Celebrations for Social Change
An Organizational Design to Achieve the Transformative Potential of Public Events
As a producer of scores of public events across the nation for two decades, I have experienced first-hand the powerful transformation of a community through the myriad of meaningful connections and experiences that an elaborate public celebration creates.
With certain design and planning components, these landmark events can embrace the endeavors and experiences of a community and bear witness to the potential and promise of a more connected, cohesive whole. It is as if the community collectively opens a window into its future possibilities, economic as well as cultural.
The challenge before us is to design organizations that will permit communities to keep that window open – to sustain and enhance the social change and economic potential unveiled, if not unleashed, by the community-wide participatory event.
Public celebrations and festivals have the unparalleled potential to transform a community. What is needed – to demonstrate the potential and possibilities - is seminal research to examine the intersection of public celebrations and social capital. At the heart of the matter is organizational design – whether the infrastructure of the public celebration is built for the moment or for the long haul to advance social change. It’s not only what you do, but how you do it that can make all the difference.
RECAPTURING OPPORTUNITY
During the past 10 years there has been a decline in funding for public events due to the economic constraints of cities, sponsors and participants, and the need for support of pressing social needs over public celebration. In addition, there is significant competition from theme parks and commercial events, as well as from public celebrations that do not create intrinsic value beyond economic or entertainment considerations, such as concerts and carnivals.
This economy-driven dwindling of public celebrations strikes me as a series of missed opportunities – and a trend that it is in the best interest of our communities to reverse. Although there is significant importance for all types of events -- from sporting to cultural, civic to historical – there is particular potential in public festivals in mid-size U.S. cities as an engine of civic renewal.
There has been a decline in civic pride and a lack of community cohesiveness in many small cities, and we have observed the consequences of this deterioration in mid-size cities with a decline in population and businesses and an increase in poverty and unemployment. There is a similar gap in the U.S. festival industry itself, creating an opportunity to encourage public event professionals to develop social capital through public events, using dialogue and educational material as drivers to this end.
In doing so, we can preserve the importance of community celebration, establish an unshakable justification for the continued funding of public events, and develop a template for helping create events that build social capital and leave a legacy for a community to build upon.
I am convinced, based on what I have witnessed throughout my career, that creating a platform for sponsors to support events that reach into and resonate across a community far beyond a specific event or celebration, to create transformational changes in neighborhoods, downtown, and in the general well-being in the community, will be a major driver of social change.
COMMUNITY AT THE CENTER
I often hear community groups lamenting that their programs are not receiving funding at anywhere near the level necessary to address the social needs so pressing in their community. By directly linking community awareness with needs through events (awareness building, workforce development, small business development, new relationships), event organizers can purposely establish on-going support and networks to fulfill social service needs and an environment of caring and reciprocity through the accumulated social capital.
In developing social capital through public celebrations, the potential of bridging across race, income, gender, faith and generations is significant. On a planning committee, or performing in a 1,000 voice choir, creating a community mural or sharing food in the volunteer center, we have an opportunity to form new relationships, build trust, and create an intrinsic value from our celebration that will create new networks for continued connectedness.
An event model typically focuses on the organization and management of an event with relationships both short-and long-term to various stakeholders. The evaluation of the outcome of the event will be based on how the goals of the various stakeholders have been met. This evaluation will then determine if the event will continue to get public support, sponsorship, and continue to be held.
Through the development of social capital through events, the event model will shift to make the community the central component, and the evaluation of the event impact will be based on the strength of the event to build social capital.
This model completely shifts the focus of the event from the event itself to the effect of the event as it evolves from the community, not as it is imposed on the community. This completely shifts the dynamic of the event from an external activity that may or may not be sustained or valued.
By centering on the community, we make the event evolve around the needs and creativity of the community. Thus, the connecting relationships are aligned around what will build community through its various stakeholders. The event is still the vehicle for this community engagement, but the accumulation of social capital, the strength of developing an improved quality of life, and the intrinsic value are far greater than the event itself.
REINVIGORATING CITIES
Social Capital refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.
In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam describes the collapse and revival of American Community and the decline in Social Capital. There has been disengagement in politics, membership organizations, and volunteering. Research on membership and volunteering for civic and fraternal organizations has dropped down by more than half (59%) since 1964 (National Federation of Women’s Clubs): and Boy Scouts, down by 26% and the Red Cross, down by 61% since 1970. At the same time, other organizations have grown, such as the AARP and the National Organization of Women. However, they are different from the perspective of social connectedness: “people join but don’t have to show up,” Putnam observes.
Putnam describes social capital as a means to increase social trust; this does not happen without face-to-face social connectedness. American social capital has also eroded within families and neighbors; this decline in civic, community, and social engagement has led to a decline in social trust. He points out that “Successful collaboration in one endeavor builds connections and trust that facilitate future collaboration in other, unrelated tasks.”
Students of social capital ask, “What strategies for building or rebuilding social capital are most promising?” In my view, one answer lies at the intersection of community celebrations and social capital.
Our mid-size cities are declining in population, jobs, businesses and workforce, while at the same time, crime, poverty, and unemployment are increasing. People move to the suburbs, cities get poorer and more dangerous, parents do not want to send their kids to the urban schools, and families do not want to live in the cities. This scenario is repeating itself across America consistently.
Despite this urban decline, we are aware that we can’t lose our cities. We need a hub for our communities and neighborhoods; we need to connect in parks and at sporting events and cultural venues. Businesses need employees who want to live and work in the city, and cities need to re-invent their purpose and passion as never before.
It is the right time to agitate the status quo and introduce new ways to define and celebrate the new vision of an old city. Preserve the past, celebrate history, but define the present and the future in a new way, create an opportunity to re-invent the city through celebration. We need stronger cities and we need to help people sustain a better quality of life, to thrive, and prosper. We need to connect at a level that is often missing, and we need a human connection that can change perception, not just about the city itself, but about the
people in it.
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
A report titled Live from Your Neighborhood: A National Study of Outdoor Arts Festivals was released by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2010. This report combines key results from two investigative efforts—an online, national survey of outdoor arts festivals and seven case studies—to examine the range and variety of arts festivals in the U.S., the artists they employ, the communities they serve, and the roles they play in their cities, towns and neighborhoods.
This is the most comprehensive survey of America’s outdoor arts festival ever completed. It is an important examination because earlier research has shown us that some 102 million people attend arts and cultural festivals each year in American cities and towns.
Outdoor arts festivals are creative placemakers and are integrated into the community. Of the 1,413 festivals surveyed, more than half of the festivals (59 percent) have occurred in their host communities for more than 10 years. Outdoor arts festivals are small-town affairs, with most festivals (77 percent) taking place in towns with fewer than 250,000 residents, and 39 percent of these in towns with fewer than 10,000 people.
Festivals also provide education, employment, and volunteer opportunities to local residents. Outdoor arts festivals rely heavily on volunteers: 61 percent of festivals have year-round volunteer staff. On average, festivals have two to three paid, full-time, year-round staff, two to three part-time staff, and 15 volunteers. The case studies also reveal that volunteers provide professional services of significant value (marketing, event logistics, and fundraising) and take pride in their role as ambassadors for both the community and artists.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
With knowledge of history, those numbers are not surprising. And the social capital implication of a public festival brings a certain “back to the future” texture. Societies have long been defined by their rituals. Throughout the ages, we have all been connected to culturally shared events and life experiences -- birth, marriage, seasons, harvests: the process of life. Festivals and community celebrations have long been vehicles for important communal functions, a part of the process of creating community and nourishing belonging, and in so doing defining and making connections between people and place, as researcher Lisa Slater has pointed out.
America is a place formed by other cultures and is a compendium of the world’s celebrations as well as our own historical progression and transformation. In American history, William Chauncy Landon put his theories of historical pageantry into practice by writing and directing several historical pageants in New England and the Midwest. The pageants were staged between 1911 and 1914 combined mass participation and historical reenactment into a unique format, offering “local townspeople not only novel holiday entertainment and wholesome recreation but also a vehicle through which they could visualize the solutions to their current social and economic problems.”
The events were designed not just to introduce the town to its present life but to dramatize what life would be like when the problems common to all were gone. This presentation would reveal not just what the community was - but what it might become. The format continued to examine a current problem and project a solution, offering the exciting potential to create a coherent vision of the future.
After World War I, celebrations became a patriotic occasion, and the era of the pageants ended. We had begun to create a diverse new culture that celebrated its differences through song, dance and costumes, while creating opportunities to blend into a new culture and create our own identity and customs. Patriotic celebrations, community parades, and town fairs began to identify the American celebration.
COMMUNITY AND CULTURE
As cities and towns grew and flourished, the movement from rural areas to urban centers changed the structure of our sense of community. We began to participate in civic society and form alliances through schools, churches, civic organizations, and leisure activities. As the population then began to move to suburban communities, we saw a decline in urban population in mid-size cities. Television and hi-tech communication began to replace face-to-face interaction. We now find we have been placed into a state of social disarray with an increase of crime, poverty, urban decay, political corruption, widening income gap, and poorly functioning schools.
The more recent focus on the value of festivals in the U.S. is important, since the research conducted previously focused on the economic impact of events on a community without considering the social value.
One study made bold attempts to move beyond the emphasis on the economic value of arts and culture to society. A study completed by Deidre Williams in 1996 examined nine projects out of ninety-five, using surveys and guided interviews to gather the views of project organizers and members of the community. While the study methodology has been criticized, the findings bear further examination. She concluded that the project has delivered social, educational and artistic benefits, as well as economic benefits, to the communities. The social benefits ranged from establishing networks of ongoing value and developing a sense of community identity to improved understanding of different cultures and lifestyles, lessened social isolation, and raised public awareness of an issue.
ADVANCING CELEBRATIONS & SOCIAL CAPITAL
An exploration of America’s history of celebrations and social capital makes inescapable the conclusion that research on the social value of, and the ability to build, social capital through public celebrations should be conducted in the United States.
Discussions with the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA, the International Downtown Association, and the International Festival and Event Association, who have done extensive research on tourism and economic impact as well as recent studies on the environmental impact and “greening of events,” underscore that conclusion.
Dr. Joseph Goldblatt at the University of Queen Margaret in Edinburgh, Scotland, who has been studying cultural transformation through celebration, and Ira Rosen at Temple University who conducts event research, concur, noting that this type of research has not occurred in the US and would be important to the field of event management.
William Getz, at the Conference on Event Evaluation, Research and Education in Sydney in July of 2000, pointed out that research tends to focus on specific sectors within the event field (tourism, conventions, sporting events, festivals); professional event associations necessarily need to narrow their focus and do not undertake or support research that generates new knowledge. While understandable, that is a significant missed opportunity.
Therefore, I strongly advocate the establishment of a program for research and practice, with a particular focus on building social capital through public festivals, to be aligned with a major university or appropriate federal agency, or organization, as a joint initiative, so as to be well-positioned and funded to coordinate the research, piloting, analysis and review of the efficacy of such an approach.
A grant from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA),ArtPlace, Surdna or the Kresge Foundation for this research could serve as an important add-on to their outdoor festival research. Through collaboration with research specialists, such as those at Temple University or other institutions with faculty expertise and interest in such an initiative, and the International Festival and Event Association (IFEA), the research could begin with cities and festivals to determine the impact (social and economic value) on cities which do not have festivals compared to the cities that have a thriving schedule of public events. In addition, the research will determine how social capital is accumulated through public events (from each stakeholder) and how it might be improved. Public celebrations planned for particular cities, or on the drawing boards, could be revised from the outset to include components of social capital development.
The program would identify pilot communities, based upon extensive analysis and in-depth interviews with community leaders and festival organizers. With the data gathered from the research and pilot phases, we will begin to build a network of collaborators who are incorporating social capital building processes into their event plans. By tracking results and sharing successes and challenges, the program will develop and adapt based on assumptions that are challenged and redirected. The campaign will continue to produce written material, web site material, blogs and research data which present new ideas and best practices.
BUILDING ON BEST PRACTICES
After one to three years of research and internal development, accompanied by pilot public festivals (new or existing festivals), the program would expand to working through organizations such as the National Conference of Mayors, IFEA and IDA, to promote programs to reach a broader market. This expansion beyond the festival industry would include broader courses, workshops, speakers, webinars outside of the event world - such as art councils, chambers of commerce, downtown associations and municipalities.
As the program moves to scale, the funders from foundations and grants that support stronger communities (such as foundations for public giving) as well as private funders, and event income, would add their support to sustain the program and broaden its ability to further advance the development of social capital through public events, thereby strengthening our urban communities in critical and enduring ways.
Over the ensuing decade, this program has the potential to become a significantly impactful resource and outreach facility for cultural and economic development of various events, especially those providing means to help communities leverage events for social value. The program could attract funding from the NEA and State Art Commissions to create a legacy that builds social capital into events, grounded in historical precedent, current realities, and long-term public objectives.
HISTORICAL PRECEDENCE
Scholars studying the emotions have found that dancing, playing music, and engaging in other artistic activities bring more joy than do many other leisure activities. That joy in turn enhances our willingness to reach out and connect with others.
This is the essence of why we do community events. The Seguara Seminar on Civic Engagement in America published a Better Together study on the Arts and Social Capital, which provides tremendous insight into the potential of art to connect us to our common humanity. The creation and presentation of art often inspires the tenets of social capital development: trust, opening, and cooperation. These ingredients lead inescapably to the potential of the arts as an engine of civic renewal.
Arts are flourishing in America, but there is a noticeable trend that we “observe art together” far more than we “do art together.” Spectatorship, however, is very different from participation. Participation requires ongoing interactions, coordination, and trust. Arts participation (playing an instrument, creating art) is down from 51% to 38% since the 1970’s.
That is a trend that can and should be reversed. When we do so, the benefits can extend beyond the arts community to the entire community, and beyond any specific event or initiative. The Seguara Seminar found that the arts represent perhaps the most significant underutilized forum for rebuilding community in America.
In collaboration with arts institutions and local governments and through the channel of a public festival, the timing is perfect to begin to present new and innovative ways to build social capital through public celebrations – and to begin to quantify the results as a means of making such integrated elements the norm rather than the outlier.
The program I propose would collaborate with arts and event professionals to carry out the research, develop the curriculum and training material, test the findings and material within pilot programs, and develop a campaign approach. Such a campaign would create awareness, dialogue, and information that would begin to educate the event producers and stakeholders, encourage them to incorporate social value into the design of festival organizations, and create a sustained residual impact from events -- a triple bottom line of economic, entertainment, and social capital.
The potential is alluring, and deservedly so. This engaging social entrepreneur experience can directly result in the development of organizations, with initial expertise and guidance from the program and industry professionals, that will train others to build social capital into their event plans -- with the outcome being the development of communities that are more cohesive, with greater appreciation of their diverse neighbors, a greater understanding and willingness work together. We would witness the evolution of a community that maximized the establishment of new associations from the planning and execution of a community festival, leading to sustainable, on-going relationships.
Ultimately, we will know that this concept is making progress when we can track a greater number of vibrant communities: people involved and engaged in downtown committees and activities, social networks formed that had not existed, a continuous flow of diners and theatergoers who are returning after the festival, more people living and working downtown, greater workforce retention of young people, and an increase in self-esteem within a city to help it grow and prosper as a healthy community.
I realize that a festival that typically lasts one weekend or even one week cannot be expected to change everything about a city - but it absolutely can help guide it in a new, more sustaining, more collaborative, more interconnected and effective direction. The public event can be the guide, set the course, begin the transformation and stay part of the ongoing process, as the city changes and the legacy of the festival spurs on other successes and investments.
Now is the time to embark on a journey of a social entrepreneur program for enduring change. The opportunity to help build stronger communities while creating joyful celebration is promising and important. The social capital that is created will long serve the communities in many different manifestations that will be measured and evaluated over the course of events. The impact of our efforts will be experienced as the place becomes the hero.
Public celebration and arts festivals have always been important to the fabric of a community, both in the U.S. and around the world. As a celebrationist for the past 20 years, I have produced over 200 festivals and special events and have seen the joy of families, the engaging ritual of connection, the collaborative spirit and energy of the public festiva to engage and temporarily transform a community. I have seen the potential up close, and know it to be both extraordinarily real and utterly underutilized.
A century ago, William Chauncy Langdon described the magnitude of the potential when he said: “The pageant is a drama in which the place is the hero and the development of the community is the plot.” We now have the opportunity, perhaps even the obligation – to both our past and future – to reconnect the community-wide celebration with its grander public purpose.
Maureen Connolly is an event professional with national and international experience creating purposeful activities to build community, extend impact, and integrate brands into events that matter. Events have included the Special Olympics World Games, EnvisionFest, OPSailCT2000 and numerous consulting and project design clients.