The Rising Philanthropist: Jaimie Mayer
“The arts sector has been giving things away for free forever. How are we developing audiences this way? How are we creating a value-add?”
6 QUESTIONS WITH JAIMIE MAYER
RISING GENERATION PHILANTHROPIST; BOARD CHAIR, NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Jaimie Mayer currently serves as Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Mayer has spent the past fifteen years producing theatre and film, most recently serving as the Managing Director of Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Mayer has also spent the past decade as a consultant on next generation philanthropy, working with non-profits, such as Reboot, Slingshot, and America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Mayer holds an MFA in Theatre Management and Producing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and is currently pursuing her Executive MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.
The Nathan Cummings Foundation is a multigenerational family foundation, rooted in the Jewish tradition of social justice, working to create a more just, vibrant, sustainable, and democratic society. We partner with social movements, organizations and individuals who have creative and catalytic solutions to climate change and inequality.
1. How are you? How are you handling/preparing?
There are certainly challenges to balancing my work and parenting responsibilities in this environment, but I’m very grateful for my health and for my family.
2. You have experience as a performing arts nonprofit managing director, a philanthropic consultant, and a board member of a variety of cultural organizations across the United States. In your view, how has this crisis impacted organizational fundraising strategies, and how can organizations re-imagine their advancement programs?
When resources are scarce, it forces you to be so much more innovative and creative. For organizations, this is about playing the long game. If organizations went into this crisis without a firm foundation, with deficits, there is a strong chance they won’t come out sound. There will be casualties. Many arts organizations are lumping accrued deficits into their disaster relief fundraising pleas, and it’s a mistake. While this is absolutely not business as usual, it’s also not a free for all.
This is a moment for true board-staff partnership. If an organization’s board is not strong enough to prop up an organization in this moment, then sadly, even with great and relevant missions, organizations need to take the high road and see the writing on the wall and merge, collaborate, or close. There is a significant amount of redundancy in the arts, and this moment will be a moment of natural selection.
3. How do organizations best ask for money right now?
For starters, everyone is hurting right now. Everyone is affected one way or another, to varying degrees. Don’t try to solicit new donors, rather double down on those already invested in your organization. This is the time to be transparent, and that includes financial transparency. Fundraising should be in campaign mode right now, thinking about the next two fiscal years and the impact this moment will have on your organization long term.
As arts organizations, we’re used to patrons coming through our doors, and that experience just isn’t an option right now. People join arts organizations and give because of the benefits, and they aren’t able to receive them at this time. Now is a great time to solicit donor-advised funds in particular. Since there are no benefits to give away, the inability to accept benefits when giving from a DAF isn’t a drawback currently.
4. We are seeing all programming go virtual. I am very interested in how organizations can convert these quarantine audiences into long-term audiences, members, and donors. What do you think?
The arts sector has been giving things away for free forever. We’re cash poor, experience rich. Right now, we are paying the suggested donation of $5-$20 for virtual yoga, but arts organizations are giving everything away for free. How are we developing audiences this way? How are we creating a value-add? Without being tone deaf, we need to put a cost on some of this new, innovative programming. We need to ask others to value our work as much as we do.
Planning ahead, we don’t know what our organizations are going to look like. Will our audiences be seated one seat apart? Will we be taking temperatures at the door? It’s hard to figure out how to convert these audiences, when we don’t know what we’re converting them to.
The best advice I have is to continue to stay relevant, as much as possible, and be transparent with all of your practices. Everyone remembers how you act in a crisis. If you treat your people well, are honest with your audience, and innovative in your programming at this moment, you’ll be paying it forward.
5. You are Board Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. NCF has joined 150+ philanthropies, pledging your commitment to nonprofit partners that are responding to the emergent needs of their communities in this global crisis. How else is the foundation addressing this moment?
Our immediate response has been five-fold: Flexibility in grant deliverables, flexibility in proposals and reporting deadlines, more efficient grant payments, fewer requests for time, and equity-focused responses with other funders.
We believe philanthropy must do what is required in this critical moment and to adjust our practices to build strong and equitable institutions for the long-term.
6. How do you think this crisis will impact the landscape of cultural patronage, and how could it change society’s view of arts as a whole?
The biggest underlying issue we have with the arts in this country is the lack of respect. When people think of the arts, they think of celebrities with a hyper privileged lifestyle. Most people in the arts lead vary modest lives. Lin Manuel Miranda is scrappy AF. But in all seriousness, arts organizations are businesses. As scrappy as they are, they are businesses, and need to be respected as such.
We know what an advocacy organization is- they rely on contributed revenue. And we know what a privately held company is, a public company, etc. Arts nonprofits are on an earned/contributed hybrid model, and people don’t understand that. It’s a different business model than most people think, and not that simple.
My hope is that people come out of this moment with a newfound respect for the arts, as it is the arts that are getting us through these trying times. Books, movies, virtual museum tours, filmed shows and operas, clever livestream performances, and so on have helped us maintain some semblance of sanity. The arts are nothing if not adaptable. That said, it is on us as a sector to make sure we remind people of the role we play, the fundamental importance of the arts, especially in times of crisis. It’s on us to ensure that our industry is compensated properly and finally garners the respect it has always deserved. We are our own worst enemy- if we can’t advocate for ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to?
Jaimie Mayer currently serves as Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Mayer has spent the past fifteen years producing theatre and film, most recently serving as the Managing Director of Magic Theatre in San Francisco.
Mayer has also spent the past decade as a consultant on next generation philanthropy, working with non-profits, such as Reboot, Slingshot, and America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Mayer holds an MFA in Theatre Management and Producing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and is currently pursuing her Executive MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.