 Hello and welcome everyone to Advocacy and Financial Resilience, a TCG virtual summit and the first event in our fall, winter convening season, Crisis and Transformation. We are so grateful that you're here. I'm Teresa Eyring, the Executive Director and CEO of TCG and I use she, her pronouns. I'm zooming from the unseated lands of the Lenape, colonially known as Manhattan. For people with visual access needs, I'd like to offer a visual description. I am a white woman with shoulder-length brown hair, pink-rimmed glasses and a black jacket and I'm sitting in front of a wall that has some artwork and a lovely oval mirror with gold trim. As an additional access update, I wanted to let you know that our ASL interpreters unfortunately needed to cancel last minute because of a non-COVID illness. We do still have captions and information about accessing them is in the chat. Adrienne. Hello everyone. I'm Adrienne Badou, TCG's Deputy Director and COO and I use he, him pronouns. It's so nice to see all of you here today in the Zoom boxes. It's awesome to connect with you all. To support visual access needs, I am of Indian descent. I have short black hair with a dusting of gray and I'm wearing a red and blue striped shirt. I'm also zooming from the land of the Kato Wichita, Tawakoni and Kikapu peoples. We're also going to share TCG's land acknowledgement in the chat along with ways that moves us from acknowledgement to support native-led movements for justice. Now, today's exciting for a lot of reasons. The first is that we're trying something new. For over 20 years, this wasn't just the season of cute sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes. No, it was also the season of our fall forum on governance. It was always such a joy to see new and familiar faces here in New York City and especially so many trustees. The last few years, we were so lucky to have our open and night party at Joe's Pub to raise glasses and watch beautiful performances. So please just imagine us leaning in, talking over all that buzz and telling you how fabulous you are and how much we've missed seeing you. You all look so good. We've missed you, but even in these Zoom boxes, they are no substitute for the pub. We've learned a lot over the past two years of virtual convenings. We've learned that we can connect with people who, for one reason or another, didn't make the annual trek to New York City. More access means more voices around our table, and that strengthens our work in powerful ways. What's more, it gives us space to reimagine our fall gathering to be more responsive to the needs of this very unique moment. That's why instead of three intense in-person days all crammed together, we have four summits spread over the next four months. On November 13th, we're thrilled to partner with Jesse Cameron Alec to talk about artists and their role as innovators, visionaries, and problem solvers, and to discuss how we can catalyze field-wide action to center their voices in leadership. Although this is an invited and limited capacity forum that centers artists and to ensure proper COVID protocols are followed, all sessions will be accessible online. The idea for that November convening was brought to us by Jesse Alec, and it's inspired by a study he conducted with the Sundance Institute. If you haven't checked it out yet, we're going to put a link in the chat right now. I think it's really worth reading. His conclusions are phenomenal. Over the past year and a half, TCG has been undergoing its own significant organizational change, which is inspired by our mission to lead for a just and thriving theater ecology. As part of that new strategic plan, we are committed to centering black, indigenous people of color and theaters led by and for people of the global majority in all of our programming. We're so grateful that Jesse brought us this idea so that we can use our resources to amplify his work in the November convening. Our responsiveness also means not shying away from some of the biggest challenges or field phases, including the climate crisis. Even without the pandemic, many theaters would have canceled shows because of wildfires, flooding, and other extreme climate events. That's why on December 9th, we'll host our climate action in a global landscape virtual summit. Open to everyone will collectively strategize how theater can play an important role in the global response to the climate crisis. Coming off November's United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26 in Glasgow. And finally, in January, we'll convene for a virtual summit on activism and theater. Stay tuned for more information on that. And thank you again for coming with us for this exciting new fall convening series. We raise our pumpkin spice lattes. And our dirty martinis. Before we get started, we'd like to thank the sponsors for TCG's fall and winter convening series. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, the Schubert Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Fisher Dax Associates, Charcoal Blue, Threshold Acoustics, and Shuler's Shook. We're all so grateful to our friends at HowlRound for livestreaming the first two hours of this event. Now, as our title suggests, we are approaching a time where true transformation can happen in our theater field, where we can fundamentally transform our advocacy practices, our business models, and our allocation of resources toward fairness and equity with special consideration for our Black, Indigenous people of color and Black, Indigenous theater of color colleagues who continue to face racist inequities in many areas, including funding and resources. With our fall programming, our goal is to honor this unique and powerful time to make some bold changes in health theaters and the theater field work both independently and as an ecology. And we are grateful that you joined us today. Now it's my pleasure to welcome to the virtual stage one of the great arts champions in the U.S. Senate. Some of you may have become Amy Klobuchar fans during the 2020 presidential campaign where she shared her powerful vision and considerable width on the campaign trail. But for those of us with ties to Minnesota, including myself, we've long known what an extraordinary public servant Senator Klobuchar is. And when our theater field was facing a pandemic with no end in sight, she was an essential advocate for the shuttered venue operators grants. Over 16 billion dollars were originally allocated to the performing arts through the SVOG, which along with employee retention tax credits, the paycheck protection program and enhanced unemployment benefits for gig workers represents a level of federal support not seen since the work's progress administration of the 1930s. So we are absolutely thrilled and honored to have Senator Klobuchar join us. I'd like to thank Teresa for that wonderful introduction. Now, I got to know Teresa when she was managing director of the Children's Theater Company in Minnesota. And I'm grateful for your continuing leadership, Teresa, in the arts. Hello to everyone gathered for today's theater communications group conference advocating for resilience. I can't think of a better noun for now, resilience. That is a great way to start. Even in the face of a global pandemic that stopped live performance in its tracks, you never quit fighting for theaters and arts workers. But you did more than just try to survive, you grew. You looked inward and placed a new focus on the outward. The need to promote racial justice is part of your mission to lead for a just and thriving theater ecology. And today, now that we have found ways to safely host in-person performances, many of our theater venues are once again full of life. That's resilience. You were many times a first to close and you may be the last to open, but you have fought through it. Of course, there's probably wouldn't have been possible without help from so many arts advocates like yourselves who fought for funding to keep arts organizations above water. Here's my story. Early in the pandemic on a Saturday night, I had a conversation with Dana Frank, the owner of First Avenue in Minneapolis. She was like so many in the arts, really worried. Live performance venues were closed down. Without help, we risk losing so many places that made our town special, from big theaters like the Guthrie and Children's Theater Company to small theaters across our state like the Bemidji Community Theater and Common Wheel in southern Minnesota and all the concerts from First Avenue to country western bars, by the way, in Austin, Texas and places in Austin, Minnesota. I knew Congress had a step in to save those places, so we came together, theater companies, concert venues, zoos, museums to make sure they had the resources to make it through. I worked across the aisle with Senator John Cornyn, a conservative from Texas, that's why I mentioned those country western bars, to pass legislation that put aside 16 billion for the shuttered venues operating grant. That was our bill. It's the biggest funding ever in the history of America for the arts and I hope it bodes well for things to come. That bill helped more than 12,000 venues keep their doors open. Yes, sure, it was about Broadway, but it was also about places for people that were so focused on uplifting people of color, like the Ebony Repertory Theater in Los Angeles, a Teatro Vista in Chicago, and the Raghamala Dance Company in Minneapolis. A wonderful dance theater led by a woman who immigrated to the United States from India and her daughter. It has also brought support to small theaters that engage other communities and aren't always represented in the arts, like Wildwood Theater, a Minnesota organization that is dedicated to creating artistic experiences that unravel the stigma around mental health and mental illness. Yes, we brought the music back, but we also brought our connectedness back. And all of you found creative ways to keep that going during the year, but none of this would have been possible without you. Not only did you mobilize your communities in support of my legislation, but organizations were there with us every step of the way. It was also about after we passed it, making sure it actually got implemented. How many times have you heard, well, they passed a law, but nothing happened? It was just day in and day out. I can't tell you how many calls I had with the White House, with the Small Business Administration to make sure the funding actually went out. With places shut down, venues shut down for so much of the past few years, I think a lot of us recognize that there's a real yearning for the work you do. So it's time to look to the future. As the Duluth Mayor calls it, the lighthouse on the horizon. The success of the Save Our Stages Act showed us some of the wonderful things that become possible when we work across the aisle to support the arts. I think we have the opportunity to do more moving forward. Some of this is about making sure the national endowment for the arts has the funding it needs to offer support to venues across the country. And some of it is about making sure arts organizations are able to benefit from broader programs like infrastructure funding. Here's one example, something I'm working on. I know that many of you operate on a non-profit model, meaning you aren't eligible for many of the tax credits that companies can get for investing in energy-efficient infrastructure. A lot of theaters are in older buildings, not all of them. Okay, got three. But many of you are in older buildings. Theaters shouldn't miss out on these benefits just because they're non-profits. It makes no sense. That's why I'm leading legislation that has gotten in the bipartisan infrastructure bill with Senator Hovind of North Dakota to give non-profits funding to invest in energy-efficient infrastructure. They shouldn't have to choose between their mission and responding to climate change and making their buildings more energy-efficient when so many of them are in old buildings. And as I said, the bill was included in the bipartisan infrastructure package that the Senate recently passed. And I think, you know, I got Save Our Stages Act done. I'm going to get this done, too. So keep reaching out to elected officials. I know a lot of this is hard right now. Believe me, I'm in the middle of it. But don't give up. I'm so honored to be your partner in Washington fighting for a resilient arts ecosystem in the United States. Got your line in there. Enjoy the rest of the conference. You deserve it. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Wow. Thank you for fighting for legislation that supports theaters and theater people. It is amazingly powerful to hear how a single conversation with a constituent helped to get this legislation going. I'm Nicole Salter. I'm the board chair of TCG. My pronouns are she, her, and hers. I'm on the glorious ancestral and current lands of the Lene Lenape people. And I am an African-American woman with long locks, a gorgeous camel-colored hat sitting amid the environment of what we would know to be today as Harlem catching some sunshine. But now before I welcome our next round of speakers that I will enjoy in this wonderful, beautiful, sunshiney day, I'd like to do two things. First, Senator Klobuchar just told us about the power that we have as advocates. When I say we, I don't mean the royal we, at least not right now. I mean us, you and me, because in a minute some professional arts advocates are going to share their expertise and we need it. We're grateful for it. But their knowledge is nothing without a movement to back them up. And that's where we come in. So here's what we'll do. I'm gonna ask you what your superpower is when it comes to arts advocacy. And you're going to put that in the chat. So when I say superpower, I don't mean flying or super strength, although if that's your thing, you know, welcome, we're glad you're here. I mean superpower, like I'm bold in asking for what I need. That's a superpower. Or when I speak from my heart, I change people's minds. Another superpower. Or I'm like a wizard with memes. That's great. We need advocacy memes. We need all of it to get this field, the support it deserves. So whatever superpower you can offer to this arts advocacy moment. I'd like you to put that in the chat right now. I'll tell you one of mine. My superpower is storytelling. Now that you're adding your superpowers to the chat, I'm gonna do one more thing before we get started. Fans of the MCU know that one superhero is good, but a league of them is a whole lot better. And that's where TCG comes in. You see the segue I'm making here? It's TCG that helps bring us together to fight for and win the largest federal investment in the arts in generations. TCG does arts advocacy when it's hot and also when it's not. Helping to build the bipartisan relationships that lead to lasting progress. After you share your superpower, can I ask you to do one more thing? Can I ask you to make a donation to support the organization that brings us superheroes together? I think I can. I think I just did. There's a slide with a couple of different ways you can do it. When you give, you're not just supporting the arts advocacy efforts at summits like this. You're also supporting TCG books. Anybody read? Anybody write? And the new illuminations series curated by Brandon Jacob Jenkins and featuring classic works by Black Playwrights. You're supporting American Theater Magazine and the extraordinary legacy of Jim O'Quinn, the founding editor we lost this year who nurtured so many arts journalists on his way to publishing over 300 issues. You're supporting TCG's mission to lead for a just and thriving theater ecology like Thrive, the Thrive program which provides unrestricted funds, professional development and technical assistance to by-talk theaters. So I ask you one last time, my fellow arts advocate superheroes, please, yes, give to TCG because you are abundant and you have the capacity to give and keep on putting those superpowers in the chat because we're gonna call on them later. Now, with that, it is my ultimate pleasure to welcome the original Wonder Woman of arts advocacy. We're talking Linda Carter here. Laurie Baskin! I'll turn the mic over to you, Laurie. Thank you, Nicole. I love that. Thank you so much. I have to tell my family that they now have to call me Linda Carter, Wonder Woman. That's hilarious. Thank you. Now, I really do appreciate it. But it takes a village. Before I get started, I do want to just note that if you have questions, comments, or resources that you'd like to share throughout our time together, please use this padlet that my colleague Devin is dropping in the chat right now. So you'll see it there. I am Laurie Baskin. I am director of advocacy at TCG. I use the pronouns she, her, hers. I'm zooming in from Northern Westchester near Peekskill, New York, the lands of the Lenape and Wappengers peoples. And my visual description. I'm a white woman with shoulder length brown hair that's going grayer every year. And I'm in my family room and I have a black top and here we go. First off, and as they appear on the screen, I would like to thank my colleagues for being here today and introduce them to you. Najin Lee is the director of government affairs and education advocacy at the League of American Orchestras. Heather Noonan is vice president for advocacy at the League of American Orchestras. And Tony Shivers is director of government affairs at both DanceUSA and Opera America. We are the government affairs staff at our respective organizations and we work together to inform the advocacy efforts of the Performing Arts Alliance, the coalition of performing arts advocates, now comprised of 18 national arts service organizations. Over decades of work in arts advocacy, we have learned that working together in the broadest possible coalition is most successful in advancing our common needs and interests. We have also worked consistently together in bipartisan fashion, as Nicole mentioned, and that practice has served us well and laid solid groundwork for our current needs. As you've already heard, TCG has embraced a new mission to lead for a just and thriving theater ecology. And as we move to align all of our programs with this new mission, in advocacy, we are working to center the leadership and needs of BIPOC communities in our advocacy issues and activities. Toward that end, and with thanks to my colleague Karina Shulenberg, I have some research that I'd like to share with you. Of the 305 BIPOC organizations we reviewed, 91 received funding from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grants. The total amount received by BIPOCs was over $15 million, with an average amount received of 172,000 and a median of $118,000. 52 BIPOCs received PPP funding with a total award amount of almost $4 million and an average amount of $43,000 and a median of $78,000. Considering just these two sources of federal funding together, nearly $20 million in federal relief went to BIPOCs. While that's significant, we also know that many BIPOCs did not access either program and we wanted to better understand why. In a survey we sent out in September, we heard that in some cases, they applied but didn't receive funds and in other cases, they didn't hear about these opportunities and didn't realize that they could apply for them. For us at TCG, we prioritized BIPOCs in both PPP and SVOG information sessions, hosting BIPOC affinity webinars and technical assistance sessions to make sure these theaters were supported. This research suggests we have more work to do in making sure that BIPOCs have equitable access to relief and recovery funds. Later in our breakout sessions, we'll have an opportunity to take collective accountability to ensure that future relief funds flow equitably and don't further the systemic racism that our BIPOC colleagues face. Now, I'd like to share the microphone with my colleagues. One at a time, we're going to move through some various policy issues that we're working on and describe the advocacy opportunities that we see moving forward. I'm going to start with Tony. Tony Shivers from Dance USA and Opera America who's going to talk about NEA appropriations and some other stuff. Over to you, Tony. Thank you, Lori. I appreciate the opportunity. Good afternoon and good morning to you all. My name, again, is Tony Shivers. I am the director of government affairs for Dance USA and Opera America. These are national service organizations that represent the professional dance community and the opera community respectfully before the US Congress and the executive branch. I'm also on the board of the National Board of the National PTA, which is a national network of parent-teacher organizations whose mission is to make every child's potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children. The pronouns that I use are he and him. I like to describe myself as a African-American, Native American male with black and silver wired glasses. I have short hair, very short hair with a beard. I am wearing a blue and purple striped shirt with a purple striped tie and a blue sweater. I am blessed to live on ancestral lands of the Monahoic in Herndon, Virginia, which is 25 miles west of Washington, DC. I just want to say before I begin my brief update that it's been a pleasure working with your director of advocacy, Lori Baskin on a variety of common issues of interest. I admire her policy expertise, her passion for the arts and for supporting TCG members all across the country. And in fact, because of her diligent efforts over the many months that I have worked with her, my members at DanceUSA in Upper America have benefited greatly during, particularly during this current pandemic with a variety of relief that they have received from the federal government. So I thank Lori and I value my working relationship with her and TCG as well as my other working relationships with the other panelists on this panel, Najin Lee and Heather Noonan from the Legal American Orchestras. As Heather or as Lori indicated, I just wanted to provide a brief update on some issues that we all have been working on collectively and individually within our respective organizations. First off, I wanna discuss the appropriations, the status of appropriations, aka funding all aspects of the federal government for this current fiscal year, fiscal year 2022. Right now the federal government is operating at or on a temporary funding bill until December 3rd and that's funding the federal government at FY 2021 enacted levels, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities which are operating under their FY 2021 enacted funding levels, which is $167.5 million. The, in a normal environment on Capitol Hill and in Congress, Congress will pass 12 individual spending bills to fund all aspects of the federal government. However, that hasn't happened in a number of years. Right now we're dealing with this temporary funding bill until December 3rd. And back in late July, the US House of Representatives passed a seven appropriations package, bill package that actually funds a proposed 200, a record level of $201 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities each. This is a record level of funding, the largest level of funding that the NEA has received was back in 1992, which was $176 million. And so we are appreciative that this record level proposed amount of funding is being considered, has been passed by the House. It was kickstarted by the current administration for their budget. And so we're working not only collectively but also individually to our organizations to ensure that that $201 million for the NEA and NEH is passed in any final package going forward. I will just say that the US Senate on the other side of Capitol Hill released its proposed funding legislation for FY 2022. Their funding level, proposed funding level is $182.5 million, $15 million above what the NEA is receiving currently. However, again, we are continuing to be aggressive each and every year to get as much money as we can for all federal arts and cultural agencies and programs and initiatives. And that will be aligned to the $201 million that's been passed by the House and was initially proposed by the current administration. Let me transition over to infrastructure with the Honorable Senator who mentioned that at the top of this event in her remarks. There is a current piece of bipartisan legislation called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion investment in our nation's roads, bridges, traditional infrastructure, electrical grid, broadband network. It also includes an amendment by Representative Teresa Fernandez from New Mexico that includes arts and entertainment as an industry to be included in potential $10 billion in industry partnership grants that would be implemented by the US Department of Labor. And so this is a huge win at this point in time for the arts and cultural sector. And as we will get into later on today, we'll be very aggressive in order to try to pass this piece of legislation, which could be voted on as early as today. Reconciliation, I'm sure you all are consuming a lot of news at this point in time of what's going on with reconciliation, specifically a proposed economic relief package that is being heavily pushed by the Biden-Harris administration that is aligned to their Build Back Better agenda. There is, as of this morning, the administration actually released a $1.75 trillion framework, just a framework, not any legislation or legislative text to be considered, but a framework to really guide negotiations and to kickstart the legislative drafting process. And this is, again, aligned to the current administration's agenda and priorities. It comes to a whole host of issues, including climate change, investing in our nation's families, by the way, of tax credits, investing in our nation's educational system, expanding and targeting benefits under a variety of beneficial benefit programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, as well as looking at investing in our local communities. This is a huge piece of legislation that could potentially not only support the overall arts and cultural sector, support the creative economy, but also individual creative workers and their families. We are collectively, and again, working through our individual organizations will be looking at this framework, looking at the legislative text to be eventually drafted and considered by Congress. And I'm sure that your Director of Advocacy, Laurie Bassman, will keep you all engaged and provide additional opportunities where you can lean in with your voices and engage with your federal elected officials so they'll know how this piece of legislation, this economic recovery package, could potentially benefit not only your organizations, but your local arts communities, as well as your overall communities going forward. I just want to end with just a reminder of what's going on at the NEA, the National Diamond for the Arts. Just a reminder that the current administration has notified its intent to nominate chairs for the NEA, NEH. For the NEH, it's Shelly Lowe. And for the NEA, it's Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson. There is, at this point in time, no clear schedule as to when they will be confirmed by the United States Senate. But this is a good opportunity for the NEA and NEH to be on the forefront as far as the Congress knowing what's going on with the NEA, how are they best supporting state arts agencies and arts, direct arts organizations on the ground. And we'll look forward to working with these potential chairs as they're getting confirmed by the Senate and they settle into their roles at their respective agencies. And then one reminder about upcoming decisions from the NEA. If you all remember, the NEA has received $135 million in emergency funding from the American Rescue Plan. This was this major pandemic relief package that was passed in March. The $135 million, the NEA is using that money to distribute money to local arts agencies, to sub grant to various stakeholders, art stakeholders within their respective communities and throughout their respective states as well as direct grants to arts related organizations. It was a two-part application process, if you will. They are making decisions on these American Rescue Plan grants in December, this coming December. And then in January, organizations will be able to start expending their funds from these grants. And so as further developments and decisions are coming out, your Directive Advocacy, Lori Baskin, will keep you all posted as to next steps. So thank you for the opportunity, Lori. I really appreciate it. And let me kick it to my awesome colleague, Nejan Lee with the League of American Archives who will talk about international artistry issues. Great, thank you. I have a lot to squeeze into three minutes. So I hope you don't mind if I jump straight in. So basically with the visa policy, which is what I'll specifically be focusing on, I'm gonna boil this down to the problems and then the advocacy and ongoing opportunity. So the problems are basically coming down to the fact that the petition process to engage international guest artists to come to the US has always been doable but tricky, even before COVID. And the main reasons for that are inconsistency, unreliability and cost. And the inconsistency and unreliability are mostly due to uneven training at US Citizenship and Immigration Services. What this usually is, what's usually causing this is that there are adjudicators, the people who are reviewing petitions that sometimes have overly strict interpretations of the regulations. So when you're applying for either an O or a P, which are the classifications for temporary guest artists, there are standards that you're supposed to meet. But it is often the case that someone might receive a request for more information that can throw a serious wrench into the planning timeline. Most often these are requests to show how either the petitioning organization, which may or may not be the employer or the artist has a sufficiently distinguished reputation. That is a somewhat subjective standard. So you can see why there are all sorts of reasons that that can especially disadvantage petitioners or artists that are a little bit early or mid-career, perhaps haven't won competitions that have a lot of name recognition or maybe haven't received press in things like the New York Times or other internationally recognized sources. So this can present some serious challenges. And obviously if someone gets a denial that presents a whole other slew of problems of having to reschedule or find a substitute artist on potentially a very short timeline. The cost, there are any number of costs that go into the base process for filing. You have the petition itself and then the labor organization. But one major concern that we have is that the premium processing service, which is what a lot of petitioners have to avail themselves of if they're looking at maybe just a month out, that is gonna cost an extra $2,500. And that's on top of everything else just to expedite. So obviously that is a prohibitive expense and it is especially disadvantageous to organizations that just don't have a lot of wiggle room in their budget. They have sort of a leaner operating or artistic budget for these things. Having to add an extra 2,500 per petition can really make a big difference in the number of international guest artists that they can engage. So you can imagine that COVID just made things worse between consular staff shortages, COVID safety protocols and of course the travel bans. And while we're really, really glad to see that the travel bans will be lifting on November 8th, a lot of these problems that I've mentioned will persist. So there is a lot of opportunity for us to keep working and keep communicating. So to shift to the advocacy and ongoing opportunity, I'll start by saying that the national arts groups like TCG, the league, dance opera and others, we have been coordinating to send communications and policy requests to citizenship and immigration services and the State Department. I've dropped a couple of those PDFs in the padlet so you can check those out at your leisure. During COVID we requested some COVID specific flexibility but we also have a list of improvements and requests that we've been raising for many years and continue to do so. And that includes pushing Congress for legislation to improve the visa process. That has not yet been reintroduced but as soon as it is, you can believe we'll let you know. And so each change in administration and congressional leadership means that we have to keep making our voices heard and we have to find the right moments to reintroduce legislation with well-placed champions. But just to let you know that we are always working on this behind the scenes. So even if you're not seeing a lot of public updates about what's happening, we're always sort of checking in with our congressional friends and also forwarding communications onto the federal agencies. Now for what you can do, stay in touch. And we think we have a pretty good idea of what arts organizations are going through but we really need to know what are your challenges especially when you've done everything right. Where is the system creating hurdles or breaking down? Are you getting unreasonable requests for evidence? Are you experiencing lengthy delays beyond what the posted timeframes are? These are really, really key for us to know so that we can have recent examples, spot trends and then make our case to the federal agencies into Congress. So document your experiences, share them with TCG, please. We do this with our orchestras and I hope and assume Tony does this with both dance and opera. And then weigh in when we activate you. Again, when we're gonna be having the legislation reintroduced, that will be the moment to reach out to your respective members of Congress and ask them to co-sign onto legislation. And in the meantime, just be prepared to talk about how important international artistry is for your community. Now, for smaller theaters and BIPOC theaters especially, be prepared to explain how your smaller budget or your specific audience or community that you're working with, it doesn't make you less professional and it certainly doesn't make you less deserving to present a guest artist than anyone else. This is part of the story that we really need to make to the federal agencies and to Congress that sometimes have a very limited view of what constitutes a distinguished reputation. So that storytelling is really important. And the last thing I will mention is in the padlet I dropped in also a reference to artistsfromabroad.org that is the online resource to basically walk you through the artist visa and tax withholding policy because while there is no such thing as a full proof visa petition, you can arm yourself to present your best petition. And so we try to really provide everything that you need and there is an ask us button. So if you have a couple of questions that aren't gonna be two case specific, we can help you out or we can refer you to people who might be able to provide a little bit more expert guidance should you need it. And I think I will end there and I believe I'm passing it on to Heather from here. Thank you. Thank you, Natcha. I'm Heather Noonan. I'm the vice president for advocacy with the League of American Orchestras. I am coming to you from the ancestral lands of the Piscataway just outside of Annapolis, Maryland. And I'm a white woman with red hair about shoulder length wearing a green top. And I have a traditional Irish drum hanging on the wall behind me. I'm very lucky to work with Nedgin Lee in the two-person Washington DC office of the League of American Orchestras and also to share this advocacy work with both Tony and Lori. And I just want to add to the superlatives that Tony shared around Lori's work that I know she is working literally 24-7 to advance the interests of theaters. I know this because she takes my calls at the oddest hours of nights and weekends as we work on these issues and on an ongoing basis. So thank you for that. I also just wanted to call out Lori's commitment to back our advocacy action with data and research and facts that resonate on the Hill. She led with some really important data at the top of this meeting. She's also been a leader in our field of advocacy and rallying really clear information and statistics that resonate with policy leaders. And Tony just reinforced that in the chat as well. How valuable that is. I have the challenge of giving you an overview on tax policy issues, arts education and workforce development. And what I think is maybe under five minutes now. So I do want to just, as you're seeing in the chat, point you to the webpage of the links available to you. We have backed up all of these topics with further background that will help you be action oriented in response to what you're hearing today. So to start out on tax policy, I'm going to touch on the employee retention tax credit very quickly. As was mentioned at the top of this presentation, it's been a really important form of support in COVID relief and it is now imperiled. So Congress extended the ERTC for the end of this calendar year. But in order to help pay for that infrastructure bill that Tony mentioned, that infrastructure bill includes repealing the fourth quarter access to the employee retention tax credit. Now, there is no limit to the number of topics that Senator Klobuchar has been a leadership on. And so this is yet another example of that. In the very last moments of the infrastructure bill being considered in the Senate, she offered a standalone alone bill that would reinstate the ERTC. So that reinstatement has not been assured yet. And so our job as advocates, your action as advocates, if your organization has counted on the ERTC to support you in the fourth quarter of this year, please articulate this to your elected officials, quantify the amount of the credit and also quantify how big that resource is in supporting your workforce retention. The workforce-oriented arguments were really persuasive in getting us the relief we have now and it's really important in retaining it. We're not sure when the next opportunity will be for restoration, but it might come in the year-end tax packages that will be addressed on the Hill. So even though we're well into fourth quarter now, it's not too late to restore this and to retroactively access the ERTC. So you'll find more background on how the nonprofit sector is talking about this and some of the links that I've provided. Staying on those issues though and the year-end tax opportunities, the other form of support that's maybe not as well-recognized that has been available to nonprofits is enhanced charitable giving incentives that are still in place for the remainder of this calendar year. So non-itemizers, those that don't itemize their tax returns have the opportunity to take a charitable deduction for their giving and we know that organizations are increasingly relying on charitable contributions and the absence of earned revenue. So there's two things that you can do in response to this charitable giving opportunity. One is make sure that your community of donors is aware that this enhanced incentive is available to them. On November 15th, nonprofits will be rallying to make sure the Hill is aware that this enhanced giving incentive has been crucial and our policy asked is to extend it and make it permanent. So in this webpage of links, you'll find opportunities to weigh in and support of that and also you'll see the language the wider sector is using to support that as well. I'm going to shift really quickly the arts education policy. I'm sure that by now you're aware that just recently a bill called the arts education for all act was introduced by Representative Bonamici and this is a comprehensive statement about the essential nature of arts learning and the essential need to do more to support access for arts education as a core subject and for every student. So what can you do now? One is make sure that your representatives are aware of the opportunity to co-sponsor this piece of legislation. While we're not in a position to see an immediate change to the federal Education and Secondary Education Act, this bill is a really important message about arts education and raising its visibility through co-sponsorship will help us create some immediate opportunities at the US Department of Education. And so the other link that's available on these resources is a letter from the arts sector to the US Secretary of Education explaining that many of the things in that bill are actual leadership areas. The US Department of Education could enact now without a new piece of legislation being passed. So I encourage you to look at that letter, lift it up, make it visible with members of Congress and urge for co-sponsorship of this bill. The other thing that you can do as advocates is be present and active and arts education policy conversations at the state and local level right now. The majority of education policymaking is happening at the state and local level and given the budget crunch within states, it's especially important that arts organizations are at the table asking for transparency and accountability and resources to support every student's need for a comprehensive education. So we've included a link to the arts education partnership and their resources to support your local level advocacy. And then the final topic to touch on is around going back to the topic of workforce development and I'm right where we started here as well. Through the infrastructure package and through other broader rewriting of major federal pieces of labor legislation, there's a real opportunity to carve out a clearer space around the arts role in workforce development. And so there's a bill that's been introduced recently, hopefully you've heard about it already and this would essentially open up opportunities of the Department of Labor to call out programs in the arts and workforce development as kind of demonstration projects. The creative, but Sarahville as it's being called has also been referenced as a way of getting back to the idea of a WPA type scale of investment in the arts and it gets the door open to that through some grant programs that would lift up examples of the arts and workforce development. It would be about $300 million in funding. Again, this is an opportunity to ask us to co-sponsor the legislation, but I think the importance behind it is to give the arts a clearer footprint in spaces at the Department of Labor where larger programs around workforce development are being enacted. So I point that out to you. And again, you can find more information by linking to the legislation, encouraging co-sponsorship. And the final piece of action on this is to stay tuned. There are going to be two more legislative packages finalized and introduced. One's called the Create Act, one's called the Place Act that also open up other opportunities to support the arts through that various federal agencies including further programs around workforce development, tax incentives for individual artists. And I know Lori will be making you aware of these bills just as soon as they're finally introduced. So those are my quick summaries. Again, loads of links to look at to find more background. And with that, I'll hand it back over to you, Lori. I hope you can all see what amazing colleagues I have. Thank you, Tony, Ned, and Heather. Thank you for that wealth of information. I am really blessed with this team. It's really a wonderful team and I'm very grateful for your work always and your partnership, but also for being here today. I'm gonna round us out with a few words about our favorite shuttered venue operator grants. As you all know, the SVOG program originally known as Save Our Stages provides an unprecedented level of support to the arts and entertainment sector, a total of $16.25 billion is available through this program. We all know and understand that the rollout has had some hiccups. It's a big program and it had to roll out quickly, so it's understandable. We also know that various stages of the program are still underway and being rolled out. We're not gonna take time here today to go into the nitty gritty of navigating the program, but we just want to note how incredibly important this funding package has been to the field. It's been a lifesaver for many. And we also know the fact that this funding was secured has given the arts sector more standing and visibility in Congress. It has set a precedent for us to be able to talk about our sector in a different way and the value of arts organizations to their communities, both as gathering places and as economic hubs. On the advocacy front, there is an effort to extend the timeframe for both incurring and expending eligible expenses. So stay tuned, we'll let you know if that passes. In addition, there may be funds left over. After the initial and supplemental awards and reconsiderations and appeals have been decided, our supporters on Capitol Hill have assured us that they have worked to protect any remaining funds from being diverted to other federal needs. We would like to outline some important uses of any remaining funds. Most of our thoughts about how those funds might be spent would require legislative action. So we have compiled a list of priorities that we are sharing with supporters on Capitol Hill. Our first one is to ask SBA to reopen the application portal, again, for smaller organizations and particularly BITOC, Black Indigenous Theaters of Color, and of course, across the performing arts sector. In our world, we say BITOCs that didn't have capacity to apply the first time around, and this time to offer a deeper technical assistance opportunity and more streamlined application process. Another is to better respond to the needs of seasonal organizations. Another idea is to lower the percent eligibility threshold to access the supplemental award, to possibly increase the percent of the supplemental award, and last to allow SVOG funds to pay off economic injury disaster loans, idle loans. That's what I have for you on the ongoing advocacy around SVOG, so please stay tuned. Aside from SVOG, of course, the only other item I'd wanna mention is that nonprofit energy efficiency bill that Senator Klobuchar mentioned earlier in her remarks, and that she was successful in adding it to the infrastructure bill. The funding for this pilot program is $50 million and will be keeping an eye on it as another terrific opportunity for the field. What a wide array of opportunities in the federal landscape for arts organizations. To close this section of the day, I really wanna thank, again, my colleagues, Negin Lee, Heather Noonan and Tony Shivers, and all of you for being here today. The level of engagement in arts advocacy over this last year has been unprecedented and completely affirms the importance of constituent engagement with your elected officials. We hope you'll continue to engage with us and with many coalitions to collectively advance the needs of the field. I am not sure that we have any time for questions right now, but I think that we will have opportunity for discussion in breakouts later in this session. So I believe I'm going to thank everybody again and turn it to Adrienne, our deputy director at TCG. Thank you. Thanks, Pamela. Thank you so much, Tony, Heather and Negin for joining us today. And of course, our Linda Carter, Lori, for your leadership and all things advocacy. We really appreciate all of the knowledge you dropped in this session. And please leave some love for the panelists in the chat. Now, over the past year, as TCG has been reimagining our research efforts, I've had the pleasure to work more closely with Dr. Zani Voss of SMU Data Arts. And can I just say Zani is not just an amazing researcher and thought leader, she is a wonderful collaborator and friend, and I'm so grateful she's here with us today. We've been focusing on the advocacy half of the summit and now Zani is going to help us deepen that conversation through the frame of financial resilience. Zani. Adrienne, thank you so much. I'm going to do a bit of a screen share here. Hi, everyone. I am Zani Voss, as Adrienne said. I use the pronouns she, her and I'm a multiracial person with shoulder length, dark curly hair and dark eyes. Today I'm wearing a white top with a blue navy jacket and I'm in a white bald room. I wanna begin by acknowledging that SMU Data Arts offices on the traditional land of the Kikapu, Wichita, Tawakani, Humano and Lenny-Linabe people and to pay my respects to elders both present and past. My sincere thanks to TCG for the opportunity to share this discussion on the crisis and transformation and for everyone here for participating. So as you see the title of this session it's Financial Resilience, Accepting and Navigating Change. It's really intended to kind of get our juices flowing about how to navigate all the change, how to be open to new values, new economic realities, plan in the face of uncertainty about the continuation of federal relief. Now we all know that seeing ahead to what a new normal is going to look like, it's obscured by the current environment's complexity, its dynamism, there's so much change, uncertainty. And yet the ability to innovate and reconfigure are really critical when the environment is both this changing and this hostile. And we know that change is gonna happen for better or for worse. So through this half hour I'm gonna ask that everyone please share with one another your theater's experience on the different points that I raised and offer your stories for change and for resilience. So what I'm gonna do is share information about the pandemic's early impact on finances and then some research that we did about buffering against uncertainty. And then I'll talk about some key thoughts about a future of financial resilience. This is really kind of a bit of a mashup of what we've learned from the data. From a wonderful thought partner and co-author Rebecca Thomas and importantly people throughout the field through two projects that we did with the Wallace Foundation that explored what drives high performance in arts organizations. The biggest debt of gratitude goes to the 41 arts leaders whose wisdom I'm going to share today through some different quotes and his insights these studies attempted to synthesize and to reflect. So thank you. All organizations reflected in the information that I'm sharing today submit their data either to a funder or to TCG through the cultural data profile. So thank you to all whose time and effort in completing the CDP allows us to share these findings. So I'm gonna kick us off looking at some early impact on finances. You'll see this come up in TCG's theater facts this year. So this is kind of a sneak preview. So earned income. This is reflecting the activity of 152 organizations theaters that responded every year from 2016 through 2020. You can see what's the impact particularly from 19 to 20 on single ticket income other earned income subscription revenue and investment instrument income. I want to point out that the timeframe that we're looking at here for 2020 went from October 1st of 2019 for fiscal year close through September 30th of 2020. And only a third of the theaters about 27% reflected here were reporting the pandemics effects on more than three months of finances. So this is kind of the canary in the coal mine look what lies ahead could be much more painful than what has already transpired and is reflected here. We see that looking at these different at these changes over time you see drops in just about every category. Other income is education and outreach income royalties, rentals. For a one year change in the single ticket income of 33% 33% drop just looking at last three months at most for most organizations 19% drop in attendance after the start of the pandemic for the one year drop it was actually 40% from 19 to 20 and for subscriptions is 27% drop. To share some latest news on ticket sales some of you have reopened your doors already some have not and for those who have these findings may resonate for you. Wolf Brown with the audience outlook monitor just shared that between 40 to 50% of arts goers have already returned. However, roughly one in five patrons did not foresee going out again until the second quarter of 2022. Numerous surveys indicate that the man's likely to be depressed throughout 2022. In an ideal of best case scenario we've been doing some demand simulation modeling. A best case scenario predicts that ticket sales would reach 86% of their four year high by December of 2021. Worst case realistic scenario with COVID rates from September puts that figure at only 56% of ticket sales. And if you go back to July our partners at TRG arts were following very closely through its COVID-19 sector dashboard monitor the 2021 holiday productions back in July were tracking well behind 2019-20 in ticket sales and revenues for most theaters. And investment instrument it was kind of erratic but one thing about invested income is you need to have investments to generate it. So this is not something that is experienced by all organizations mainly just larger ones. When it came to contributions the arts lost ground this is just data coming from giving USA's 2021 report saying that even though charitable giving in the United States in 2020 broke records it totaled over $471 billion but seven of the nine charitable sectors actually saw growth while giving to arts culture and the humanities is estimated to have declined 8.6% in inflation adjusted figures. So that's looking at the arts overall. If we kind of zoom back to just looking at these theaters we see a different story. These theaters seem to have experienced a different reality at least in the early months of the pandemic. Here you see growth in individual contributions four year growth in foundation support even though it diminished somewhat from 19 to 20 and then different changes in corporate city, federal and state support. Here this 181% increase in federal support is just the start of being able to report some of the PPP loans. And we'll see more of that as more organizations are reporting on their 2020 fiscal years. Overall, if we looked at contributed income and we left out some other contributions that really affect just a handful of organizations overall that total contributed revenue growth would be pretty substantial. It would be about 24% above inflation over this period largely driven by this one year spike of 17% likely exceptional linked to exceptional pandemic relief campaigns. So this was 2010 2020 from TRG's COVID dashboard three out of four organizations receive more individual gifts in 2020 than in 2019 but the 2020 boost in giving hasn't been sustained into 2021. So I encourage you use the chat to share your theater's experience with individual contributions what's going on in your organizations in 2021 is it going up down the same for expenses? In total expenses, even at this early stage in the pandemic we saw belt tightening 12% lower than in 2029, 7% lower than in 2016 and where do they cut? First place to cut was management and general personnel expenses slashed by 48% just in that one year. Non-personal expenses were cut 7% from the prior year. It looks like the theaters were really trying to retain at all costs payment going to program personnel. I want to talk about that subject that everyone just wakes up excited to talk about working capital. Yes, working capital. I loved this quote liquidity like cashflow sounds simplistic but it lets you dream big and really think ahead about strategic goals which you can't do if you can't turn the lights on it relieves the nuts living at night issues and lets you get beyond basic needs. It's where resiliency begins. Most of us don't wake up with excitement of a working capital but many of us do lose sleep over it. So we're gonna talk about months of working capital and working capital growth. We actually saw for the trend theaters growth in net assets balance sheets actually got healthier going into the start of the pandemic working capital did as well. So it's hard to consider resiliency without considering working capital. Working capital still wasn't anywhere near great but it was much improved since hitting the low in 2017. And so what we saw was this bigger picture of while earned income fell 30% in just one year the one year drop theaters were more flush with cash from two things exceptional pandemic giving and a 7% drop in expenses. There was growth in fixed assets growth in long-term investments. There was not the immediate or longer-term impact on the stock markets or the investments tended to continue to be robust. We'll see how that plays out into 2021 but I wanna focus now with respect to working capital. I wanna look at some organizations that have a history of being resilient and the complexity of their situation and what lessons can be gleaned from their experience. This is some work we did with Rebecca Thomas and it's working capital in the resiliency of BIPOC serving arts and cultural organizations. So from 2016 to 2019 when the economy was strong did arts organizations take actions to build liquidity to levels that could buffer the storm brought on a bio pandemic. And then how did the pandemic affect liquidity in 2020? And then how well-prepared were arts organizations that primarily serve black, indigenous and people of color communities through their mission related work compared to peers that do not self-identify as primarily serving a community of color. And here we followed was a little over 1,000 1,024 arts and cultural organizations that completed the CDP every year. Here's what we found. So finding an answer to question one most arts and cultural groups had inadequate working capital only 1.5 months. Months of working capital is looking at what is working capital relative to expenses or how long could the organization operate in the absence of revenue which was not all that unrealistic of a scenario for a lot of organizations heading into the pandemic. This figure of 1.5 was the same as in 2016. So let me just say this five year average here. It's misleading because it reflects the very high levels of working capital amongst a small majority of large institutions. This median figure or the midpoint shows the experience of a majority of organizations. So during this period, most organizations ended their fiscal year near the break-even point and did not achieve surpluses. So they didn't have anything to squirrel away. And if we were to break it down even further we'd see that while working capital did rise for some organizations, 47% had fewer months of working capital in 2019 than they did in 2016. And for many others, working capital was relatively unchanged. And this was pre-pandemic during a Goldilocks economy. Teresa and I wrote on this topic with an economist colleague Manuel Lasaga on the paper, theater at the crossroads overcoming downtrends and protecting your organization through future downturns. This is research that we had talked about at the last fall forum. And yet organizations didn't really do anything about it. Let's look at 2020. In 2020, liquidity improved slightly but it was still lower in 2020, still pretty low. So although earned revenue dropped significantly there were exceptional funding relief initiatives and organizations cut expenses in the absence of programming during the pandemic. So the pandemic was actually good in some ways for many organizations working capital. Finding two, actually the majority of BIPAC serving organizations were more liquid than their non-BIPAC peers. And the gap increased with organizational size. So small organizations regardless of arts and cultural discipline were on part about 4.2 in 2020. For medium, the BIPAC serving organizations were more liquid. Same goes for large institutions. You know, the BIPAC organizations more liquid than the non-BIPAC peers. And so some of you who may be leading BIPAC theaters are saying, so you're showing me data that says we're healthy and everything's just fine but it sure doesn't feel that way. BIPAC organizations often are under resourced in the broader sense even when their financials show more cash. And so why is that? What might be going on? Kind of three big factors. First, if we kind of zoom out, we see that small organizations of all kinds tend to be more liquid than larger ones. Particularly moving into 2020, you can see that this boost but it's a continuing trend. Smaller organizations generally have more liquidity because they have more flexible operating structures. They're more nimble thinking about that. Think about being more nimble. As organizations grow by contrast, they're more likely to incur additional fixed costs that are not really readily offset by revenue. And this results in deficits. When the environment changes and revenue doesn't come in, it's hard to cut your costs if you have a lot of fixed costs. Medium to large organizations offer and employ full-time staffs and own or have responsibility for a facility. This makes them less nimble, more likely to spend rather than save cash. So that's one thing. Second, BIPOC arts organizations are less likely to grow large. They tend to be smaller than their non-BIPOC counterparts at every size grouping, at least in this data. Many BIPOC organizations can't afford the critical human capacities and infrastructure that they know that they need. And this is due to a lack of resources. They may not have the choice of whether and how to grow. Here are two quotes. Eurocentric organizations get buildings and resources. Organizations of color don't. All of the models that come to us and say growth is good and build your staff, that isn't sustainable when you can't offer compensation commensurate with larger Eurocentric organization leaders. It gets you into a cycle where you eliminate infrastructure in order to telescope everything down to the art. Interviews that we conducted really brought to light the challenges faced by these organizations that deserve attention. So commonly identified external hurdles that these organizations face. We know and talk about them a lot these days but it's important to name them and that's racism, gentrification and lack of access to funding which some arts leaders of by-talk organizations articulated. They see this as elements of white supremacy culture. Interviews noted that when organizations of color seek to grow and they serve through their mission related work, low income communities. Their ability to expand is inhibited by a participant base that just simply doesn't have the financial means itself to generate substantial earned revenue and these individual contributions. And yet at the same time that they don't have the individual donor base they face lack of access to corporate and foundation funding at levels equitable to those provided to their peers that do not primarily serve communities of color. And additionally, by-talk organizations frequently don't have equitable access to cash when they need it. So they have no choice but to be self dependent. They don't have the same access to bank loans, lines of credit, banking relationships. This was a real issue during access to the PPP loans. This is due to policies and practices that reflect structural racism in society. And as Lori mentioned, even with the shuttered venue operating grants the funding didn't flow to all by-talk organizations who could have benefited from it despite TCG's best efforts to get the word out. Furthermore, unpaid or underpaid staff and artists don't show up in financials. So when these hidden but real costs don't get counted organizations can get penalized even further. They may not qualify for funding because they don't meet funder size thresholds. So when organizations of color operating communities with greater means they are able to attract financial resources to fuel growth. However, according to many of those whom we interviewed they too are constrained by comparatively low compensation levels. That doesn't show up in the financials as it should in terms of reflecting the real cost of their operations. At a recent gathering of by-talk organizations with TCG some comments emerged. One participant remark, the framing of our abundance and discipline is coming on the back of not paying us enough. And so funding for artistic creation is given by budget size. No theater of color has a budget over 3 million until we reach 5 million. We don't get access to the new work development support. So there's an inherent bias against providing organizations like us support. And yet despite inequitable access to revenue and capital these by-talk serving groups have a really strong track record of living within their means. The data tell us that by-talk groups can handle higher levels of funding. From 2016 to 2020 the average by-talk organization demonstrated an increasing trend of surpluses. Whether measured as total unrestricted surplus or operating surplus before depreciation. This actually contradicts any historical perception or racial bias that by-talk serving organizations are more of a funding risk. It just isn't true. Or perhaps they can't manage their finances as well as larger non-by-talk counterparts. And that's why they remain small. It simply isn't true. We do revenue action plan that precedes every project. Each one has to cover its costs. We have a template we honor. Our board has been really diligent about working capital. We've had a quasi-endowment before I got here. It was required to put a certain amount in that account every year. We haven't had to use it during the pandemic but we can access it if we need to. So kind of in summary the by-talk organizations receive less of the revenue pie. So they're more likely to stay small which means that they can take the size of action to contain costs and build some savings. Growth is not a universal ambition and the ability to remain nimble is really great news. However, exclusion from equitable access to revenue in capital means that many of these by-talk serving organizations that wanna grow are denied agency. So the adequate liquidity that's needed for resilience often comes at the expense of adequate investment in infrastructure and critical human resources. Many organizations have made great sacrifices to live within their means. You know, sweat equity, volunteer and underpaid labor donated space are all made to work until they don't with limited access to cash and funders, the resiliency of these organization largely depends on their self-reliance and their deep community ties. I wanna transition and talk for a moment about some bright spots. You know, as our findings revealed resiliency doesn't necessarily mean that you're aware you wanna be or that there aren't real challenges that inhibit your ability to realize your dreams but resilience allows you to settle in for the long game. Let's consider starting a path to resilience in a positive place with bright spots. Good things are happening that we often don't acknowledge. I love this quote. This is from Blake Anthony Johnson with Chicago Symphony. The reason why our financial models are different goes down to the mission statement. Chicago Symphony champions diversity, equity and inclusion through creating community through bold symphonic experiences. The clarity in mission cuts through quite a bit of noise. COVID opened up an opportunity to make changes in infrastructure. What can we do now that will set us up post COVID? There's a space for us to clean. 80% of arts leaders, people who are leading BIPOC organizations, speaking to them six months into the pandemic, they said that they were financially solid despite the pandemic. And there's a quote that I really love from The Way Out by Peter Coleman a terrific book that talks about the way out of polarization. It says after a sufficient reset the next order of business is to locate what is already working. This practice is based on research finding that change resistant problems are often most responsive to positive deviance or to bright spots. So let's think about those bright spots. A future of financial resilience. So think for your own organizations at it's very, very core. What is the source of your strength? What do you do that is most meaningful and relevant to your community? I love Nicole's notion of superpowers. What's your superpower? What is your organization's superpower? What value do you provide and to whom? All of the research really drives down from 41 different participants with whom we spoke. This came across clear over and over again the path to financial resilience begins with relevance. You can't get to financial resilience without a compelling sense of relevance. We identified organizations that were high performers on numerous financial and operating metrics. This is what they said they needed to get really right to be successful. And then lean into that relevance with high quality programming. That's the alchemy between these two things. You don't get to financial resilience without it no matter how much discipline you have. Second, think about. So here are some quotes that emerged from the research. I think there's another way to achieve healthy bottom line than through success and being meaningful to the community. Revere your community. We build relationships around what community needs not what a funding decision dictates. Figure out what makes your organization unique. And then narrow that list down to the aspects that people care about. That's where your storytelling begins. We've really built a community around outstanding theater and education programs. Artists wanna work here, fans wanna come, funders wanna support it. So think about what do you do that's profoundly relevant and disciplined? What do you do with your community? Not just for your community. Second, what might your next year look like? Engage artists, staff and board members in big picture scenario planning, experimenting with new ways of working that allow for financial resilience. And if I'm hearing a collective groan, I understand that there is scenario burnout. Here, I'm not talking about just the ability to re-project your finances if you open in February versus April. We're talking about the ability to reimagine your organization. So the ability to say, for example, given what is the source of your strength, whatever that may be, what do you wanna look like next year? If you could close your eyes and think what would in our ideal state we'd look like next year or even two years from now, paint that picture. One caveat though, is that you can imagine anything except the way you looked two years ago because that reality was different. That was a different day in a different world. Are there other ways that you can get from where you are today at point A to where you wanna be at point B? You know, as Coleman says in the way out, this is a big opportunity to reset. Evaluate very, very clearly your fixed costs, your cash reserves, your community ties, your relational capital and mission alignment, then engage. Third, when your doors reopen, whom will you gather? Resilient organizations are gonna be those whose work is meaningful, truly meaningful to a sufficiently large segment of the local community that cares about whether or not it exists. Reopening is an opportunity to send a signal about the role the organization wants to play in the local community moving forward. So this is about when your doors reopen, how are you gonna show up in the world? If you're not running a BITAC theater, for example, will you do the hard work of being profoundly relevant to communities of color without any grant support? You know, can you imagine not pursuing DEI funding just doing it because it's the right thing to do and leaving the funding to the BITAC theaters who actually have been doing this work as part of their mission since the time they were founded? Now, this is related to the question of what is your source of your strength? How do you leverage your strengths? Is your connection to the community in the global community majority profoundly strong? Because it's something that you can't buy. It's something that you have to do the hard work of establishing. Fourth, how will you manage a revenue proposition to confront the new reality? And the first question that I raise here is question for yourself. If growth is good, has been your organization's mantra, reconsider it as an ambition. Think about what is your organization's right size in this new reality? Do ground up based on what we do that is most relevant. Think about what is your right size? This growth is good mantra has gotten a lot of organizations into a lot of trouble. Think instead about how do you share? Success can be measured in a lot of other ways than simply did we increase our resources over time. You know, we ask, again, these are quotes from the research, what does healthy growth look like for us? It looks like deeper relationships and community ownership in our spaces rather than new facilities or more money. We've got a wonderful niche. We're seen as the go-to place for a diverse span of immigrant performing arts across the area, long-term funders understand and support our place in the city's artscape. So if growth means needing to charge higher ticket prices and provide all the best seats to your subscribers who donate, do you really need to grow? Second, think about how much cash do you need before earned revenue returns? If you've not opened up again, you know, really calculate how much money you're gonna need before you start earning revenue and adjust the timeline of your recovery plans given your access to funds. You know, don't let the enthusiasm about reopening dictate when you reopen do so very methodically, very responsibly. Third, start setting savings goals. And I know you're thinking, how on earth are we gonna save right now? We're just trying to survive. If you're in that working capital situation where you are more flesh than you expect it to be, think about how is that going to last your organization moving forward? So, you know, assemble your board of trustees and discuss realistic savings goals. Prioritize rebuilding, retaining cash to cover several months of operations, possibly out of a due size. For example, if your goal is three months of working capital, then budget for surplus equal to one month's expenses for each of the coming three years. And fourth, and last, think about how you can become more nimble. Now, some of the lessons that were learned by looking at small organizations or by-talk organizations, none of us wants to be resource constrained or challenged, but again, the resilience is going to be what gets us in the long game. You know, is there, for example, anything that you own that you can outsource or rent instead? If you do own things, you know, what can you share with other organizations? What kind of collectives are mutually beneficial? If you own it, who else can benefit from it? You know, what are you doing to partner in your community in ways that are mutually beneficial? And with whom? What are you doing to support your local arts and cultural ecosystem? You know, every organization within an ecosystem is important. You know, so think about not just your own survival and resilience, but how are you helping to support the resilience of your local ecosystem, whatever that may take. And with that, I'm going to simply share that this is kind of how we put data to work. Again, thank you to all who continuously provide data. We try to provide evidence-based insights that drive decision-making. And for anyone who would like to contact me, you have here my email address. I'm more than happy to share this information with you more broadly. And with that, Adrienne, I'm going to turn it back over to you. Oh, it looks like you're turning it over to me, Zany. Ah, to Theresa, I hate Theresa. Hey, how's it going? That was amazing. Thank you so much, Zany. It is such a pleasure to work with you and to have you help us navigate this particular year and these years. I feel like your conclusions are super inspiring. Those five main points are exactly the kinds of things that we need to be thinking about. And I'm reflecting on, as you mentioned, the last fall forum. At that time, we thought that we were helping people get prepared for the possibility of a recession. We had no idea at the time that we had a pandemic coming. So we're in a really different place right now and the great information that we got from our advocacy experts about what a different place the arts are in in terms of the potential of federal support going forward. We just have so much opportunity and going back to the way things were is not the goal because we know that there were a lot of issues and absence of resilience within our field. Theresa, thank you for the long-term TCG partnership. You guys are a fabulous partner and I do remember at that fall forum, at one point we said, okay, and who within this crowd thinks about has a plan B and not a single hand went up. And so I just strongly encourage everyone, do not let that happen again. Always have a plan B. And on that note, thank you. We're gonna take a 10 minute stretch break and then we're gonna come back and take all the great information we've heard this morning and put it into action. So grab an energizing snack and a drink, move your body and we'll see you back here in 10 minutes. Welcome back everyone. I hope you had a luxurious stretch break and refreshed your coffee, tea, sparkling water, whatever gives you that second wind. My go-to afternoon beverage is a cold water with fresh lemon juice. So I've had some sips of that and I'm ready to roll. Earlier today, our brilliant board chair, Nicole Salter, asked us all to share our advocacy superpowers. And one of mine is understanding the real true value of many voices, perspectives, identities and pathways, especially towards our advocacy efforts. And to that end, it's my pleasure to kick off the second half of our summit by welcoming some pretty powerful arts advocates to the mic. The professional nonprofit theater coalition formed last year in response to the unprecedented needs of our theater ecology for federal relief. What started as a few concerned emails and phone calls between colleagues has grown into a truly effective lobbying body for the arts on Capitol Hill, expanding on the great work that was already happening. Their work is a reminder that we need many approaches from grass tops to grass roots to move the needle on all of our advocacy issues. We need more voices, we need more superheroes and we're grateful to continue aligning our efforts with the coalition and to hear from two of their leaders today. So please join me in welcoming Cynthia Furman from Portland Center Stage and Maria Goyanas from the Woolly Mamba Theater Company to the mic. Hi, everybody. Thank you, Teresa. Thank you, TCG, for having us here. I am Maria Manuel Agoyanas. I use she, her pronouns. I am zooming in from the ancestral homeland of the Nacotchtank, whose descendants belong to the Piscataway people now known as Washington DC. I am a fair-skinned Latina with gold hoops and red lipstick, wearing blue against a white background. Cynthia, over to you. Hi, everybody. I'm Cynthia Furman. I use she, her pronouns. I'm a mixed-race woman with dark hair, piled up in a bun today, sitting in front of a window, showing a garden and a very rainy Portland day on the lands of the cowlits, the salettes, the grand ronde and the Chinook. Shall I take it from there, Maria? Well, actually, let me just say, so rock and roll. What we're going to do today is, we're going to tell you a little bit about how the coalition formed, what we've been working on. And yeah, and then the real inspiration actually came from the West Coast. So, Cynthia, take it away. Well, I'm sure many of you had the same thing happen in your own towns and regions when the pandemic hit that you sort of channeled your inner Lori Baskin and tried to figure out how you could actually start to take some action to see what kind of relief might be available locally or statewide. We quickly formed in Oregon, a coalition of the seven largest arts organizations, so multi-discipline, but that included Nataki Garrett from OSF and me from PCS as the two theaters in that coalition and really started working on our state representatives as well as talking to our state senators. The CARES money, if you remember last summer, was coming through at the state level. States had a lot of discretion about how to spend that money. We were very lucky in being able to lobby successfully at the state level for a record-breaking gift for Oregon. Oregon actually has a fairly poor record of state funding for the arts, but by joining in a coalition with our local independent venues coalition, a man named Jim Brunberg, who runs several music venues here in Portland, reached out to me, we're old friends because of doing a show together. And we were able to lobby for what turned out to be $50 million for state arts and culture funding in the state of Oregon. We came up with a proposal that basically said, here's how much money we're going to lose while we're closed. Here's what we need to stay alive, we think to get out to the other side. At the time, thinking the other side was maybe seven or eight months wrong, but that was our proposal and that we would ask for subsidies to cover those costs. And that's what our legislature stepped up and agreed to do. So we felt empowered by that to say, okay, how can we participate in the national advocacy world as well, again, knowing what was happening through TCG and other organizations. So Nataki and I first reached out to our other superpower friends on the West Coast, Jennifer Bielstein and Megan Pressman to say, let's at least start on the West Coast having our conversation and then see what happens as we start to develop a more national presence. So we had just started having those meetings on a regular basis to talk about what we could do. And then this little article came out in the New York Times that sparked an idea and Nataki got on the phone. And I will let Maria talk about what that experience was like. Yeah, so I got a phone call from Nataki Garrett. It was like, have you seen this article in the New York Times? Which basically it came out right after London gave, Boris Johnson gave some sort of bailout to the theaters there. And the article basically said, well, if the theaters can be bailed out in London by Boris Johnson, why can't something like that happen here? Why can't Nataki Garrett and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Audra McDonald and Oscar Eustis, and I think I was name-checked in there too, which is why I think I got the call. Why can't we do something like this? And specifically when Nataki talked to me about, and she's a real superhero, let me tell you, but what she talked to me about is what Cynthia is saying in terms of wording that Congressman Earl Blumenauer specifically said, hey, y'all, get yourselves together and I will walk something in. We can actually do this right now. This is the moment. And essentially both Nataki and I were like, okay, if we have this window of time where essentially this has never happened or hasn't happened in our industry since the 30s, right, in terms of actually being shut down, et cetera, why don't we actually try and capitalize on this? And we knew also that we had a small window of time in terms of Biden getting elected and right before the midterms. And who knows what's gonna happen with the midterms, but it's like, let's go whole hog. So thank goodness for Senator Klobuchar and Neva and all the folks who got Save Our Stages in that became the Shuttered Venues Grant, but essentially we each started calling people and brought folks together. And specifically we're thinking of ourselves as a loose coalition of nonprofit theaters, a porous coalition where membership is open to folks and not as competition to all of the amazing work that Worry and TCG and others have been doing. But the way that, look, I just got to Washington, DC and I have learned a lot. And my understanding, this is gonna be a kind of dumb ass metaphor, but my understanding is the way to get things done in Washington is like thinking about it like an eight lane highway. And if you only have one car going down one lane and just hitting the Capitol like you get far, but really you also need being an arts hero going down another lane. You also need Neva going down another lane. And what happened was this moment, also given that we weren't producing at the same scale that we had been used to, these artistic directors and managing directors of theaters around the country were like, we need to get involved, we need to get more involved. Let's actually try and maybe expand that eight lane highway to a ninth lane and a 10th lane and a 11th lane to try and move through. So we did, we brought folks together. We started meeting with people in Washington and other places. We got some funding from some various places, including actually, we do ask for some membership, but only if folks can pay for it. And again, I just wanna sort of really, really say that this is about working together. This is about sort of abundance thinking, not scarcity thinking. And that's also what leads to $15 billion going to help all of the organizations that it has helped. I'm wondering, Cynthia, can I pass it to you in terms of Neva and Espog? Sure, just briefly, Neva, really the National Independent Venues Association really got out early in their lobbying efforts through Senator Klobuchar in particular and Dana Frank being there in Minneapolis. And because we had partnered with them in the Oregon chapter with Jim Brunberg, he's been instrumental. He's on the board of Neva and he got David Schmitz and I included in the SOS stakeholders group that was meeting all throughout last summer and fall. So we got representation for our coalition pretty early on into the SOS group, which helped us really participate in the conversations and work with people like Heather and Tony and others from the other coalitions and Lori. So it was a really rich time to understand that participating on a broad coalition, that coalition had Disney theatricals in it, independent movie venues, agents, a really interesting spectrum of 20 or so people at the table every week in the SOS world really listening to each other's concerns, understanding we had very different business models, but there was a way we could coalesce around the need because of the nature of our work with such a shared nature. So that's been a really valuable coalition to build and then this other coalition, as Maria was saying, another lane of the highway is carrying that back to the nonprofit theater coalition. Another lane of the highway is making sure that Lori is always included in everything that's going on and has the knowledge of what our group is talking about, what our priorities are rising to look like. So that has felt so strong and so powerful that I hate to say we're through the crisis because we're not, but we've had some big successes and we've got a way forward. And it feels like the importance of this ongoing cross-discipline, cross-coalition work is just super important. And certainly, I think Neva and all the stakeholders in that group we wanna continue in conversation with. It's so exciting. We are almost in all 50 states. We are, the way we work is we have a planning committee of like, I don't know, 12 to 15 theaters who are essentially chair other subcommittees that then the larger coalition is a part of. And then we have a once a month larger caucus meeting where TCG presents where we have Lord representation, where we have TYA representation, et cetera, just to talk to the lobbyists. The lobbyists are Arnold and Porter, are the folks who've been working with us. The four buckets, our priorities right now. So just to be super clear is we are mostly a grass tops strategy group. So this is about federal funding, federal relief to go toward to our different constituents and actually talk to their representation and then having the lobbyists also do that and obviously worries doing that and others are doing that too. We could mobilize grassroots, but we haven't done so yet specifically because we are really federal. It's about federal relief. That is the focus that we have. And the four bucket, the four priorities that we outlined for this year have been infrastructure, have been artists and employment, arts education and workforce development. And Cynthia, can you tell us a little bit about what the workforce development subcommittee is up to? Because that's a great microcosm of all the other committees. Sure, is one example of what the subcommittees work on. Arnold and Porter talk, they bring us great ideas and proposals of things we could look at that could be most meaningful over the field. And then we kind of drill down on those. And there is a federal apprenticeship program that by and large the arts field has not participated in. And so we wanted to explore what opportunities there might be for theaters in that apprenticeship program, obviously mostly in terms of could it lead to funding, but is there a benefit of being in that program? And we did form a group, a subcommittee that is currently going through the process of meeting with the Department of Labor who were very enthusiastic, by the way, was so interesting to go into a meeting with these three folks in the Department of Labor who just were dying to talk to us about joining this program. And then we're going through a sort of beta testing process because as applying for any federal program you can imagine there's lots of hoops to jump through and it's not built specifically for our industry. So we're trying to sort of figure out what that pathway looks like and what going through that process could mean in terms of making a future funding available for us. So that's our big priority right now. It's super exciting. I think that we actually got through all of it. Do you wanna share what the membership actually is? Yeah, sure. We are always looking, as Maria said, that it's a fluid group, it's expandable, it's we want more people to participate. The fee structure that we established to help support our work with Arnold and Porter is one-tenth of 1% of your current operating budget to help support the work. And having said that, if even that is a barrier, still reach out because we have ways of making sure everybody can participate. But that is sort of the do structure we put together to hope that we can continue our work with Arnold and Porter who've been so invaluable in giving us a lot of guidance and leadership as we move through this. Yeah, we haven't made any sort of broad statements about how long this coalition will continue to meet. Again, it was really a kind of emergency moment to try and take this opportunity and really make sure that our theaters could continue. And we know that this pandemic is gonna have an impact on us in the long run for sure. If anybody wants to know more about the coalition, I'm gonna drop my email and Cynthia, can I put yours in the chat too? Okay, I'm gonna drop my email and Cynthia's in the chat. We're happy to give you any and all information and invite you to the larger caucus meetings would love to have you there. Thanks, Lori, for giving us this time and thank you TCG for all your work. Again, we want everybody to be members of TCG for sure, so pay your dues and donate. We can't emphasize that enough. It really is that multi-path. None of this would have happened if there hadn't been so many ways that we were all firing on all pistons to try and get this to work. So absolutely TCG is the key partner. And again, Lori, I said, I say it often, channeling my inner Lori Baskin, gotta go for it. Thank you. Thank you all so much. And it's true, these multiple pathways and multiple lanes of advocacy effort are so crucial. And so many more people are activated now. I think the key is to stay active even when there are moments of it feeling like there's less opportunity for federal support, we just have to keep at it. There are some times where it's less dramatic and people need to just stay on the creative ways of expressing impact and being in touch with legislators and more. So thank you for that. Thank you for sharing. It's also a really great way to tee up our next section because we know that when our entire theater ecology sees arts advocacy as a primary part of their identity and responsibility, that is where transformative change can really happen. So after this groundbreaking level of federal support for the arts, we shouldn't go back to the bad old days of scarcity. Let's continue to build on the momentum and ask for the funding we need to truly serve our communities. We know that theaters are playing an important role in revitalizing urban suburban and rural gathering places. And we also know that theaters have a critical role to play in healing wounds in bridging differences and in sharing truths after a period of extraordinary divisiveness and rising violence. As we have calls with the field, we've been hearing much related to what Zani was saying as well, that your audiences are not returning in the numbers we'd hoped, at least not yet. Part of that's connected to the Delta variant, which is still swelling some hospitals and still causing loss. And part of that is connected to rising violence that many marginalized communities are facing. We need our theaters to help people feel safe and truly welcome. And we need our theaters fully funded to do it. So that's why we've curated these specific conversations today because we need to come together. And that's what we're going to do together today. We're gonna move into breakouts. In room one, Laurie, superwoman will be joined by Tony Shivers and legend Lee for conversations about how we might carry forward the momentum of field wide advocacy during this crisis time and how we might collectively ensure relief packages don't reinscribe harmful inequities of distribution of resources in the field. In room two, Zani Boss and I will facilitate a discussion on how to capitalize on federal relief toward long-term sustainability, how might more theaters learn from the financial modeling practices that some theaters, including Biotoc may have been doing for years. And in general, to respond and discuss the conclusions that Zani shared with us in her presentation. And here to help me introduce room three, it is my pleasure to welcome the amazing Elena Chang to the screen. Thank you, Teresa. Hi, Elena here, she, her, hers. I'm zooming in from the land of the Lenape, also West New York, New Jersey. I am a Korean woman with shoulder length, brown hair, a black tank top under a dark pink blazer sitting in front of a white wall with a bit of a blurred background. So before I share what will happen in breakout room three, I wanted to acknowledge that there is much important organizing happening within theater networks of color. Just one example, the National Biotoc Coalition or Commons which is housed at the consortium of Asian American theaters and artists, Kata, recently conducted research on the impact of COVID-19 closures on Biotoc and Biotoc. So through surveys and virtual listening parties, they're proposing strategies to address the lack of quality healthcare coverage and the need for free and online training opportunities. They're calling for accounting practices that accurately record an individual's labor contributions including volunteer labor. I encourage you to look more, learn more about their work through the link that we're gonna pop into the chat, www.BiotocTheaterSurveys.com. The Biotoc Coalition Commons will be hosting a third listening session in November, date to be determined. So please, please check out the website and the days to come for more details on that event. So we'll talk about the importance of Biotoc and Biotoc specific efforts in the realm of advocacy and breakout room number three, which I'm blessed to be holding down with the one and only Teresa Coleman Wash, the Executive Artistic Director of the Bishop Arts Theatre Center. We're going to be talking about how leadership may inform and influence the decision and the direction of field wide advocacy in conjunction with Biotoc and Biotoc and how newer coalitions can also consider collaborating with existing efforts in a more meaningful way. Now, you might be thinking, okay, Elena, I want to be in all three groups at the same time and I hear you, but we are encouraging everyone today to participate in the smaller breakouts, drawing parallels to these important conversations and themes. We're going to break you into three equally sized groups. Please stay in the group we assign you. While each of these rooms has a different frame, all of these conversations are interconnected and we need you and your advocacy superpowers to show up in your room. Also, if no taking and reporting out just happen to be your superpower, please volunteer for that because we will have a report out section at the end so we can hear all the good things happening in the other rooms. We'll only have about 35 minutes for the breakout rooms and we will send you countdown reminders and a heads up when it's time to return to the full meeting. So this is where you say goodbye to our friends watching on HowlRound and hello to our breakout room teams. And can you take us there? I guess we'll just see you on the break.