"The role of arts, heritage, and cultural organizations is frequently not understood by either the community or, even more unfortunately, by the organizations themselves. Few arts, heritage, and cultural organizations have done an effective job in communicating who they are, what they do, and why they do it."
Quote from "Engaging the Democracy of Civil Discourse" by Patrick Overton
As the Municipality's CAO Frank Miele has recruited a new task force to help him evaluate and re-organize our ailing economic situation and cultural infrastructure, I would like to offer a few suggestions.
It seems like our municipality is now open to cultural planning and hopefully will establish conditions conducive to inclusive, vibrant cultural development.
Ever since I was a member of the Meaford Hall & Culture Public Advisory Committee, I have been researching to see what the best potential operating model could be for the Hall.
I would also like to point out that there have been many committees volunteering time and input and there have been several other plans submitted and there has been public and even professional commentary on them; all of which was either ignored or dismissed. The fear is still there that it may happen again.
Hoping that the following will be of some help, I respectfully submit my findings. While some of the following suggestions are already in place, the municipality and taxpayers could benefit by implementing the full list of recommendations below, which is based on other successful municipally operated cultural centres across Canada:
1. The cultural centre is operated by a manager and staff, who spend between 20% and 30% of working hours writing grants to the Canada Council, Dept. of Canadian Heritage, the Ontario Arts Council, etc., and filing reports on those grants. These grants cover portions of facility operating costs and also programming costs. The manager may also be the main artistic director or curator, and there may additionally be a programming committee to advise the manager or artistic director and to approve programming content, choices, and development. The programming should be of a sufficiently high standard so that the centre is eligible to receive funding from public agencies. Thus, a manager must have solid experience in running a publicly-funded cultural centre, and be capable of both writing (and getting) grants, and developing programming of a high curatorial standard.
2. Some programming costs go to paying artist fees for performances and exhibitions, following rates set out by Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC). Thus, artists are not charged for use of performance or exhibition space, but rather, are paid nationally-established rates for presenting their work. These costs are covered by arts grants that the cultural centre manager and/or artistic director/curator is responsible for writing.
3. The cultural centre rents out its facilities at commercial rates to commercial entities for events that are not part of the centre's programming. Affordable community rates are charged to community groups if that content is not part of the curated programming.
4. The cultural centre has either a board of directors or a charitable foundation that raises funding from corporations, private foundations, and private citizens. The board or foundation does not create or direct programming, but works with the cultural centre management to direct the use of funds that they raise on behalf of the centre. The foundation does not apply for funding from arts councils and agencies, since this is the responsibility of the cultural centre management.
5. The cultural centre management reports to both the foundation and the municipality, and the foundation also reports to the municipality, either through a public advisory committee or a municipal office or officer. The budgets for both the cultural centre and the foundation are publicly reported to the municipality. Thus, the foundation and cultural centre are democratically and transparently accountable to municipal taxpayers.
6. The municipality develops a cultural policy and funds a portion of the operating costs for the cultural centre, but does not fund the foundation, except for in-kind support, such as the providing of office or meeting space.
7. The foundation has an open membership and the board of directors of the foundation is elected annually by its members.
8. As a general rule-of-thumb, the cultural centre receives approximately 25% of its funding from Arts Presentation Canada (Dept. of Canadian Heritage), 10% to 20% from the Ontario Arts Council, 10% to 20% from the Canada Council, 10% to 20% from corporate and private donations through the foundation, and additional funding from such sources as the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and the remainder from ticket sales, merchandising, and commercial facility rentals. Whatever costs are not covered by this list are covered by the municipality.
As you can see, it is quite possible, and realistic, to reduce the amount of money that the municipality is spending on Meaford Hall to perhaps 10% to 20% of the hall's budget, in contrast to the quite-likely 80% to 90% that it is funding at present.
Gita Kikauka, Meaford, ON
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