Lean, mean, value addin' machine

If you have about 40 minutes, watch Ben Cameron's comments from the Illinois Arts Alliance 2009 Members Meeting.

If you don't have 40 minutes to spare, watch it anyway. The survival of your arts org might depend on it.

Midway in the address, Cameron asks the following four questions (he uses dance as an example - enter your org instead). He insists that you must be able to answer these questions.
1. What is the value of dance to your community?
2. What is the value dance alone brings (or brings better than anything else) to your community?
3. How would your community be damaged if deprived of dance tomorrow?
4. How can your organization be optimized to be the best conduit for dance in your community?
In regards to question #2, he specifies that anything that brings second rate value or duplicated value will not last long in the current cultural and economic climate.

These questions are a key to real advocacy - not just mentioning how your outfit supports jobs - any business can do that. Likewise, parasailing excursions are good for driving tourism, and potluck suppers build community. What is the real, unique value your organization brings to your community - and keep in mind that if you're a nonprofit, you also need to justify the additional expenditures on your behalf in the form of foregone tax revenue. Anyone who doubts that, take a look at this.

If you are in your community, your state house, or on the web making the case for your discipline and your organization, sharpen up your rhetoric and add the answers to these four questions to your tackle box.

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