there.

JR: Yes, and in general that’s kind of an overall healthy life exercise: to practice being open to the wonderful curveballs that life can throw you.

LR: So that’s actually a perfect segue into this other question—why do you think that you are where you are now? What curveballs did life throw you?

JR: I am where I am partly because I have an opinion that I worked to shape through what I experienced in my earlier career.

In an overall sense, cultivating your voice is key. I tried, and continue to try, to be curious, with a critical eye, about what I thought, about what struck me as compelling and what didn’t about my work and about the work of others I observed.

In my own way, I think I was continually trying to pay attention to what seemed out of sync or sort of wrong-headed and to what resonated with me to from a sense of my own mission in my work. It can take a while to develop that because, sometimes, you’re just feeling lucky to be there and to have a job in a field you want to be in.

LR: Yeah, I think that’s great. So kind of developing a filter through which you’re navigating your way through experiences based on a gathered understanding of what is important to you, what resonates, and what doesn’t.

JR: Yes. It’s a combination of cultivating your voice and establishing your reputation. Also, I would say, one of the biggest assets that you can hone as you progress in your career is a really strong emotional and social intelligence. You can have all the right experience plus the pedigrees, but if you don’t know how to talk and relate to people, you’re not going to be competitive for the top jobs.

LR: That makes a lot of sense. So what has best prepared you for the challenges of your job?

JR: For this job [at the Irvine Foundation], I would say learning what I’ve learned so far about organizational cultures and the social intelligence piece. How does this place work? How do I learn to talk like them? That is a really important skill to have and to deepen.

LR: I think in this hyper-competitive universe it is really important to pay attention to those pieces, and they often, I think, get left by the wayside as we are scrambling to make ends meet. So I think it is important, and I’d love to hear just about some of the challenges that you receive in your current work, and how those kinds of skills have helped you cope with them.

JR: In general, the development of your professional network is very important. When you’re not exactly sure how to move forward on something, the ability to have a strong personal-professional network to call on and say, “Hey, you got 10 minutes? I need to talk to you about something that’s bugging me.” The ability to just sort of drop the facade that we know exactly what to do when we don’t, and say, “I’m really stumped by this one, and I’m not sure of the next best step.”

LR: So there’s humility to it—an ability to ask for help and to cultivate [relationships with those] who can provide those kind of complimentary and contrasting perspectives.

JR: It’s how we work in community—I’m there for you if I possibly can be, and I know that you will be for me. I have a set of people in my circle that I have known for 20 to 30 years from working in the field who know me well. We know that we’ve got similar values about why we’re doing the work. And I never underestimate the power of those relationships.

LR: Yes. I’ve been doing a lot of asking others for opinions as I’ve been growing up in this field. And one of the most gratifying things that has happened to me over the last couple years has been people starting to come back and ask me questions, [experiencing] those relationships and that kind of mutual respect that come from trusting someone and really valuing their opinion. Anything else that you would say has prepared you for the challenges of your job?

JR: An inquisitive mind, and a lot of improv training—that really serves one well.

LR: Yes! I’m at a very different level and a very different kind of position, but I’ve also found the kind of training and types of experiences you get in theater, and in improv especially, to be very valuable in cultivating social-emotional intelligence.

JR: Right! And for me obviously it wasn’t about becoming a professional artist.

The payoff, after hours and hours of improv training, is really more about being able, in any professional environment, to just—boom—stand up in front of people and do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, even when your natural inclination is not to stand up in front of people at all.

LR: Yeah, that resonates. That makes a lot of sense. So, a more practical question—how does work-life balance work for you?

JR: Balance is about making sure you’re in touch with: Who am I? What do I like to do? With respect to work stuff, where am I? And, what do I believe in? I’ve had all different kinds of balances. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I forced myself to join a softball team. I’m not a sports person, but it happened to be a very fun social outlet. I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t have a relationship or kids, so I was in a place where I could just immerse myself, learn the city, learn my job, and then all my socializing was either around work friends or my softball team. I would say it wasn’t a great work-life balance compared to other situations, but it worked for that time.

LR: One last question—who or what inspires you?

JR: This might be corny, but I have quotes around my computer screen that include stuff like: “A good argument = the compliment of rational opposition,” “Art allows us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” “It’s impossible to advance the dialogue on any issue without having a critical stance,” “Genius often arises out of constraint,” “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” And then, there is a fabulous German word, “entlistungsfreude,” that means the satisfaction one gets from crossing things off lists. Nerdy, I know.

I also have an image of Michael the Archangel, a piece of rock from the island that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on, a small image of the Madonna and Child, a tiny figure of Ganesh — all to remind me of important stuff like justice, tenacity and faith.

LR: Yes! That’s awesome. I love that. So you have your talismans. You created a little environment that makes you feel positive and inspired in your work. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me!

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leah-reisman-230x185Leah Reisman, Graduate Student at Princeton University

Leah is a graduate student in sociology at Princeton University, where she plans to focus on cultural organizations and cultural policy using an ethnographic perspective. Before beginning graduate school in 2014, she worked in a variety of museums, including the Research Group at the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley, the Field Museum in Chicago and San Francisco’s de Young Museum. Leah has also conducted independent research at a science museum in Chicago and an art museum in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has a background in anthropology, and her interests include museum management, cultural policy, philanthropy, evaluation, and qualitative research methods. She enjoys cooking, running, and speaking Spanish!

Leah is EAP Fellowship Alumni  2013-14

Philanthropic Pursuits: Insights from Irvine Foundation’s Josephine Ramirez is part of the series The Heart of It: Stories from Leaders in the Bay Area Arts Community, an EAP MADE Project. Learn more about the series by visiting the MADE page in our website.

Executive Director Roadmap: Insights into OCMA’s Lori Fogarty

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Executive Director, Lori Fogarty, is leading Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) in groundbreaking transformation of its’ art, history, and natural sciences collections. With more than twenty years of the museum experience Fogarty previously served as director of the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, where she oversaw a successful $19.5 million capital campaign and expansion project. She also spent twelve years at SFMOMA in multiple positions including senior deputy director, deputy director of Curatorial Affairs, and associate director of development. Fogarty graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1984. In addition to her professional background, she has served on the boards of Enterprise for High School Students, the Children’s Day School in San Francisco, and the Association of Children’s Museums. She is currently on the board of Head-Royce School.

Lori was interviewed by Jessie Dykstra, East Bay Fund for Artists Coordinator at The East Bay Community Foundation and a 2013-14 EAP Fellow.

JD: What experiences that happened along the way helped get you to where you are today?

LF: I definitely think some of it was luck. Every institution that I’ve joined – the Music Center, SFMOMA, Bay Area Discovery Museum, and then the Oakland Museum of California – was at a real moment of inflection, of change and growth. I first started at SFMOMA when it was in the old building on Van Ness Avenue. But we knew a new facility was on the horizon with a Capital Campaign in the near-term, and that institution grew and transformed so much during the period I was there. So I think I have had incredible good luck to be with institutions that were on a growth trajectory.

Early in my career, I also had really fantastic bosses and mentors that I learned so much from. And then I think you just have to do a really good job. You have to work really hard, you have to prove yourself, and you have to be a positive asset no matter where you are in the organization – I started out as an administrative assistant!

But within these institutional roles, I would put myself forward. I remember an important moment at SFMOMA when I was still in Development and we were starting a strategic planning process. I raised my hand and said I was happy to help coordinate it – above and beyond my job – and that really positioned me for a next step. You have to keep your eyes open for those opportunities, so that even within an institution – and certainly when opportunities come to take the next step with another organization – you are brave enough to go after those opportunities. So I would take some credit for hard work, but a lot of good fortune, too.

JD: What pieces of advice would you give someone who wanted to move to a director level one day?

LF: Again, I think you have to look for opportunities to play a leadership role, at any level. I’m a huge believer that there are people within the middle management level of every organization that really make a difference. And they usually, show a great attitude. I recently read about the idea of being “emotionally expensive”; there are people within organizations that are a real drain on the culture and morale – they’re high maintenance. It’s very rare that those people get into leadership because they’re not advancing the goals of the organization. So I think you have to show that you’re not just there for your own career or individual function, but demonstrate every day that you’re committed to the organization as a whole.

Honestly, as a former English major, I think communication skills are really critical. People who are good writers and present themselves well in a public setting – those fundamentals go a long way. Yes, graduate degrees and experience can be important, but I think “soft skills” around communication, demonstrating leadership, being a positive catalyst for morale and organizational culture – those are the things that, for the staff I supervise, make all the difference.

JD: Looking back at all of those building experiences, what do you think has prepared you best for the job you have now?

LF: The people I’ve worked with have prepared me well – both on the staff and board. This may sound silly, but I was writing a thank-you note this morning to someone who had opened their home for a donor event, and it made me remember back to early in my career at SFMOMA. The Director of the Museum went to great lengths to make personal touches; etiquette was really important to him. Those little details make a difference, especially in fundraising and relationship-building. That was a really important model to have at an early stage in my career, and there were many other people I was able to observe who really excelled in their positions.

I would say that being in a Director role involves such a diverse set of tasks, responsibilities and skills. For example, take financial and budgeting oversight. Early in my career I would have thought, “I don’t know how to do that – I was terrible in math! I was an English major!” But I do a lot of that now, and a lot of fundraising; personnel management is also a huge part of the job. I think you have to be very ready, knowing that it’s going to be all of that. There will some parts of the job that you’re comfortable with, and some parts that you’re not. So you have to work hard at the parts that are new and seek out experience and exposure where you may not have had it before.

I also look to colleagues at other institutions. I try to keep a strong network of other museum directors and have always remained very close to the organizations I’ve left. I continue to turn to colleagues that I haven’t worked with for 15 years and ask: Do you have a job description for this? Do you know anybody who would be good at that? I think you need to look very deliberately within your network for what you can learn.

JD: For those significant changes that have happened in the museum, how have you personally, in your leadership role, managed those very big changes?

LF: Well, there were hard moments! I think back to a few years ago when I read the book Game Change, which told the story of the 2008 presidential campaigns. Something that was a revelation to me was reading that one of the big advantages of the Obama campaign was that he had a really solid team that was on the same page, with shared goals and values. Within the Clinton campaign, there were huge egos and people with tons of experience, but a lot of in-fighting. So one of the things I’ve learned in going through these huge changes is that you do not do it alone. No director or leader can go through it single-handedly – the idea of “heroic leadership” is outdated. Instead you have to find really good people to work with who you trust– people who can be brave and make tough decisions with you. And through that, you really create a sense of team. 

So one of the things I’ve learned in going through these huge changes is that you do not do it alone. No director or leader can go through it single-handedly – the idea of “heroic leadership” is outdated. Instead you have to find really good people to work with who you trust– people who can be brave and make tough decisions with you. And through that, you really create a sense of team.

When we were going through the gallery renovation, I brought in people who were very bold and helped me face what we needed to do. With the transition in our operations from the city, I hired a consultant to be my partner through the whole process, and also brought in the senior staff and said, “We’re doing this together, and I need everyone’s best thinking.” And that’s the leadership culture I’ve tried to build, in that the six members of the executive team aren’t only looking at their specific function and trying to be an advocate for their own department, but they are sharing in the leadership of the institution. They are accountable for doing what’s best for the museum as a whole. Sometimes the challenge for me is having the desire to make everybody feel good and make everything okay– kind of the “good mom” complex. But you can’t do that. You have to build leadership from all levels of the organization, as we were talking about earlier, and then create a team that really works as a team.

JD: Let’s close by talking about what you would like to leave as your legacy, whether with this institution or more generally. What would you consider to be “success” for yourself?

LF: I would start with two things. On the organizational level, I’d like to have left every organization I’ve worked for better for my having been there – to have taken OMCA to the next level. And if I can help the Oakland Museum to claim a truly vital, trusted role as a resource for this community, particularly the very local community, that would be what I would consider success.

For the field at large, I hope the Museum can serve as a model, that people could say that we are an example of a museum that truly is connected to its community. And I’d like to see us go much further on that path.

More personally, I try really hard to be a good mentor to people. I want the people I work with to feel valued and respected – that this is a good, healthy place to work. And for the people who are serious and really committed to growing in their careers, I hope I can be a help and inspiration for them, like many people have been for me in my career.

And in all of that, I hope I can stay sane and healthy myself! I have two kids, and when I thought about what has prepared me best for my role as a director, I thought of parenthood. There have been many lessons learned on the job – in both areas. And I think being a parent has provided some enforced balance for me. I could do this job 24 hours, 7 days a week – but I have to go home and be Mom. The year we were going through the transition with the city was also my son’s senior year of high school, and I remember leaving really challenging negotiations with the city and then going on a college visit. And it was really hard on one hand, but on the other hand it gave me perspective. So I also hope that my family will stay safe and sane through this journey, too.

 

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Jessie Dykstra

Jessie Dykstra Photo by Kegan Marling

Jessie Dykstra is the coordinator of the East Bay Fund for Artists at the East Bay Community Foundation. She is also responsible for managing the Foundation’s scholarship programs and supporting the grants administration process. Before joining the Foundation Jessie was an institutional fundraising consultant with Quinn Associates, an arts management consultancy serving small and mid-sized organizations in the Bay Area. She previously held positions in Development at The Wooden Floor and the California Institute of Integral Studies. Jessie is a candidate in the MBA program at the Lokey Graduate School of Business at Mills College.

Executive Director Roadmap: Insights into OCMA’s Lori Fogarty is part of the series The Heart of It: Stories from Leaders in the Bay Area Arts Community, an EAP MADE Project. Learn more about the series by visiting the MADE page in our website.