The Lost Files, Ep. 1
A Special Edition of Fluency w/ Dr. Durell Cooper
In this specially commissioned series with Grantmakers in the Arts, The Lost Files, Dr. Durell Cooper invites artists, community organizers, researchers, cultural and racial studies experts, and scholars to think about the narratives driving the arts and cultural sector – as it intersects with systems of structural racism and economic exclusion – and what opportunities for narrative change exist.
A full transcript of this episode is below.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Hello dear listeners. We are back with another episode of Fluency. And today I could not be more thrilled than to be joined by my guest, the incredible Dr. Zannie Voss joining us all the way from SMU Data Arts. This is part of the series that we're doing with grant makers in the arts. And when I think about the field of arts and cultural philanthropy, there's really only a few names that come to my mind across different sectors and especially thinking of really innovative people working within the different sectors of the space. So you have those who are maybe conveners around these ideas. You have those who are actually grant makers and who are working with the philanthropic dollars to get them out to the different communities.
You have service organizations that are putting out different activities and different programs to help spread awareness around certain things that might be happening or to build capacity around it. And then you have the researchers, you have those who are dedicating their lives and their careers to understanding on a granular level what is the formulation under these foundations in so many different ways. And when I think about people working in that space, there's only one name that comes up to me repeatedly over and over again, and I have to say it's yours. So thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
Durell, that's a very, very generous introduction and I'm honored to be talking with you and to be part of that whole ecosystem of grant makers, service organizations, conveners, et cetera, because that partnership is really what drives our curiosity as well as our ability to try to understand the field. So thank you for the invitation.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Thank you so much for being here. So for those who may not be as familiar with your work as I am, what's your origin story? Tell us a little bit about how you became to be.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
I am originally from New Orleans. My family for generations have been in New Orleans. I am one of four children, but the only female. So growing up I thought I was one of the boys, which I think probably to my mother's chagrin, but always thought, okay, well they're going to have careers. I'm going to have careers and pursue the things that I want to pursue. Being in New Orleans, there's particularly music, but arts and culture everywhere, it's not something that is just for those who can afford it. It's much more democratized. And growing up, seeing that, wanting to be part of it, I started playing violin as a kid, got into theater. Went to New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, which is a high school for the arts in New Orleans, and decided to focus on theater. And went from wanting to be a performer and performing for quite some time to saying wouldn't it be really cool to not just create for a role but create for production?
And so I was interested in directing and then after a while I was working at the Mark Taper Forum in Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. It's like my day job in arts marketing and directing in the equity waiver theater scene in the evenings. And looked around, I was just like, boy, wouldn't it be cool to be able to create for this whole organization rather than just a production? And so I went up to the guy who was the managing director at the time and asked him at the ripe old age of 23, 24, so how do I get your job one day?
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Whoa.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
He told me so what do you know about running a business? I was like, nothing. Well, and then that's what you need to go learn about. Because I knew theater, but I didn't know if you have this entity that's engaging a community, consuming resources, hiring people, behaving as an organizational entity, how do you run it? So I got an MBA. Eventually I got a PhD and was in management of arts and cultural organizations for many years as a managing director. But I was always curious about what makes things tick. And so that's the long version of how I got to where I am now. I've always been interested in understanding if you lift up the hood and could really understand not just what happened, but what made it happen, how could I do a better job if I had more information? What have other people learned about this before me that I should know? Those are the things that really drive my interest in this area.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm thinking about 23 year old you to have so much foresight to be like, okay, I know the things that I'm working towards. It's somewhere in that general area, it's in that direction. When did you notice or start to become aware of your skill, if I could put it that way, or actually your genius specifically in research and being able to use certain formula to uncover insights about different phenomena?
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
Well, when I grow up and I'm a genius, I will let you know.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
You are.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
I've learned so much from fellow researchers. My research trajectory began, I found myself as the managing director of Playmakers Repertory Company, which is housed part of UNC Chapel Hill. And getting that job meant that I had a tenure track position. I was like, well, what the heck? What is that going to mean? What do I have to do? And part of it was, well, I'm going to have to figure out how to not just do my practice as a managing director, but also teach and learn from research. And was offered the opportunity at the time, this is in 1997, I believe, to start work working with Theater Communications Group. We were really lucky to be able to say, hey, there's all this data out there that TCG collects on an annual basis about finances and operating.
But if we ask some questions that related more to strategy or to organizational values or to some of the other key determinants of what may be driving different types of performance, could we do that? And so they allowed us to tack on a survey and send out at the time $1 with each survey and say here's $1, go buy a cup of coffee and fill out our survey back before surveys were electronic and someone actually had to mail the thing back to us.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Wow.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
And that was really the excitement of being allowed into the sandbox. You get to be the first to see what story is happening from the data, what is emerging, and then being able to say, well, how does this fit with what's been learned before? Does it reinforce or is it new theory, new findings? From there, we've done a lot of different kinds of research and always in co-authorship because as I said, the mentorship, the learning from research partners has really been key. But it's always been this notion of even if I'm going to do research that results in academic publication, how can we make sure that we're always returning back to the field from whose data it is, whatever we learn so that if we learn, we share that with the field so folks can learn too? To me that's where things get really exciting is when you find something and then somebody else finds that useful.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Oh, I love that. I love that way of putting it. So thinking about maybe the world of philanthropy specifically, if I'm coming into this field almost as you as that 23 year old, or maybe we'll even go younger than that, maybe eight years old, how would you explain it to me if I'm an elementary school, a third grader or a fourth grader?
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
I would say that there are things in life that everyone should be able to have like food to eat or an education or the ability to go see a doctor when you're sick or to hear music. And there are other things that need protection like animals or our planet. So philanthropy happens when there's a person or an organization that wants to give money so that the person who can't afford something that they should be able to have can actually have it. It also happens when a person or an organization gives money so that the animals or our planet are actually protected. So in some countries it's the government who takes care of these folks. In the United States, the government provides police. There are other countries like ours where the government provides some support, but then it turns to these people and organizations to also give and support these individuals and causes. That's how I would describe philanthropy. Not just saying, oh, I'm an individual that's going to go make a donation, but it's really understanding the why behind it because there are certain rights to access that everyone should have.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Yes. I love the way that you put that because what it's making me think about is where does say justice fit into this conversation of this field, of this work, racial justice, social justice, environmental justice, intersectional justice, how do you see that as this through line of some of this work too, of how this field is either emerging or evolving to?
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
Yeah, I think that the justice element of it is inherent in philanthropy. So that thinking again to talking to an eight year old, that there are some people who just tend to get the short end of the stick and they don't have access to what they should have access to as a human being. And discrimination has made it really difficult for them or for people like them, not just now, but for generations. In fact, there have been other people who've had a lot of power. We all understand there are people who even may be bullies, who are opportunistic, who exploit others who have power and dominate. Those are the ones who've been treating the people who should have access and don't have it unjustly for generation. So those who have been victims of discrimination and disproportionately affected by lack of equitable access, they deserve to receive more philanthropic dollars. That's what should be at the heart of philanthropy.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Part of this series with grant makers in the arts that I'm so humbled to be editor for the overarching theme of these conversations, these engagements is narrative change and thinking about narratives that might currently exist and ways to disrupt and/or write completely new ones. And being someone who is an admirer of your work, I'm able to read how you actually do that and to see how you do that with the research that you put out into the field. But how much of that idea of narrative change, one, how would you define it, and then also how do you incorporate that into your practice?
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
It's a great question, Durell, and I think about narrative change as passing the microphone, allowing those who've not been able to have voice to be able to tell their story and everything you read about narrative change, talking about deciding what stories get told, deciding who's the subject, how does the plot unfold, how are characters or people, what perspective is being reflected? And I think that's a really key element with respect to real change, whether it's in philanthropy or in society more generally, is that ability to shift what art gets celebrated, whose stories get told, how they are told from whom? How do I approach it in my practice? I would say that try to increasingly allow other voices to emerge. There are so many, for example, with the Wallace Foundation, we had worked on a project that resulted in a paper called The Alchemy of High Performing Arts Organizations, A spotlight of Organizations of Color.
We look to the data to identify organizations that were outperforming what you would expect given who they are and where they operate. And that's what we do in so much of our work is understanding context. So we interviewed 20 leaders of these organizations and learned from them. It was their wisdom that was reflected in the report, making sure that they participated with us in webinars so that it wasn't just us telling their story, but their ability to tell their own story, their own organization story, share how they see success happening from their vantage point, crediting them with that wisdom as it emerges. Providing many case studies of just trying to make sure that it isn't just us or a foundation trying to co-opt, but making sure that we're helping to lift up the strengths and give them an avenue for expressing that.
And again, in doing so, it's not to say that they aren't capable of doing that on their own, but as we're coming up with findings, as we're approaching research work of trying to do so in a way that really allows different histories, voices, perceptions to emerge as what drives the findings and how those voices help us to understand what we're seeing in the numbers.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Yes, that is such a wonderful way to put it. And so I'm thinking about, because that research was phenomenal and there's so many incredible insights in there to learn, and that's such a big component of the work that you do at SMU Data Arts. What are some of those findings that you came across specifically maybe in that study? Because it really was pretty groundbreaking I think. It came out last year and it's still referenced very frequently in different circles around this work. What were some of those insights that you pulled from it that has been so useful and beneficial? As you mentioned earlier, for the field.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
Some of the findings that resonated most for me, I think are critical issues that are ongoing. And these are interrelated. So I'll talk about them separately, but I think that they are all part of the same equation. Many of the organizations that participated in that study serve communities where there's not a lot of wealth. And so the communities that they're serving are not able to pay higher prices for tickets. There are not wealthy donors who are coming from within those communities. And when you think about, just going back to your initial point with respect to philanthropy, why philanthropy? What is it? In most other nonprofit sectors, philanthropy flows to where there is greatest community need. Those who don't have access to healthcare, to education, et cetera. And yet in arts and culture, historically philanthropy has flowed to organizations that were able to become large because they were serving communities that were fairly well off.
They could charge higher ticket prices and grow their earned revenue. They had wealthy donors who were also their audience members who were able to help support the organization. And we knew this from research that's where a lot of the philanthropy dollars were going at an institutional level as well. So when you're from your mission related work, serving a community that does not have high means you're serving an economically disadvantaged community. So you may be able to have a deeper footprint of individual relationships, but it's not an engine for growth. And so if you put that together from your community, you're not going to be able to grow. And the philanthropic world of institutional funders is not providing you with equitable access to funding. You can't grow and not to say every organization necessarily wants to grow, but for those who do want to grow, they don't have agency to do so.
And what it means for the organizations, even for those who were able to grow over time, one of the critical pressing issues is organizational capacity, is staff capacity, is not having enough people, particularly those who are in revenue generating positions like in marketing, in fundraising, to be able to help be a catalyst for that economic engine of growth. And so when I think about what are some of the pressing issues, organizational capacity, they are largely human resource starved. And it's not because of a lack of talent amongst the people who are there. They just need more of them. What is needed in terms of addressing some of these pressing issues is dedicated institutional funding can address this real barrier to growth for those who do want to grow. One of the wonderful things, it's not that it was a pressing issue. But one of the most joyous findings was the incredible sense of relevance that these organizations that are of or primarily serve communities of color, the incredible level of relevance that they have to their communities.
Demand was never mentioned as an issue. We don't have enough audiences. That doesn't happen. There's this continuous connection to community and meeting community needs. But as community needs grow, you still need organizational capacity to continue to serve more people. And where you see the disconnect is they're trying to do more and more on the backs of fewer and fewer people relative to those being served without the philanthropic support that's necessary to try and grow the organization's capacity to meet those needs. So that was really for me, some of the interesting findings that emerged repeatedly, repeatedly in conversation with these incredible organization leaders.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
That is so powerful and it's very easy to see why that has, as you put it, resonated with so many people. I'm thinking more informal conversations of having with coworkers who are, or colleagues in the field who might be working at organizations that are primarily led by and/or serving people of the global majority. Those are common trends that you hear. I think where it becomes elevated is that you are putting behind that a very rigorous method for other people if they wanted to test the validity of what your insights are showing. Here you have it, this is the data.
And now we've taken a sample size that was valid enough to where this would be repeated amongst other organizations of these sizes. Here's the data and we're putting this SMU Data Arts stamp of approval on it as well. And so it's like now literally take that to the bank. Let's get those dollars as you mentioned, that historically have actually been going to organizations that have been larger institutions. Let's get those dollars now flowing as you mentioned before, where it is most intended for initially in the idea of the institution of philanthropy in general.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
I think about some of the repeated comments about staff burnout. So it's not having enough people and the people who are there could make more money if they wanted to work in another field, in another industry. And so the salaries are low because the budgets are low and they're being asked to continue to serve more people because of their profound sense of relevance. And that's particularly throughout the pandemic as there were layoffs, the people who were left were asked to do more than their fair share. In coming out of the pandemic I think about what an opportunity this is for philanthropy to consider making whole the staffs of organizations that focus on the global majority so that this issue of organizational capacity, just pay makes it attractive for people to want to work in these organizations longterm. And not just from a passion standpoint.
But from a practical standpoint. That's something that you can't just give, you think about walking into an area of great need with just enough resources to keep you small, but what are the catalytic level of resources that are necessary to right historical wrongs in terms of philanthropy? I don't think, and this question came up not just with the Alchemy project, with other projects of looking at working capital of organizations that are of or primarily serving communities of color. It's like, well they're small because that's really just their lack of management skills of not being able to grow the organization without taking responsibility for being part of the ecosystem that has basically kept them small.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
So let's hop in a space ship together or maybe it's a time machine, we're going to jump in the DeLorean and we are, let's say 20, 25 years into the future, do we see this trend of where the dollars have been historically flowing to primarily white led institutions, do we start to see that gap at least closing in the philanthropic space with shifting some of those dollars more into communities of color?
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
I think we're really at that juncture right now. It goes back to your question about how does racial and social justice fit into philanthropy. If philanthropy is truly about providing those who are victims of discrimination and disproportionately affected by lack of equitable access, I think that during this period of racial justice movement that coincided with the pandemic, there's a greater sense of awareness in the historical lack of equity to funding. And so there've been more funders that have started shifting their funding in this direction. And I think that's a really positive sign. And you think about everything from Ford Foundations, America's Cultural Treasures, $156 million 16 funders, Mellon Foundation's Black Seed initiative. These are just a couple of examples. There are far more than that. It's a question of, okay, 20 years from now, will this be the train that has left the station and this is the future?
Or will it be that while issues of racial justice are top of mind, the funding zeitgeist will be top of mind? And then as soon as something else happens, whether it's recession or war, whatever the latest media story is, if the philanthropic world says we really wanted to do that and we did it for a little while, but now we're getting pressure from our boards, from organizations that historically were receiving grants that are now really upset that they're not getting the same levels of funding, will we see funders go back to what has historically been a comfort zone and easy to do? I'd love to think that it's more the former than the latter. Time will tell. I think when I think about a really bright future, I think about most of the country's wealth has been concentrated among whites and the origin of many foundation's wealth was generated from exploitative industries through stolen generational wealth through slavery.
What would be really amazing to see is that the wealth that's created by individuals in the global majority in the next 20 years in a society where a systemic racism is dismantled, to see that new wealth transformed into substantial funding that supports the organizations that are led or are serving people of color. That's what I think of as a really bright future.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Yes, I would definitely need some sunglasses for that future. There's a very big part of me that's really looking forward to it because yeah, I just think that there are some interesting pathways that are being opened up and there's a lot of variables at play. We are all trying to do our part in it and definitely what you're doing in your field is trailblazing and innovative. And along with that, what might you currently be working on now that you can let us in on some of your current projects?
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
Sure. So some of the research we're working on now, one of the projects that I'm super excited about and it's in development, we have the data collected for it already. It looks at the intersection of workforce diversity. So within arts and cultural organizations, who is working there? Who are the artists? Who are the staff members? Who are board members? Are they people of color, LGBTQ+, people with a disability? What are ages? Like who's working there? How is it reflective of the local community population characteristics? But we're looking at workforce demographics in conjunction with psychological safety. And so what is the extent to which people who work in the organization have a sense that they can express disagreement, express their own ideas, take risks? Is it a place that shoots down people for being different? Is psychological safety more important to employees who are either currently or have been historically marginalized within arts workplaces?
And then not just from a moral imperative standpoint, but what does it mean for the organization? What's the extent to which having a more heterogeneous, more diverse versus more homogeneous workforce, what is the power that psychological safety can add for the organization? And there we're looking at different outcomes. So employee satisfaction, willingness to recommend the organization to other peers like them in the field, looking at levels of innovation and looking at individual contributions. So is there really for the organizations, the ability to engage more individual donors when they create workspaces where people can feel like they can bring their whole selves, their best selves into work? Because there's so much research that's out there already about having diverse perspectives. What does that mean in terms of getting out of a group think and being able to excel as an organization? There's a rich literature about diversity.
There's another one about psychological safety. So we're trying to marry those two and understand how does this affect arts and cultural organizations and have had the great pleasure in this past year once very recently, of talking with Carmen Morgan from Art Equity about this topic because we are researching it and she's seeing the lived experience of it in her work with arts and cultural organizations. So that's one area. Another area we're talking with one grant maker about investigating what are the determinants of organizational growth so is it around leadership? What are the key catalytic elements that when you research organizations as they're going through periods of inflection points or growth, what was the juice? What was the thing that brought about that moment? We know from the Alchemy research, what are some of the steps that happen, short term outcomes, immediate outcomes, but what's the flame that really is that moment that helps growth happen?
We're working on two projects with Ford Foundation right now doing an examination of their creativity and free expression grant program. And also looking at the America's Cultural Treasure's cohort. And those are both really fascinating projects. Other members of the research team have a lot of other irons in the fire. We're investigating arts vibrancy during Covid. How did it change for communities across the country? What were some of the elements that about vibrancy that changed and why? We looked at audience engagement. So arts audience behavior during and coming out of the pandemic. How does that behavior change? We've looked at arts employment and unemployment, how that's been disproportionately affecting employees of color.
We're looking at a concept with. Dr. Glenn Voss is our research director. One of our research fellows is Dr. Karthik Kannan. Another one's Dr. Young Woong Park. And that team's looking at infrastructure bias, which is the examination of let's say a state to say instead of just looking at where are the arts organizations and what are the community characteristics that surround the organizations, like what communities are being served a lot right now by non-profit arts and cultural organizations and who lives there, infrastructure bias is really looking at, if we look for every census track in a state. And we know from the research, from the data, the role that distance plays in arts attendance, what are the communities or census tracks that there's not an infrastructure, there's not an arts infrastructure anywhere near for people to engage with? Starting to think about in addition to non-profit arts and cultural entities or infrastructure, what else is located nearby that might be leveraged for arts engagement?
So whether it's a community based organization or community center, a church, what are other infrastructure elements that we may be able to help shine a light on and to work with funders to identify, to say within the geographic area that's supposedly important to you as a funder, what are the missed opportunities in terms of equitable funding? Those are some of the areas that we're noodling around with right now. In addition to continuing to look at organizational health.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
While you were speaking, I was thinking all day you were just engaged in these incredible conversations, one with other people, peers in the field around this work, but also with the data and understanding what it's saying and decoding it and uncovering it. You're just in interesting conversations all day long and such an exciting way as part of what you get to do and call it your career. That's amazing when you think about it like the level of conversations that you get to have. It's a gift, it's a real gift, but you also have a gift to be able to one, speak those different languages and to understand or to at least allow data to reveal itself to you. That's a skill.
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
Well I appreciate you saying that. I feel like I'm incredibly fortunate to be in a position where I get to talk with people about what are some of the questions that are top of mind for them. Some of my most enjoyable moments are the brainstorming that happens, whether it's with other researchers, whether it's with people running organizations, whether it's with funders about what they really want to know is X, and then stopping to think about, well number one, is there data available to really get at the thing that they want to get at? And then how would you design the approach to examining that question? And I am so fortunate to work with Glenn, who is down here as a researcher. The methodological capabilities that he has and some of the other researchers have are just mind blowing to me but to be able to say, can you sit down with me on this discussion? Because I think this is really important to understand and if we can collectively come up with and if we wanted to answer that question, here's how we'd approach it.
I continue to learn from the research team, but I also continue to learn from people in the field about they're in the trenches, they're on the ground, they're dealing with the issues. They know where the light has to be shown. Because we could be off on our own as a research center just doing the things we thought were interesting. But again, if it's not useful then it's what is it really for? We're incredibly lucky to work with so many partners who allow us into their world to be able to try and leverage some of the information that we have. I'm inspired when I talk with you, we've had numerous conversations. I've not had the chance yet to work with you in depth on a project, but being able to bring these different perspectives and approaches just opens up new possibilities where I think no matter how much I know, there's still so much to learn. Isn't that exciting?
Dr. Durell Cooper:
That is exciting. That is exciting. And I want to thank you so much for coming on, but along with this learning aspect of it, you also give a lot back. You give a lot back through your work and also as your role as an educator as well. We didn't really talk about that much. But you mentioned having tenure in the past and you give back. You don't hold knowledge and you find multiple pathways to be able to disseminate the knowledge that you've accumulated. And I want to thank you for that. I think you coming on today is indicative of that as well. How can people keep up with you and well, first of all, there's no real keeping up with you, but how can maybe they follow your work?
Dr. Zannie G. Voss:
All of our research is available through SMU Data Arts website, but to stay up to date on the latest reports, events, et cetera, two ways. If you go to our website, which is culturaldata.org, in the upper right hand corner, there is a button for click subscribe. There's no cost to it. It's really just saying, do you want us to let you know when we have newsletters and information coming out? If you're not a website person, you can just send a text, write DataArts all one word and send it to 22828. And that will also subscribe you to our newsletter and dissemination. And I have to say Durell, you said I'm a teacher, I'm still a professor at the moment. I'm not teaching. I'm focusing my energies exclusively on the research and on running SMU Data Arts. But there's nothing that inspires me more than seeing the next generation work in ways that I will always admire and aspire to. And you embody that. So thank you so much for the invitation to be in discussion with you now. You're one of my heroes.
Dr. Durell Cooper:
Well, the feeling is definitely mutual. So thank you so much. And yeah, please let me know how I can support your work too, because it's phenomenal and it's a pleasure to do so.
About the Contributors
Dr. Zannie Voss is Director of SMU DataArts and Professor of Arts Management in SMU’sMeadows School of the Arts and the Cox School of Business. Previously she was Chair of Arts Management at SMU, a Professor at Duke University and Producing Director of Theater Previews at Duke, where she transferred two productions to Broadway. Her 70+ academic and applied research articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals and as professional publications. She has co-authored Theatre Facts for Theatre Communications Group since 1998. She serves on the boards of the International Association of Arts and Cultural Management, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Dallas Symphony Association, and she is a former member of the American Academy of Arts and Science’s Commission on the Arts.
Dr. Durell Cooper is one of the nation’s most prominent cultural strategists specializing in systems change and collaborative thought leadership. Prior to founding cultural innovation group, llc, he was a program officer at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA). He also worked at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, inc. In the marketing department conducting outreach to veteran service organizations and for Lincoln Center education recruiting and training teaching artists as well as several community engagement initiatives aimed at increasing equity and inclusion in NYC public schools. Prior to that he was a public-school teacher. Durell is also a proud veteran of the U.S. Navy. He is also the creator and host of the web series, Flow, and the podcast, Fluency with Dr. Durell Cooper.
