It’s back-to-school time for six nonprofit arts organizations participating in the pilot program of Arts Accelerator, a 9-month professional development program for small and emerging arts organizations created by The Arts Community Alliance (TACA).
“Last summer, TACA embarked on a journey to have conversations with local arts leaders about what did they think about the professional development opportunities we had offered in the last 10 years, how could they be better and what was good about them that we should keep. We heard a need for something different than what we had been doing. We heard a need for more tactical, more assignment-based work, more really hyper-specific in content professional development,” said Maura Sheffler, TACA’s Donna Wilhelm, family president and executive director.
Funded by Communities Foundation of Texas and Sapphire Foundation, the initiative’s sessions about finances, audience development, fundraising and board development begin in September. The program aims to build an organization’s momentum and accelerate growth.
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TACA invited several arts organizations to apply to be a part of the first year of this program. Eventually, six Dallas County arts organizations were selected: Arts Mission Oak Cliff, Bombshell Dance Project, Pegasus Contemporary Ballet, Pegasus Media Project, Soul Rep Theatre Co., and Verdigris Ensemble.
“We wanted a group we think will gel well in this first year,” Sheffler said. “Having a group of organizations who we think are positioned to learn from each other is really important to us.”
While some of these organizations have been in existence for many years, some are new to the arts ecology. No matter their age, they have something in common.
“They are in a similar growth phase,” Sheffler said.
Sam Brukhman, Verdigris Ensemble’s artistic director, is hoping to power that growth.
“We wanted to be part of the program because we feel like we’re on the precipice of achieving something really special with Verdigris but need outside expertise to come in and guide us so that we can achieve it,” Brukhman said.
In addition to the monthly sessions, each arts organization will have a mentor from the Dallas arts community.
“They will act as sounding boards for them, as accountability partners to them in their work as a part of the cohort,” Sheffler said.
Sheffler hopes the organizations will learn from each other as much as they learn from their mentors.
“That kind of informal peer learning – ‘Help me! I’m in this tough spot. Talk me through it!’- I don’t know any arts leader who isn’t not dependent on that on the regular, myself included. In many ways, I also think that is one long-term benefit that we hope to create the framework for,” Sheffler said.
TACA collaborated with Suzanne Smith, founder and CEO of Social Impact Architects and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and Southern Methodist University, to create the curriculum. Smith will teach some of these sessions along with other instructors.
“The intentional design behind the Arts Accelerator will be like rocket fuel – helping organizations be intentional around their value proposition and leveraging modified business practices to truly go from start-up to growth phase as an organization,” Smith said.
The content of Arts Accelerator is based on the flywheel effect, articulated by Jim Collins’ book Good to Great.
“It’s all about this idea that there’s not really one moment, any one thing that makes a company transition from good to great,” Sheffler said. “You push the flywheel slowly through those slow incremental motions and steps that you take and if you are persistent and dedicated to a clear vision and you continue to doggedly pursue that and factor that into everything you do and everything about how you run your organization and center that vision, that purpose, the flywheel passes the point where it begins to push its own momentum, and all of sudden, you hit an inflection point of growth. It’s about persistence.”
Brukhman is ready to push that flywheel.
“We hope to gain new expertise in accounting, forecasting, and strategic planning. All of these things will give us greater direction and hyperfocus as an organization to achieve our goals,” Brukhman said.
The program will conclude with the participating organizations presenting their plans for strategic growth to an invited audience.
“At that point, we will have done our initial push of the flywheel to get them going and we hope that part of the flywheel’s next turns will be the work that they then execute and there may be wind in their sails in the form of support from other funders because they have this very clear plan for growth,” Sheffler said.
Learn more: https://taca-arts.org/our-programs/accelerator/
*TACA is part of North Texas Giving Day. North Texas Giving Day is September 21, with early giving beginning September 1. During the early giving period, TACA will host a free public event on September 18 at the Wyly Theatre in the Dallas Arts District called "The Art of Belonging” as part of its Perforum program.
