Arts Professional Story: Seth Boustead, Accessible Contemporary Music

Seth Boustead, Executive Director of Accessible Contemporary Music

For someone wanting to start a non-profit, the first step would be to make sure there is a need for your services and that someone else is not already doing it, or at least not already doing it in the same geographical area.

When we were starting Accessible Contemporary Music we wanted to make sure that there was a need for our services. We did research in the field and there were several groups performing contemporary Classical music at the time. But we wanted to take a composer-oriented approach and specifically we wanted to perform and promote the music of emerging composers who haven't yet made a reputation for themselves.

Its a business
It's crucial that, upon starting a non-profit, you think of it as a business. A successful non-profit will need a business model, the ability to raise money, and a strategic plan for growth. We researched how to apply for 501(c)3 status, how to write by-laws, form a board of directors, write grants, hold a fundraiser, seek community support, etc. Having a good idea is not necessarily enough, there should be some support already in place for the idea. At least a few other people should be interested and willing to help.

I read lots of book on non-profit management, public relations, publicity and business books on management, creating a business model, growth models, etc. And now four years into it I am re-reading the books and they're finally making sense.

Planning
As an Executive Director, I work with the musicians to determine the repertoire for each season. I make a rehearsal schedule months before the concert and ensure that everyone attends the rehearsal and that the artistic quality is up to standard. I help determine the budget for each concert we give and I am responsible for hiring and paying the musicians. I work with our PR person to write effective and compelling press releases and help plan and implement our publicity strategy for each live event.

Getting Coverage
There are so many events happening in Chicago and so few critics to cover them, it's very easy for your event to get lost in the shuffle. For Classical music there are only a handful of people writing reviews and far too many performances for them to get to. The way we've overcome this challenge is by taking our message to other mediums. If the show we're doing incorporates film, then we approach the film critics, bloggers and freelance writers. We send them copies of the film, a trailer, etc.

For our concert of Chinese music in 2006 we approached the Chinese media and got a nice article in a Chinese paper. So often arts groups only think about the critics directly in their field but if you can think of a news hook that would be compelling to a different columnist there's every reason to believe they may write about your event.

We had much success with email marketing, MySpace, The Facebook, etc. We’ve found that e-mail is cheaper than snail-mail and it is much more effective, especially with the audiences we're trying to reach.

See and Be Seen!
Being visible in the community is essential for an arts group. It's an important way to show that you're committed and involved in the art form and it definitely resonates with people.

Everyone in the group also attends a lot of concerts. I attend at least two concerts a week and it's a wonderful way to keep in touch with the community and ensure that they come out to see your event. It's more than a mutual back-scratching kind of thing.

In the early days I would try to speak, perform, run the recording equipment, monitor the mailing list, etc. and there was no way to talk to people. I missed a lot of great opportunities to connect with people. It's worth hiring someone to do the tech work or asking a good friend so the Artistic Director can be free to schmooze.

I also personally make an effort to talk to audience members I don't recognize: How did they hear about the show? Would they come to another event? What did they especially like about the event? Asking questions like that and making a personal connection with audience members is invaluable. Of course for small organizations this means you have to ensure that you're free to talk after a concert.

Raising Money
I would say one of the biggest challenges for any arts company, but especially a small to mid-size company, is raising money. It can be frustrating when you write your first grants and you spend a month on the grant and only receive $500. I remember thinking to myself, "I could have worked at Starbucks the same number of hours I spent writing that grant and made more money!"

But as we've discovered, as the organization grows so do the grant sizes and there's more to it than money. It's about forging connections and making sure that funders know your group exists. You may get turned down for a grant year after year but eventually, as your organizational structure becomes clearer, you'll get it.

The next big challenge is moving beyond yourself or the initial founders bringing new people into the organization, (especially when you can't pay them at first,) train them and get them up to speed, keep them motivated, listen to their ideas and still remain true to the original vision of the organization.

This goes hand in hand with funding because we've discovered that grants are very transparent to funders. In other words, they know about what stage of your development you're in and they can tell if you have someone efficiently handling money, if you've been able to effectively communicate your idea and attract talented people to your organization and if you have a realistic strategy for growth.

The way we faced the funding issue was to continue to communicate the importance of our message and recruit as many in-kind volunteers as possible. It's only now after four years that we're able to pay our guest artists a decent amount for each concert. In the beginning it's crucial that you be able to speak enthusiastically and recruit other like-minded people who'll work for little or nothing. Passion remains the single greatest asset for a young non-profit.

If you have no experience writing grants it's best to start with a small one that has a high chance of success like the CAAP grant. It's essential to learn to ‘speak the language’ of the funders. They want to give away the money, they have to give away the money, but they're not going to give it to a group that won't manage it effectively. And funders feel that giving too much money to a small organization could be disastrous.

It's very important to show that whomever you're asking for money is not the only person you're approaching.

Funders don't usually want to be the sole funder. It's also important to show how you'll fund the project if the funding falls through or is never received. This is a bit of the old "you have to have money to make money" rule but we've discovered that it's true. If you approach a funder and you have no money or support in place for a project then it's important to show that you have in-kind or community support, some way that the project could exist without support.

Growth
As for the growth, well, that's the tricky part. If you're an artist with little or no business experience, as I was/am, it can be very hard to speak the same language as funders and the community leaders we all want to attract for our boards. It can be very hard to be patient. It's easy to have too many ideas and try to run with them all at the same time. I've had to learn that every time I have a great idea I have to decide if this is something to do immediately, in a year, in five or in ten. More often than not each idea, if it is to be effectively implemented, winds up at least in the one-year-out category.

Funding
But as the organization continues to develop a reputation for itself, people do offer to help. We're now finally attracting board members from outside the organization. We have set up Quick-books and have an excellent treasurer who is not an ensemble member, and we have people helping out in the office part time. With patience and perseverance we've been able to attract people who can help with the business side of it. We have a realistic five year strategy for growth.

The research process is ongoing. Every time I go to a concert I look in the program and ask who funds this. I usually look at what they're performing and then who funds it, in that order. Most funders have a website with their guidelines, deadlines and applications. Don't waste time applying for a grant for which you're not eligible. Try to get state or municipal money before going for federal money.

The writing process for me goes hand in hand with the research process. I look at who the organization has funded before, how much they gave away and whether it was for project or general operating support. I try to incorporate some of the funders specific language into my grant, especially in regard to their main areas of concern. I target each grant to the specific funder and never send the same materials to different funders.

I've also found that most funders have no problem with calling them up and chatting and they can be quite helpful if you have questions.

I don't do much follow-through. They usually will call me if there are questions or concerns and most funders are very clear about when they make their decisions. I have on occassion called to ask when the check would be dispersed after finding out we got a grant. But for me I communicate the most before the deadline, once the grant is turned in it's up to them.

I can spend up to several weeks on a single grant depending on how much information they need. I do think a young organization should make a grant-getting strategy and stick to it. Avoid the shotgun approach at first of applying to several grants at once. Instead target one or two you're very likely to get, call them and make yourself known to them, offer to put them on your mailing list, spend a lot of time on the grant, let more experienced people read through it. Then when you've gotten a few under your belt you're much more likely to get more.

Budgets
The budget cannot be overstated. It must be professional and clear and legitimate. For artists this is the hardest part and it's worth taking an experienced grant writer out to lunch and getting their feedback.

Reach out to as many people as possible. No one can know how to do everything and a non-profit has so many elements, money, legal, promotional, growth, management, etc. Don't be shy about contacting people who have been around longer and offering to take them to lunch. I spent many lunches with a notepad and pen jotting down ideas and notes and most of these people gave me other contact names to pursue.

Join in
Join umbrella organizations like the Illinois Arts Alliance or whatever is in your specific field and go to their conferences and events. It's so important to network and to let people know that your organization exists. If you believe in the organization and its mission, and hopefully you have a clear mission statement, then you should have no trouble talking about it to other people.

ACM was inspired by myself and flutist Laura Koepele-Tenges because honestly we were young and ambitious and wanted to start a group. It's changed a lot since then, we've created and refined our mission statement, found a specific niche for ourselves, survived many of the initial disappointments in starting a non-profit, generally we’ve become a lot less naive, and all, hopefully, without becoming bitter!

We've evolved, using our website a lot more heavily than in the beginning. We're constantly adding content to keep traffic high (300 visits per day on average), we've been able to keep our mission of performing mostly unknown composers, but we're now commissioning work from established composers too. We've added an international program and a high school composers workshop. We've even branched out into other art forms, now working with filmmakers (Sound of Silent Film), dancers, visual artists, and once, even a magician.

We're constantly reaching out to the mainstream media, we believe that contemporary music should not be relegated to a stuffy arts piece in the back of a newspaper. Our documentary Composer Alive: Eastern Expressions was recently shown on WTTW and we've appeared on Chicago Public Radio and WGN. We've also been on WFMT but we think that it's equally important to try and get your work onto more mainstream media as well.

Our danger now is making sure we stay true to our mission statement as we grow. Performing young and emerging composers, providing opportunities for them to get their work heard, educating people about contemporary classical music and bringing the music to as wide an audience as possible. That's what we never want to get away from, however large we may grow.

Seth Boustead is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Chicago-based non-profit organization Accessible Contemporary Music. He is the co-producer of the 55-minute documentary film Composer Alive: Eastern Expressions and can be heard monthly on the radio show Relevant Tones on WLUW. Seth received his Master of Music in music Composition from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts.