The Decolonization Advocate: Miranda Gonzalez
Disruption, to me, means completely changing the way things have historically been done.
5 QUESTIONS WITH Miranda Gonzalez
Producing Artistic Director, UrbanTheater Company; Organizational Consultant/Strategist, BLVE
CHICAGO, IL
Miranda is currently a Producing Artistic Director at UrbanTheater Company (UTC) in Humboldt Park Chicago, has a background in diversity equity and inclusion, and is a graduate of DePaul University’s Business of Sciences. She has 20 yrs of experience in social justice and operational management, along with 15 years in sales management and strategies. Her niche of developing anti-oppressive praxis and operationalizing antidotes to white supremacy culture characteristics granted her an invitation to film a TedxTalk on decolonizing theater.
She currently collaborates with BLVE Consults and Culture Change Lab supporting arts organizations and funders in reimagining strategic planning, operational assessments, communication strategies, and collective structures.
1. Let’s get right to it… how is the current art funding structure most flawed?
The current private system centers the board of trustees and its process over who the funding is intended for. It models a hierarchical structure that we see in corporate spaces and it shouldn’t. Its board of trustees remain a mythical character, perpetuating a system that lacks transparency around how giving to an organization is decided, and puts the program officer in a position of “selling” an idea, rather than aligning artists whose values model the board of trustees.
It’s currently not a collaborative process, nor does it contain metrics that benchmark programs meeting grantees needs. I’m aware that I’m speaking in generalities and that there are funders that are taking the initial steps necessary to create a more collaborative/needs-based approach. The public sector doesn’t acknowledge the role many grantees play in shaping society and its contribution to the labor economy. Based on the history of the United States, when the public sector decides to allocate resources, the arts and social services are the last to be prioritized. We’re in a lobbyist system where integrous value-based work is not revered or the metric by which an organization should be invested in.
2. You’ve said to me that in the “U.S. we work from a place of urgency; we focus on revenue and productivity, not humans. But the IP of a human is the most important part of the business model. We need a humanity-centered model.” How can the arts ecosystem transition to this model? (Are there examples from across the globe that could guide us? Does this template run across industries?)
Ooooo, there is a lot to unpack with this set of questions. First we’d have to tackle perception. Shifting to a human-centered model would mean a perceptive paradigm shift. We would have to break cycles of thought around “business” not being personal.
Our society continues to believe that revenue is only made through a codified process, thus making the process more valuable than the human beings working with and in the process. I have heard even DEI “experts” say things like “we may be striving for equity, but at the end of the day this is still a business”. That’s when I realized that Resmaa Menakem was right — DEI strategy can perpetuate further harm.
I’ve witnessed executive arts leaders and their direct reports value the “business” over valuing the humans that make up “the business”. Leaning into binary thinking, such as centering human needs means a lack of funding, generating ticket sales, and sold out houses, rather than equating meeting the needs of their staff, artists, patrons with generating the revenue needed.
The same can be said for funders. A successful organization is one that can prove income sustainability… knowing that the non-profit model is extremely flawed, knowing that ticket prices at large institutions are inflated and inaccessible, while ticket prices at a storefront theater that serves its community must remain lower in order to maintain local accessibility. The focus is on money. Some might say “well it has to be, because we live in a capitalist world”, but there have been several studies that have shown productivity and revenue increase when we center human needs. I understand that we live in a capitalist society, for now. I am not debating the reality of that, what I am debating is what is centered, what is focused on, what is perpetuated. We can authentically center the humans we fund and the creative intellect they bring, and still live in a capitalist society — the both can be true. The work comes in the shift, the work comes in having faith that the ecosystem will not crumble if we decide to be more human(e).
The arts ecosystem needs to move to a more cross collaborative decision making model. Again, I know there are some funding organizations that are braving this first step, and are discussing a reallocation of funds that is more equitable. I whole-heartedly believe that there is a monetary threshold where an organization begins to decrease its impact on audiences, staff, and the artists it hires, as the funding numbers increase. I do not believe that an artistic director at a $45 million organization is in touch with what the artists (from playwright to designer) needs are, nor what their local community needs in order to feel connected to the art. Yet the funding structure supports these organizations while creating art deserts within the same region.
When I’ve sat on grant panels, I’ve seen funders ask questions around impact and organizations respond with ticket sales. Ticket sales only show monetary impact, not social. I’m a data driven person so I understand the need to have metrics, but what if what we’re measuring is flawed? What if we measured how organizations met the needs of staff? What if we chose metrics that centered human needs, and then saw how it had lower attrition rates, or generating more ticket sales because the staff felt invested in the organization? I could go on and on with examples.
Japan and Switzerland have models worth further exploration. Japan has several arts & culture ecosystem studies that the U.S. could look to. The general decision-making process in Japan is collaborative and the social responsibility of every industry, public and private, in supporting arts & culture. Switzerland has programs that perceive artists as social researchers and support the idea of humanitarian organizations collaborating with artists so they can make greater social impact that creates economic sustainability. I’m sure neither are perfect, however having discourse with other countries' funding practices is extremely important and necessary to stir creative thinking around new models. Both perceive the arts as equally as important as the rest of their industries. There is a sense of equal value and viewing artists of all disciplines as professionals and an integral part of society.
3. How can the cultural sector best contribute to a re-alignment of a larger set of systems that has historically promoted inequity?
By creating and modeling a more equitable system. The cultural sector should attend global seminars around funding and how it fits into the ecosystem in other countries, then identify champions across all industries in order to support the model.
4. To build a system that fosters longevity and sustainability, it’s clear we need to fund at equitable amounts to organizations and look at who is serving which community. Talk to me about the discrepancy between how BIPOC and white-led organizations are funded, the mechanics of this process…
In order to discuss this we have to be honest about who has historically held power in this country. It’s never been BIPOC people. We are also talking about ownership, whether it be books or land, this country has allowed a certain race ownership of the current economy, thus giving that race a historical advantage.
NPO’s were created to meet the social needs of the race who had ownership. The first NPO’s were in the late 1700’s and were white-founded by people who had immediate access. The first African American NPO founded by a black person wasn’t until over 100 years later. That’s over 100 years of access to those in power, those with money, to try and fail, to function within an ecosystem that is meant to support the NPO’s particular cause. That was 2-3 generations ago. I wrote a white paper around this very issue that is housed on the BLVE Consults website as well as an op-ed in the Chicago Reader.
By continuing to fund larger arts institutions, it only perpetuates the disparity between white-founded orgs and BIPOC-founded organizations. I use “founded” because I don’t believe we are disrupting current systems by placing BIPOC people in leadership positions at white-founded organizations; all that is doing is sending the message that white-founded organization structures and processes are worth investing in more, while further harming BIPOC folks.
Disruption, to me, means completely changing the way things have historically been done. If you’ve historically funded the same organization, then it’s time to fund an organization that you historically have not. Disruption is changing course over a long period of time, not just in the current lifecycle. It means for generations. BIPOC-founded organizations have and continue to serve their communities. We are established out of our community needs. Though white-founded organizations may have been established for the same reason, initially, the funding support over generations is not comparable to BIPOC-founded organizations.
5. Year after year, arts giving remains stagnant at ~4% of overall (private) charitable giving. Next era donors — those inheriting the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history and new wealth creators — are turning away from the arts to support areas they see as greater drivers of social progress. How can the sector best make its case for relevance among rising philanthropic leaders?
I’m not surprised this is happening. As I mentioned before, our society doesn’t see the arts as a fundamental part of the economy in this country. If the sector wants to make a case, it must be in conversation with other global arts ecology, find champions, accomplices, supporters across various industries and create a model where the arts and other industries are woven together.
We have normalized the narrative that the arts are separate from our ecological sustainability, even though studies have shown the arts support education/learning, citizenship, creative thinking, stimulate the U.S. economy, improve mental health, and so much more. If the newer generation of wealth is unwilling to invest in the key areas that the arts play a significant role in, they are going to fail the United States citizens and our overall economic health. If the new generation of philanthropists don’t listen to those who are advocating for investing in arts and culture, they should at least google the correlation. There are plenty of studies that prove how the arts contribute to our society.
The Path Forward interview series, an initiative of MCW Projects LLC, investigates how cultural and philanthropic leaders are re-envisioning the future of the arts.