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A Look Inside Paprika's Strategic Planning
As someone who learns best by doing, being invited to participate in Paprika’s Strategic Planning was a treat. It had been 5 years and a whole new staff since the 2018 Manifesto and it was time to do some reflecting on where the company was at currently while honouring the hard work of our predecessors.
On March 26th, 2025 the Paprika Festival released it’s 2024-2029 Paprika Festival Roadmap which outlines the trajectory of the next few years for the company. Artist Cheyenne Scott was invited to witness this process and offers insights and reflections from the inside.
As someone who learns best by doing, being invited to participate in Paprika’s Strategic Planning was a treat. It had been 5 years and a whole new staff since the 2018 Manifesto and it was time to do some reflecting on where the company was at currently while honouring the hard work of our predecessors. What had been accomplished so far and what still needed to be addressed? Dominique Giguère and Jed Decory from Currents Group Inc. helped us facilitate this process. They developed surveys and conducted community research to help us understand our positioning in the climate post quarantine. The whole process was several months and many many zoom meetings. At first it felt muddy and there was no clear outcome in sight. Apparently, according to Dominique and Jed this was a completely normal part of the process. They would outline the data they received and make suggestions and we would discuss with the board what felt compelling with our known experience of Paprika. At the time I was the Community Programming Producer and had been with the company for 3 years.
This experience gave me the agency to voice my thoughts and observations (believe me I have many big opinions but sometimes it’s difficult to express them and I really appreciated having the space to strengthen those muscles). I was curating and brainstorm programming at a high level with a team of supportive people. Here’s some hot tips from what I learned:
1. The Board must be involved. This may seem obvious to some people but for me I assumed that Outgoing Executive Producer Keshia Palm, and General Manager Julia Dickson, and I would be doing most of the labour and then presenting our findings to the Board. When in fact, the Board needs to take the reins and be involved so that they have ownership over the strategic planning. Especially, at a place like Paprika where the staff are also young emerging leaders and the organization is a stepping stone for them to enter into the industry. Therefore, it is anticipated that there be turn over and the Board is required to share their intrinsic knowledge while also holding the core values of Paprika as new leadership steps in over the years.
2. Community Consultation. One of the big things that Keshia wanted to investigate is making sure there was Indigenous leadership at the top level of the organization and that meant looking at the organizational structure. There hadn’t been someone in this position since Leslie McCue who brought the Indigenous Arts Program to Paprika. We wanted to make sure that this program was being properly supported. Was this something the community still wanted? Is Paprika still the right place for this program? What kind of outreach initiatives could we take on? This meant making phone calls to the Indigenous arts community and having some honest conversations. It’s so important to get feedback directly from the community. I may be one Indigenous artist but I am not from the Tkaronto territory so it isn’t for me to decide what kind of programming should be taking place there. I think it’s always useful/responsible to engage in conversation with community because ultimately that’s who the work is for.
3. It takes time. One of the things I had to recognize was that these aren’t aspects that take place immediately. Unfortunately, you don’t just have a conversation and update the website. It is a lot of work and expecting to implement every strategic initiative at once would be counterproductive to the goal of managing capacity. These things take place over time. I learned what would be most effective is mapping out a trajectory for these goals based on priority. Be thoughtful and patient with the process and focus on the long game.
On Pauses and Pace: What we can learn from Paprika Festival’s past and present leaders, Keshia Palm, Julia Dickson and Amanda Lin
I've often understood capital T "Transformation" in arts organizations to mean the infrequent but seismic tumult of tectonic plates— unearthing long patterns and installing new structures for the foreseeable future. However, the leaders of Paprika showed me their own version of change that looks more like an ocean tide going in and out, shorter cycles that ebb and flow with regularity.
On December 2nd, 2024 Keshia Palm (the outgoing Artistic Producer of Paprika), Amanda Lin and Julia Dickson (the new Artistic Producer and General Manager) met with me on zoom to discuss their leadership transition. As I learned more about them as individuals, artists, and arts workers, a portrait of a changing Paprika was being painted. If you've been following, the organization recently announced that they were reducing the scale of their operations "in order to increase pay and support for everyone at Paprika". In the weeks that followed our chat, I've reflected deeply on what we can learn from Paprika— especially around the ideas of pausing and pacing.
I've often understood capital T "Transformation" in arts organizations to mean the infrequent but seismic tumult of tectonic plates— unearthing long patterns and installing new structures for the foreseeable future. However, the leaders of Paprika showed me their own version of change that looks more like an ocean tide going in and out, shorter cycles that ebb and flow with regularity. Keshia described a historical leadership changeover rhythm of 2-3 years, with some board members wanting to increase the length of the average term moving forward. I was struck by how different this is than the slower turnover of artistic directors that spend a decade (or more) in their position, and how despite efforts to extend these terms, it seems the current pace of leadership changeover does contribute to Paprika's youthful energy and exploratory character.
Keshia and Julia shared with me that this is true. In some ways, leader changeover reflects the way Paprika's programming focuses on intensely training their artists and participants. Julia phrases the sentiment as: "Can you learn as much [in your time here] and then go on to do bigger and better things?"Also true however, is that the regularity leads to the repetition of cycles without much room for change or redirection. During an especially challenging transition period in 2020, both General Manager and Artistic Producer roles had to be vacated and onboarded simultaneously due to unavoidable circumstances. Consequently, Julia and Keshia experienced a very hands-on training period. Rather than shadowing or watching a full festival period, Keshia "ended up doing the thing, […] all hands on deck" as the circumstance required. Entering her position in tandem with provincial COVID-19 lockdowns, Julia recalled thinking at that moment: "leadership is just holding things together, wrapping it with a bandage and hoping nothing crumbles. The structures of arts non-profits often tell the same story: very little time or money available for smooth transitions of leadership, and folks on either side of the hand-off doing the best they can with what they’ve got.
Knowing that the tide of change was only 2-3 years out from their onboarding, Keshia and Julia began to plot the next changeover early on. In thinking through what the organization needed moving forward, they were simultaneously confronted with a workload that often strained the limited hours their positions were assigned. Even from before her official start with Paprika, Amanda remembered her concern that the hours both leaders were working was potentially out of balance with their compensation.Their arrival coincided with the completion of Paprika's last strategic plan (2018-2021), and Keshia and Julia had the foresight to apply to the Toronto Arts Council's Open Door Grant. Open Door "supports ideas with the potential to create transformative change for arts organizations and collectives and/or the arts sector". With the strain on current staff, industry-wide exhaustion, and the rising cost of living in Toronto it was clear— Paprika could not continue on as usual. A change needed to be made.
None of us are strangers to the seduction of rhythm's predictability. Fitting snugly into structures, cycles, or shapes that have been formed before we arrived and will likely persist after we leave feels safe, and also the "s" word that funders love so much: "stable". And yet, what if this shape is equally comforting and crumbling? In a blog post about the change, current Artistic Producer Amanda Lin notes "The topic of staff burnout and turnover is coming up a lot at arts organizations, and more and more folks are exiting the industry because they simply can’t afford to continue, financially and emotionally." I wonder: what does it take to move this from a side-conversation to the urgent forefront? What does it mean to stop the ocean tide, even swim against it?
As Keshia and Julia entered into a strategic planning process, it felt like for the first time, they were able to get in a room with the board and talk about Paprika's values without the urgency of attending to current programming. Stewarded by the folks at Currents Group the leaders met with the board, drafted sometimes as many as 6 different operating budget versions, and began engaging in community consultations. All this sculpted a period of rich re-imagining of the shape and structure of Paprika.
Keshia, Julia, and Amanda all agreed that one of the most crucial elements of the process was the community consultations with Paprika's artists and their community. When it was clear that a cut had to be made, Keshia and Julia lamented at how to decide what crucial programming would be compromised. Thankfully, Keshia said "[the consultation process] released us as leaders." Rather than bear the burden of this decision alone, community consultations allowed for a pluralistic approach, inviting in other voices to join Keshia and Julia, contributing to the discussion and guiding the final decision. Reducing programming that has become beloved and expected is tricky, and Paprika's decision to keep all their programs at reduced frequency speaks to their commitment to the communities they engage with, from emerging and aspiring producers, designers, to the artists of their Indigenous Arts Program. With detectable pride, Amanda told me "the [programming] change was made with so much love and care for the people, and you don't get to say that often".
They landed on a biannual model. Amanda's blog post explains "Instead of running six annual programs, Paprika will be running three programs per year on a two-year rotation." The post outlines all the programming costs will experience a much-needed increase and contribute to better experiences for everyone involved. I'm most interested in the increase in the Artistic Producer salary, which Keshia & Julia were determined to make "one people would actually apply to". Though arts leadership titles offer some career advancement, at smaller organizations they can often fall near or below what is considered Toronto's living wage of $67,280 a year. What message are we sending our future Artistic Directors and Artistic Producers in explicitly telling them that this important and exhaustive work isn't valuable enough to sustain a life in this city?
Among the many things this leadership transition at Paprika is teaching us is the power of pausing and pacing. Rather than passively go with the flow of the tide they entered, Keshia and Julia had the courage to stop the whole ship. Rather than feel pressured to continue as usual, the two appropriately read the moment they were in— not just the economic state of the arts in Toronto but also coming out of pandemic-related lockdowns that left other organizations shuttered. This foresight and insight was affirmed not just by the approval of Paprika's board, but also in the succession of bright new leader Amanda. In believing that their organization deserved the kind of candidate that valued fair labour practices in the arts, they got one. I look forward to seeing the next chapter flourish under Amanda’s new vision and care.
Not all reception has been positive though. With the majority of funders supporting Paprika's change, a few just don't get it. Sometimes the values don't align. Companies and individuals outside of the arts sector might see declining numbers of participants per year and only form negative interpretations of that information, even if this change increases the compensation, resources and support Paprika artists receive. However, this problem is not Paprika's alone— "there are many other arts organizations going through the same muck" remarks Julia. If most organizations are struggling with changing social context combined with outdated structures, how can we join our voices with Paprikas to tell a truer, fuller story? How can a collective outcry show our funders and sector what is really needed to care for artists and their work?
My hope is that the Paprika's transformation inspires other brave leaders wanting to pause and change pace. The truth is, the realities of making art have changed. The structures past organizations were built on are often incompatible with the moment we find ourselves in. Keshia, Julia, and Amanda have found a way to respect the legacy of Paprika while challenging it to be better to its people. As we all take up the task of challenging the structures in front of us, may we do it with the same priorities of Paprika: genuine "love and care for the people", as Amanda put it.
