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Generator 1/31/23 Generator 1/31/23

Kaitlyn Riordan on the Family Dynamics of Governance

In the sixth and final post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, theatre artist, playwright and former Artistic Director for Shakespeare in the Ruff, Kaitlyn Riordan offers a personal response to a session led by Erin Kang.

This is the sixth and final post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, theatre performer, playwright and former Artistic Director of Shakespeare in the Ruff, Kaitlyn Riordan, offers a personal response to a Governance Reimaginings session and follow up conversation with Erin Kang, Manager of Networks at the Ontario Nonprofit Network and project co-lead of their Reimagining Governance initiative.

Warning, this is an imperfect metaphor.

Last summer, I had the pleasure of participating in and witnessing my dear friend have a baby. She’s a single parent who, like many, has created a non-nuclear family model. I was her birthing partner and her sperm donor was her primary care-giver for the first seven weeks of the baby’s life. His husband came by for visits (they are uncles to the baby) and my friend invited their family to come by and meet the new nibling/grandchild. Oh wait… were we calling the donor’s parents ‘grandparents' if the donor wasn’t ‘dad’? A precocious five year old nibling asked; but if you aren’t married, is she really my cousin? And would my friend and her baby now be included in family portraits?

Well, sure, yeah, and we don’t know yet. But what was perfectly clear, is that this baby would be loved by a large and extended family because my friend and her donor had chosen this path. They had been intentional, they had to be, because the traditional model (hetero couple gets married and has a kid) did not fit their needs. And rather than court that model, my friend identified her desires and did the work to create a model that would fit those. Yes, she's a badass. It took time, research, lots of conversation, informed consent and eventually, a document that both parties signed.

What my (badass) friend’s situation revealed to me is that I so often default in life; into roles, into timelines, into structures without giving them a second thought. Much like many nonprofits when it comes to governance.

This is where my metaphor really falls apart - apologies to anyone who has given birth. Now, if we imagine the physical act of birthing a child (something that simply has to happen for a human to exist), like say, an AGM, appointing directors, getting an annual audit, etc (things that simply have to happen for nonprofits to exist) does that really encompass all that it means to “have a child”? I put that in quotes as I transition my metaphor over to Erin Kang’s area of expertise; governance in the nonprofit world.

The Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN) and Kang, in collaboration with Ignite NPS, have co-created a virtual hub for governance innovation, full of tools and resources that enable nonprofits to explore all the other parts of governance and figure out what their company needs in a DIY/choose-your-own-adventure kind of way. Like bottle feeding vs breast feeding, disposable vs reusable diapers - every parent needs to figure out what they and their baby need and build a system to support that. So why do we only talk about the technical (birthing/AGM) part of it? Again, apologies for the AGM/birthing parallels…

Partly, it’s because we’re all overworked & under-paid and governance feels like the least of our priorities. Partly it’s because we’ve only been exposed to one model. The top down Board of Directors model that feels daunting and cumbersome and can sometimes feel like the adults (business people) making sure the kids (artists) don’t land the company with a deficit. Most literature and training around governance is based on Board performance, efficiency, and engagement, that’s it. No wonder we associate all things governance with Boards. When in fact, the work of governance can play such an important role in the health and development of an organization.

So the ONN asked: what is governance? Who is doing it? Who should be doing it? And how? One of the big realizations they made was that organizations were being forced to squish their values and practices into the existing model. There are 58,000 nonprofits in ON, how can one or two models work for such a diversity of organizations?! A bit like my friend navigating a system that expects a family to look a certain way.

The initiative decided that instead of creating a different model, they wanted to develop a process that would empower orgs to create their own models, one day hopefully flooding the nonprofit sector with an abundance of working models to be inspired and not shackled by. They collaborated with nine nonprofits over a period of several months to co-create the materials, and supported them in experimenting and working with new ideas.

First, they identified that the ultimate goal of governance is to “enable positive impact on the community”. Initially, I didn’t think this would resonate with my baby metaphor, but the more I think about it… They then identified the high level functions of governance: developing strategy, setting and upholding org culture, tracking finances, etc. Turns out, fundraising is not a governance function, but can be a board function if that choice is made. Whoa… Then, once all of those factors were identified, the orgs moved to the design playground: Processes, People, Structures, Culture. Get an in-depth look at that here

For 10 months, these nine organizations tested the tools and resources they, along with ONN and individuals in the sector, helped to co-create. The Reimagining Governance Lab will contain multiple access points, not a set process, so organizations can choose how deep to dive in based on their current capacities. In early conceptions of the project, the goal was to create a process for organizations to follow. However, it became clear that a set process would still be too limiting. This evolution moved the thinking from a circular model to more of a 3-D governance ecosystem, responding to the various needs from the different organizations.

The ONN has just launched their public Reimagining Governance Lab online. It includes stories and examples from the nine organizations they worked with and will have updates as the nonprofits continue to evolve their governance models, each experimenting with specific elements and needs. The Lab will continue to be animated by convening communities of practice, inviting other organizations to join in and try things, all of which will be documented and included in the Lab as the experimentation/implementation evolves.

This work is an experiential process and requires organizations to name, identify, and reflect on how they do governance. What are the external/internal influences? It requires space & time to put intentionality into how a governance system is designed. Kang clarified that these questions almost never get asked and requires those in power to reflect on why they have power, and then often to relinquish it for deep and lasting change to manifest. Anti-oppression work needs to be woven into the fabric of governance, particularly because the nonprofit model is based in white supremacy .

Kang identified the concept of intentional vs implied ways of functioning, and how so much of what we do is implied, based on “how it has always been done”, sometimes for over 100 years. One of the surprising things Kang shared with us was that documenting comes later in the process. By-laws, documents, policies etc. should reflect the decisions being made about your governance system, not vice versa. Much in the same way the contract between my friend and her donor came after they had done all of their homework and discussed all the foreseeable possibilities. At that point, making a contract was easy because they were coming from a place of understanding each other’s goals, desires, and values.

And just so you don’t think that I’m the only one who sees these parallels, Kang herself reflected that:

“I liken [challenging governance models] a lot to family dynamics. We often think about the birth parents of a child; that they are responsible for the whole development of this child. Whereas, in fact, there are all these environmental, societal factors - also chosen family, friends, educators etc. So imagine if we only focus on a child’s parents, and then we’re like, yep, that’s it. The idea of co-parenting, for a lot of people, and the idea of challenging the dominant norm of what those relationships look like, is hard to imagine.”

Yes, hard to imagine, but the work that Kang, the ONN, and their invested partners are doing (not to mention my badass friend) is making it easier for nonprofits to imagine other models and develop ones that work for them. ‘One size fits all’ worked when there was only one nonprofit in Ontario. 'One size fits one’ will be far more responsive and effective with 58,000 in this province alone.

Governance Reimaginings asks how we can deconstruct inherited governance structures to create systems of accountability and community care that support, and are aligned with, the values of the organizations and individuals they serve. Structured as a knowledge exchange between Generator, Shakespeare in the Ruff, and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, Governance Reimaginings took place between April-December 2021 and featured a series of instigations by invited guest speakers. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Chalmers Family Fund, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, for this project.

Written by

Kaitlyn Riordan is a settler of Irish and French descent. She lives in Tkaronto and is a four-time Dora nominated actress and a playwright. She was part of the leadership team at Shakespeare in the Ruff from 2012-2021, including Artistic Director from 2017-2021, where her 'feminized’ Shakespearean play; Portia’s Julius Caesar, premiered in 2018. It was later produced at Hart House Theatre and is being produced at the University of Waterloo this spring. 1939, which she co-wrote with Jani Lauzon, premiered at The Stratford Festival in 2022. Plays in development include Gertrude's Hamlet, I Sit Content – a story of Emily Carr, and The Naked Nun. As an actor, she has worked across the country with Punctuate! Theatre, The Stratford Festival, Tarragon, The Grand, The Segal Centre and many in between. She has performed Linda Griffith’s one-person show; Maggie & Pierre multiple times and done Shakespeare on a national tour of England, in Colorado for two summers, and repeatedly in Withrow Park between two majestic willow trees.

Shelby Wright 1/13/23 Shelby Wright 1/13/23

Shelby Wright on the shape of governance

In the fifth post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, dance artist and former Co-Artistic Director for Toronto Dance Love-In, Shelby Wright, offers a personal response to a session led by Cynthia Lickers-Sage.

This is the fifth post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, dance artist and former Co-Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Love-In, Shelby Wright, offers a personal response to a Governance Reimaginings session led by Cynthia Lickers-Sage, Executive Director of the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA). This post was co-written by Brendan McMurtry-Howlett, artist and board member with Generator.

What did I picture Board Governance to be when I first joined the Governance Reimaginings project with Generator? I think I imagined turning our attention to a rule book covered in dust, but a rule book nonetheless; information that I didn’t have experience with, and therefore couldn’t yet have an opinion on. I was without an entry point. But, as I have learned through this project, board governance is in fact just what you make it, and what it needs to be. Governance is, in many ways, a record of the relationships formed and intentions created within a group of individuals who share a common goal: to manage and maintain the health of an organization.

Cynthia Lickers-Sage joined the folks participating in the Governance Reimaginings project to talk about her extensive and invaluable experience in the field, particularly in her role as the Executive Director with the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA). It was wintertime, and we were meeting on Zoom.

In our session with Cynthia, she talked with us about the ways that she, and IPAA before she arrived, are reclaiming board governance through a linguistic and cultural grounding in Indigenous practice and ways of working. At IPAA they name the individuals who fulfill the function of a board, The Grand Council. Cynthia described a way of organizing that is holistic in structure, a way of interacting that is unwritten and collaborative; a beautiful contrast to the image of a dusty rule book.

One of the first things she talked about was that she didn’t practice a hierarchy, “but rather, a…” she searched for a word, and then, laughing she said, “linearchy!”. Sharing this in-the-moment creative languaging was a perfect exercise in governance reimagining. Linearchy captured my imagination: is she describing lineage? Or a line drawing? I sat there thinking of the various possible sketches and line drawings I came up with when, in a previous Governance session, we were asked to draw what we thought board governance looked like. What emerged from my page were lines that continued to the outer reaches of the page in all directions. A depiction of constant growth but connected to some centrifugal force, a cycle or a spiral, a flowering center. Or possibly the shape of an ear. Could it be that board governance is actually the traces of our work together, the various sketches, ideas drawn up, a series of images from dialogue and collective thoughts?

“We do have a structure but it’s more in a circle format,” Cynthia said in describing the governance practice at IPAA. For them, the circle is both philosophy and function. The shape of a circle provides endless continuity, one thing turning into another, motion. An open and dynamic shape that generates many iterations from the place of beginning; there’s no distinct starting place, and infinite entry points. Everyone joining an IPAA Grand Council circle is considered equal to others, and has the opportunity to contribute and voice their ideas. It also guides procedure: when an idea or issue is brought forward to the Grand Council, discussion always goes around the circle with each member of the circle given space to speak if they are moved to. In fact, at the bottom of all their meeting minutes, they have a diagram of the circle, and the names of who sat where. When everyone has spoken on the matter, a collective decision is made in an interconnected way. Cynthia shrugs her shoulders and says it’s a way of working that “was comfortable with my DNA, I don’t know any other way to put that.”

This comment gave me pause. What are the ways of working that are compatible with my own life experience? Most boards use the colonial standard structure of “Robert’s Rules of Order”, where a director leads the meeting, motions are made, and decisions are made by majority rule voting. Before having any board experience, I didn’t know who Robert was and what his rules were, and upon review I can definitely say it is nothing to inspire what is needed in my own practice of meeting, gathering, discussing. What is my grounding within dance, within creative exploration in rehearsal halls, that can point me to a way of working with governance? I am familiar with coming to complex decisions in collaborative group dynamics - that is my whole world as a dance artist.

**So why have I been undermining my own experience and competence as soon as I step into the context of board governance?**

Moments for the Neighbouring Room, photo provided by Shelby Wright

Cynthia went on to describe their AGM which uses open space facilitation to gather ideas and collect talking points; a space to share stories, to paddle down the river, spontaneously dancing, feasting together, eating words, eating thoughts, visioning the future. A space to become family. Space is made for organizational conversations to take place in many forms, and that arise, free form, in the moment. “Why not,” she said. She reminded us that we are adults, we are not in school, we can show up and be receptive to our own thoughts and share them with others and organize accordingly. Language and terminology are important and sometimes need to be insisted upon, as Cynthia continues to do with IPAA. If the funders and stakeholders do not understand, it is our responsibility to teach them, to lead them. “I’ve got a lot of strength in my shoulders now to push back”, Cynthia said. To make her point, she tells us that granting agencies didn’t always give the option to apply for funding as an artist collective. That was something artists had to advocate for. To do something different, one must simply do something different.

This was a refreshing reminder, and for me, it allowed me to visualize throwing that dusty imagined rulebook, those stale “Rules”, right into the garbage.

“Respect what is needed,” Cynthia pointedly stated. Start at the beginning, which could be anywhere, and keep in mind that every journey starts with a step. This will be a work in progress, but that’s a good thing. Board Governance should be a living document, absorbing the knowledge brought forward with new members, quivering with ongoing dialogue, rippling outward when the dial finally moves forward. The performing arts sector is at the beginning of possibility, a paradigm shift, of shaping the foundations of support. That is what Governance is meant to do.

Shelby Wright at Toronto Biennial, photo by Nick Rose

Since our session, I have continued to ask myself: what do I know in my life as an artist that can shape the way I practice Governance? What are the words, shapes, and ways of collaborating that I can use to reimagine Governance? As artists we practice being courageous enough to trust ourselves, our own ways-of-knowing, in knowing what is needed. The way forward is written in our own bodies.

Written by

Shelby Wright is a Toronto-based dance artist, choreographer and producer. In her work, Wright celebrates the unique genre of dance as a means of relationship building through collaboration, and critical experimentation in scene and score building. Wright has received training from Canada’s National Ballet School (Toronto), École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, The Limón Institute (New York), and holds a BA from the University of Toronto in Cinema Studies and History. She has performed professionally in New York, Toronto, Montréal, Halifax, Winnipeg and Vancouver, with artists Kahtryn Alter, Susan Wolf, Jamee Valin, Robert Kingsbury and Lauren Runions. Since 2015, Wright has worked with Toronto visual artist Katie Lyle on a collaborative performance practice combining their artistic backgrounds in dance and visual art. Selected presentations of their co-authored work include: the Toronto Biennale (2019), SummerWorks Festival (2018), and the Canadian Art Foundation (2017).

Aria Evans 12/6/22 Aria Evans 12/6/22

Reframing Board Structures

In the second post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, Aria Evans (interdisciplinary artist, intimacy coordinator, activist, filmmaker, and educator) reflects on the Organizational Culture and the Partnership Between Board and Leadership session on November 23, 2022.

This is the second post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, an initiative of the Toronto Arts Foundation. As a co-creator of the series in 2022/23, Generator has engaged Artist Responders to attend each session, to summarize, reflect and respond to the emerging conversations and activities. In this post, Aria Evans (interdisciplinary artist, intimacy coordinator, activist, filmmaker, and educator) reflects on the Organizational Culture and the Partnership between Board and Leadership session on November 23, 2022.

Following the October 4th Creative Champions Network workshop about Governance Reimaginings, I attended the November 23rd gathering that investigated: Organizational Culture and the Partnership between Board and Leadership facilitated by Erin Kang.

Building on the ideas from the first session, we looked at ways to approach governance differently and more imaginatively. It was expressed that so often nonprofits look for templates that are not necessarily aligned to their organizational purpose, values, or current circumstances. This workshop offered that a way forward could be to find where the organizational and artistic visions can be aligned and in balance.

In my experience, the bulk of the conversations by those that attended this workshop centred around the fact that there are no cookie-cutter approaches to nonprofit governance, no quick fixes or 1-2-3 steps to follow. It offered that individually as organizations we can start by being self-reflective then make unique assessments and finally carve an individual path forward.

The workshop started with a sentiment from Claire Hopkinson that surprised me. There are 2000 volunteer arts board members in our city (Tkaronto). That is 2000 people dedicated to advocacy in our sector who are engaged in this kind of governance! Facilitator Erin Kang went on to point out that there is a larger nonprofit sector that arts organizations get grouped into and our organizations actually need vastly different structures that directly support the ways our industry works as opposed to adopting strategies from these other sectors.

Right from the beginning of the workshop care and sustainability were themes that came forward.

I think about the ways artists have been having conversations about this internally; in creative processes and on stage. I wondered how often we consider these themes from a board perspective.

In our first breakout discussion we were asked to define governance for the nonprofits we are connected to; is it the governance rules that make the organization function? Is governance a set of values that ensure mission statements align with the actions of the organization? Is governance something else? We were also asked about how we define the responsibility of the board in relationship to the staff and who the board is accountable to.

A beautiful offer that came out of this discussion was to centre humanity vs. the rules or the technical legislature - to think about what the spirit of your nonprofit is. We were encouraged to look at: what is the legal minimum the board needs to do, and to think about intentional governance design that launches from that foundation.

The conversation flowed to the idea of innovation; innovation, as it pertains to new ways of making decisions … and thus other questions were posed: “what are your organization's issues and what is at the root of them?”. We were given an example of an organization struggling with communication that had no clarity around roles … the root of this points to the idea that the way governance has been designed isn’t working.

Are our boards just fitting into models that we think can work vs. are we finding systems that work on a project-to-project basis that aren’t always prescribed?

In contemplating the questions posed during a second breakout session, another consideration came up around what the culture of decision making looks like. Accountability plays a huge role in this and we were asked to consider if decisions are guided or directed by funders, by members of the organization, by artistic leads, by staff etc. and what the implications of these realities are and what a governance structure that supports this could be.

A metaphor about the way we think of family was used that really resonated with me. Yes, there is the dominant model of family in society but there are also queer families, people who adopt children, chosen families, non-monogamous families and so on.

How can this perspective allow us to re-imagine, re-model or turn over and start anew with our governance models?

A question I am interested in carrying forward from this workshop is: How do we work toward a cyclical ecosystem as opposed to a hierarchical one?

Written by

Aria Evans (she/he/they) is a queer, Toronto-based, West Coast-born award-winning interdisciplinary artist who’s practice spans dance, theatre and film. As a public speaker, activist and creative leader, Aria draws on their experiences of being mixed race. Aria is a certified Intimacy Coordinator and with a large-scale vision, collaboration is the departure point to the choreographic work that Aria creates under their company POLITICAL MOVEMENT. Advocating for inclusion and the representation of diversity, Aria uses their artistic practice to question the ways we can coexist together.

Coman Poon 10/29/22 Coman Poon 10/29/22

The Need to Reimagine Learning

In this first post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, Coman Poon (arts consultant, creation doula, interdisciplinary artist, activist, curator and producer) reflects on the Governance Reimaginings session on October 4, 2022.

This is the first post in a series of artist responses to the Get on Board: Workshop and Speaker Series by the Creative Champions Network, an initiative of the Toronto Arts Foundation. As a co-creator of the series in 2022/23, Generator has engaged Artist Responders to attend each session, to summarize, reflect and respond to the emerging conversations and activities. In this post, Coman Poon (arts consultant, creation doula, interdisciplinary artist, activist, curator and producer) reflects on the Governance Reimaginings session on October 4, 2022.

At the October 4, 2022 Creative Champions Network (CCN) workshop promisingly entitled Governance Reimaginings, Generator Board member and keynote speaker Brendan McMurtry-Howlett referenced “relational governance structures”, a concept he attributed to Indigenous decolonial theory and ways-of-knowing. Acknowledging Indigenous arts leaders Yvette Nolan and Cynthia Lickers-Sage, he cited the need for “relational” governance structures in the arts, where “the strength of the decision-making process rests on the strength of interpersonal relationships within the organization”.

What does this REALLY mean? Does relational ‘strength’ refer to both structure and quality of ONLY internal collaboration and decision-making? Short of assuming or fantasizing about some generalized indigenous cultural imaginary, couldn’t it be argued that solely self-propagating, diminishingly relevant, insular and/or nepotistic, colonially powered Arts Boards can also potentially be included in the above broad definition?

While puzzling over this feel-good word/idea of “relationality”, contrasted with how I, as a Board member of CanAsian Dance, experienced the very formally* structured Governance Reimaginings CCN workshop, I had the opportunity to converse with Michael Caldwell, Creative Director: Programming at Generator.

Following on the heels of their own internal governance ‘think tank’ journey, Generator is newly partnering with the Toronto Arts Foundation’s lauded Creative Champions Network to deliver a co-learning series that aims to reignite action to address the so-called crisis of governance in the arts. The result is the CCN’s four part Get On Board: Workshop and Speaker Series.

WHAT CRISIS? you may ask. Let’s start at the beginning.

For nearly a hundred years, board governance of the not-for-profit sector (of which 9% lies within the arts sector) has been following the corporate model of “authority”, “responsibility” and most importantly, “accountability”. The latter seems to consist of:

monitoring and mitigating risk, and
measuring results (for corporate stakeholders).

Brendan powerfully untangled that when faced with the application of this to a complex of ecosystems within the arts, there is often the weaponization of “fiduciary duty”. Itself simply referring to the onus of making decisions in the ‘best interest’ of an organization, fiduciary duty is often conflated and used interchangeably with ‘liability’, which refers to taking on responsibility for damages.

Art-making and participating in the co-witnessing and gift-exchanging of art is arguably far from generating the type of liability engineers may face when building a bridge. In fact, what artists and audiences revel in as “risk-taking” in art is arguably the essence of the “unique value proposition” of art.

What is needed in this period of initial transition from the strictures of pandemic coupled with the ongoing awareness and outrage at systemic inequities in the arts sector (and beyond) is none other than a radical act of collective unlearning and reimagining.

As Michael metaphorized, the boat (moving toward positive change) comes around in cycles and it is up to each one of us to examine our privilege/resistance and pursue our willingness to wrestle with the complexity involved in sustaining change-making.

WHAT IS CO-LEARNING (aka. collaborative learning)?

A quick online search provided me with refracting definitions such as:

Co-learning is a manner of group learning that enhances communication skills, cultural awareness, thinking skills and so much more
Co-learning aims at the collaborative construction of knowledge, in which co-learners are able to expand their social networks
Collaborative learning is rooted in Lev Vygotsky's concept of learning called “zone of proximal development”. Typically there are tasks that learners can and cannot accomplish. Between these two areas is the zone of proximal development, which is a category of things that a learner can learn with the help of guidance.
Indigenous people of the Americas utilize collaborative learning through their emphasis on role sharing and responsibility sharing within their communities.

My wish for future CCN activities and sessions?: A more flexible structure and framework for co-learning as a baseline strategy for movement building around reimagining/decolonizing ‘governance’.

Collaborative learning challenges assumptions and questions “business as usual” or “this is how it’s always been done”. Afterall, it’s not everyday where I get to engage with board members from long-standing performing arts organizations who proudly declare that their organizations are on “autopilot” and cite that succession planning is simply about “who gets to be the Chair”.

*This session was hosted in the office spaces at Adaptivist. White square tables were organized in a relatively tight grid with a podium for the speakers at one end, and bar and catering table flanking the seated participants at the other. The intros and keynote speech took up the majority of the two hours followed by a quick round of prompts and questions from rotating facilitators who hurriedly captured themes and insights from workshop participants. A small amount of time was left for networking and informal conversation at the end.

Written by

Coman Poon | 潘灏文 is a Tkaronto-based arts consultant, creation doula, interdisciplinary artist, activist, curator and producer working within the context of decolonization and intercultural exchange. He is a bilingual, English/Cantonese community-centred Torontonian of Hong Kong & Canadian upbringing. He writes about live art, dance and performance and profiles diverse artistic practices as a journalistic act of re-centring on the margins. He is the current Board President of CanAsian Dance, a 25 year-old arts organization engaging in its own governance transformation.

Sophie Dow 7/7/22 Sophie Dow 7/7/22

Sophie Dow on Values, Feasting, and other Board Business

In the fourth post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, dance/music artist and board member for Toronto Dance Love-In, Sophie Dow, offers a personal response to a session led by Yvette Nolan.

This is the fourth post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, dance/music artist and board member for Toronto Dance Love-In, Sophie Dow, offers a personal response to a session led by Yvette Nolan.

Tansii - Bonjour - Good Morning!

I’m Sophie - In day-to-day life, I fulfill roles as a classically ballet/modern/jazz/contemporary/hip hop/acrobatics/etc. trained (and actively un-training) dancer, choreographer, musician, filmmaker, fire spinner, writer, busker and bodyworker.

My first coffee date with Robert’s Rules came while holding executive roles in various undergraduate student associations at York University.

I generally recall thinking of the rules, motions, seconds etc. as a stupid game and load of hubbub. It felt like we were creating problems and verbal jargon for no other sake than in case “the great and terrifying Big Brother” came checking on our records and if we didn’t have all the i’s dotted, the association would be shut down forevermore....

*Sophie Dow - photo credit: Graham Isador*

Fast forward to 2021: how is this relevant and how did I land in THIS Generator circle?

After leading what I believed a fairly “successful” first 11 months of the pandemic, I sank into the common existential hole, harbouring feelings of guilt and responsibility - What am I Actually doing in my creative communities? How can I be engaged as an active support to companies that have generously offered me their services? What is the changing definition of “getting involved” and if there’s a need for change, how can it be sustained?

In a surge of “pandemic-passtime-passion” and in response to these questions, I joined the Board of Directors for two companies: Toronto Dance Love-In and Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA).

Little did I know that these groups were in the midst of asking similar questions about the relationship between their executive staff and Board of Directors, with common desires of “shifting board governance structures.”

This brought up an extreme thrill. I had just joined a setting that I thought I knew how to engage with “the rules” (even if I found them silly) and suddenly there was an overwhelming wave to throw the rules in the trash… but without clarity of how to do so. HOW EXCITING!!

CUE GENERATOR

Luckily, the Love-In, alongside Shakespeare in the Ruff, were invited into an epic circle: Generator’s Governance Reimaginings project, to zoom in on why and how we can disrupt these cycles of colonial, not-for-profit board models for ourselves, our own companies, and on a larger scale, offer examples for other arts organizations.

For a hearty description of what this Generator circle is, check out Brendan McMurtry-Howlett’s post HERE. - http://generatorto.com/blog/governance-intro

OCTOBER’S GUEST OF HONOUR

As a past employee of Native Earth Performing Arts and a Métis artist myself, I was naturally OVER THE MOON when it was confirmed Yvette Nolan would be one of our guests.

As an official introduction:

Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, director and dramaturg. Her vast body of work includes the plays The Unplugging, the dance-opera Bearing, and the libretto Shanawdithit. From 2003-2011, Yvette served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. Her book, Medicine Shows, about Indigenous performance in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015, and Performing Indigeneity, which she co-edited with Ric Knowles, in 2016. An Artistic Associate with Signal Theatre, she is currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy.

We enthusiastically welcomed Yvette into our circle on October 7th, 2021. What follows is a shared summary and reflections, as I understood them, of Yvette’s offerings to our group.

CONTEXT

A primary point of clarity tying us all together highlighted the question: WHY are we still engaging with a corporate Board of Directors (BoD) model in non-corporate, arts settings!?

In short form response: because we are saddled with legislation to incorporate in order to access funding… but from Yvette’s perspective (which many of us agreed with), the issue is that the BoD is a FICTION! This means one of two things: that the structure is adhered to in name only, or that the existing BoD’s don’t have the ability or capacity to be responsible for all that the legislation says they should be - their powers are fictional.

Yvette spoke about the past and current parts of the model that contribute to this issue, and that are definitely NOT working. These include:

-The People

BoDs consist of volunteers who don't always have a clear understanding of what is happening in the organization, or the industry, and are not necessarily patrons of the arts. They often create their own work to justify their existence, rarely have the time to accomplish work between meetings, and only truly exist when assembled. Though even when assembled, it is not clear WHAT their roles are.

-Crisis

Frequently the BoD is spurred to substantial action only when there is a crisis, and the only crisis a BoD knows how to respond to is financial. Rarely is a BoD equipped to handle prolonged crises that are connected to significant cultural or societal shifts, such as those dealing with systemic racism, sexual misconduct, or fallout from the pandemic.

(A prime example of this took place at Soulpepper between 2016 - 2018, where women who came forward with allegations of sexual abuse and harassment were reportedly dismissed by management and the BoD. The only instance when the BoD addressed the situation was when a civil lawsuit was filed against Albert Schultz AND the BoD for not responding. In this case and many others, BoDs demonstrate a sole concern for being held accountable for financial debacles without offering compassion to the company in any other crisis.)

-Missing Tools

When financial crises do arrive, there are only two options: The BoD can step in to use network/power to address this financial moment OR artistic staff can shut down the company and go to funders. This is when the BoD is supposed to be most effective, but not all crises are financial nor are they singular moments. We are in MORE than a Moment now, we are in MOVEMENT - so boards are in crisis because this extended moment is asking boards for further support, BEYOND finances.

CHANGE NOW

In a time of pandemics: COVID and racial reckonings, we are pulled directly into the present moment and movement. The whole world is being asked to make great change. Yvette made it clear that it is uncertain how long this window of opportunity will remain open. So, HOW do we change our structures so they’re more reflective of the way we’re doing our work? (and while the federal and provincial Not-for-Profit Corporations Acts still kick around.)

Some organizations simply do the minimum to comply with the legislation, and then do their own thing outside of that. However, to manage a Board of Directors - whether it follows the laws or not - is such a huge job, there is reluctance to create another thing that causes additional labour for staff.

At Common Weal in Saskatchewan, (where Yvette is the BoD Chair), the changes they’re delving into look at Responsibility and Accountability. Yvette suggests, “the person who holds the circle (ie. the board Chair) is not responsible for having all the answers, they’re responsible for holding all the knowledges in the room; turn the hierarchy on its side so it becomes a circle”

The Earth and nature’s cycles all move in circles - what are ways we can approach the governance of our own organizations with this same pattern?

Five dancers counterbalance each other in a circle - the only possible formation to hold each other up in this position - all reaching up towards the a globe - still from They Move on Tracks of Never Ending Light (2017) by Sophie Dow - photo credit: Mackenzie Clarke

COMING HOME TO VALUES

When writing a grant, companies craft their Vision, Mission and Mandate which is then assessed and argued about in peer review committees. If we can question this legitimacy through grants for the organization, why can’t we bring this scrutiny to our BoD – their role in a company and how they function?

While a company’s values should guide decision making, most BoD’s are more concerned about their bylaws which are required by Not-for-Profit Incorporation Acts. But the ONLY legal requirement of a non-profit organization’s bylaws is to define the conditions of membership for that organization. That’s it. So, rather than endless pages of bylaws, what would happen with a collective writing of the VALUES of the BoD? Once the BoD’s values are identified, do they align with those of the organization? And if so, how do the values become tools that can be called upon in crisis (financial and beyond) while remaining mindful that expectations are truly being fulfilled? I.E.: how are these values actionable?

Furthermore, could the staff of the organization be the initiators and guides of these values? Since the staff carry the practical responsibility of finding new board members and training the board, couldn’t it be possible to do this with a values-based approach? A person would be invited to join the board under the advised values and the positions would only be fulfilled should the values at the heart of both the organization and the BoD be honoured and upheld.

ALL MY RELATIONS

As artists running organizations, we KNOW everything is in relation and we’ve been trying to make any kind of relationship with BoDs. Unfortunately, we’ve failed under the prevalent belief that we need lawyers, stake-holders, accountants, etc in order to comprise a “good” BoD. This belief lands us with a BoD comprised of people who are not connected to the arts or professionals in the arts field, overseeing us and our arts organizations. It just doesn’t make sense to have non-professionals governing professionals in any other given field.

To put it in perspective, approximately 30 hours of one board director’s year is offered in overseeing the organization, while staff members invest 40 - 80 hours per week. HOW do we reconcile these relationships? How do we make our approaches to artistic creation, ALSO the way we are governed? Is the circle of reciprocity alive here?

Perhaps the desire and change could come by having people involved who actually have the time and experience to KNOW what the organization is doing and why.

THE FEAST

What are other creative ways to fulfill the “requirement” that a BoD meet 4 to 6 times a year?

In a traditional Indigenous council, important decisions and sharings took place in community, over a feast. It would be possible to replace the dreaded BoD meeting with something like a feast. The board & staff could come together four times a year over food and the intentional conversation would be around how the organization’s work is going. Perhaps there’s a showing, a discussion, a discourse and finally a paper signing, but the core of the gathering would be in the spirit of the relationships.

FURTHERING REIMAGININGS

What are other possible steps forward? Here are some thoughts that arose during our conversation with Yvette:

Changing bylaws is possible. The legal requirements for the content of a non-profit board’s bylaws are absolutely minimal. Even the kind of legalese language found in most bylaws could be up for change.

The way a board meeting takes place could change. Although the legalities still require “motions” and approvals, you may redefine how motions are made. The common usage of Roberts Rules in board meetings are not based on any legal requirement whatsoever - this is merely a convention first created in 1876.

Celebrating and uplifting transparency - imagine a board where anyone could call upon a board member at any time and the board member could explain exactly what the organization is doing and presenting at all times.

Understanding and being clear that there are no good models. Every step we take in this window of change - between now and the time we are free from this legislation - is as good as everything else.

DREAMING BEYOND

In this (possibly brief) window of change, we are privileged to be in the role of the dreamers. We know the window exists and we know the model needs to shift. SO, circling through values, relations and feasts, what other shifts are you open to and curious about? How can you contribute to the movement? How could you dream of your next board gathering beyond the past prescribed rules?

Written by

Winnipeg-born Sophie Dow is a multidisciplinary creative, inspired by dance, music, collaboration and Métis-Assiniboine + settler roots. An avid adventurer, Sophie has a passion for busking, yoga and traveling on top of holding a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography. With a unique list of credits deeply impacting personal process and vocabulary, Sophie has experienced the bounties of working with some of Turtle Island’s wonderful dance innovators, including Chimera Dance Theatre, Kaeja d'Dance & O.Dela Arts.

In 2021/22, Sophie fulfills roles as: a creative director of FLIGHT: PEC’s Festival of Contemporary Dance, residency artist with NuSqool/KindePay, Dance West Network and Dance Victoria, musician with The Honeycomb Flyers and a licensed practitioner of Traditional Thai Massage.

desirée leverenz 4/30/22 desirée leverenz 4/30/22

desirée leverenz on Feeling Governance to Heal Governance

In the third post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, Shakespeare in the Ruff’s former Associate Artistic Director, desirée leverenz, offers a personal response to a session led by Zainab Amadahy.

This is the third post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, Shakespeare in the Ruff’s former Associate Artistic Director, desirée leverenz, offers a personal response to a Governance Reimaginings session led by Zainab Amadahy.

My name is desirée and i am writing this blog post as part of generator’s governance re-imagining series.

You’ll find in this post that I am going to center myself a lot. This is not an attempt to distance you from my words, but rather invite you into my journey, my experience, my thoughts, my spirit. I feel like in writing so often, I search for my own opinion by the author telling me how “we feel.” We are tired of the state of affairs, we must work hard to overturn them, we feel happy, we love tik tok, we are quirky, we love femininity and uphold it in a patriarchal world (I am dragging myself here, and I hope you can chuckle with me).

One time, an academic advisor told me I should take out “I feel,” statements from my writing, because for some reason, feeling isn’t legitimized in writing…

This piece is filled with feelings.

I am working, and I believe many people are, to transform structures and institutions that are doing a disservice to us, and our neighbors. And when I say “working” i mean working in the most absolute capitalist- possible, in a way that i center the work. When the work or the art, or the people need me to rest so i can be awake for the next part, i will rest.

Zainab Amadahy showed me that centering my own healing will lead to the transformation i am working for.

The structure, function, and existence of non profit boards, and the default ways for them to function within canada, upholds patriarchy, colonization, capitalism, white supremacy, all the things we are working hard to eradicate right now. So I go to trainings, seminars, anti-oppression workshops, I learn from new teachers, I use the word “decolonize” a lot. But…

I feel like I’m not transforming. I feel like I am learning details, but nothing is changing. I feel stuck. I feel like I can’t imagine a future.

I don’t really know what other structures look like. This happens to me when I talk about an anti-hero’s journey or non-linear storytelling. There’s no other structure for it. What can other structures even look like? If I was a cool highschool teacher I would hold a piece of paper with a triangle on it and then crumple it and say that’s the structure I want.

How can I say I want others to have power and say that I want to abolish power all in one breath? The questions of transformation and reimagining feel filled with polarity in a way that I actually can’t feel the transformation, and instead just details of the polarity. I get frustrated when people ask me if not this then what. I get even more frustrated when people ask me what decolonization looks like. It feels connected for me.

How do we grow into different ways of thinking and believing together as a society when we can’t think and dream the potential that we hold within ourselves first?

Part of the reason I am intentionally centering myself in this writing, is because Zainab shared exactly that. She began the conversation with telling us that she was not there to critique current models of governance, but rather offer her theory of change: “When individuals change, their organization changes. How do we want to be? Who do we want to be? How do our organizations reflect who we are back to us?”

Well, I can tell you this much, dear reader: I do not like most of the organizations (if any), around me, and what does that tell me about myself?

It would be a dishonour to Zainab if I offered to share her theory and teachings in a regurgitative way. To me, that feels like the opposite of her teachings. So instead I offer you my experience of the conversation, and with it my curiosities and wonders and dreams that were facilitated by these teachings.

I wonder where the cells of my body end?

I wonder where the tips of my fingers, and the electricity in this keyboard intersect, and what the difference in those atoms look like?

I wonder if the atoms love each other?

I wonder what their relations are?

I wonder if they are like air and earth, or instead like different states of water?

I wonder how that feeling you get when your lover sings along to music softly is felt by a plant?

I wonder what could happen if we were to center anything else other than ourselves?

I wonder if humans intentionally stepped outside of this human-oid/meat sack centered orbit, and put anything else inside of it?

I wonder how that would feel?

Zainab says that: “cultural wisdom has been villainized because of separation, competition and inequality.”

I wonder what happens if I center my ancestors in my ways of learning (my ways of knowing)? I wonder about the healing and work I would have to do in order to even access those teachings? I wonder what happens if I not only think about, but embody the idea that all of existence is in relation to each other – including my ancestors, and the future relations I will have?

I wonder what happens when I stop villainizing spirituality? I wonder how this will change my conversations with my friends, my colleagues, my boards?

I wonder how that would feel?

Zainab spoke about feelings and transformation.

I felt defensive and frustrated about some of Zainab’s sentiments. I felt fiery, and sparked. So much that I stopped listening.

In case you can’t tell, I am a big feeler with feelings that creep feelingly around my feels.

I asked later:

ISN’T SAYING THERE’S NO SPACE FOR FEELINGS IN THE REVOLUTION JUST RE-ENACTING PATRIARCHAL IDEALS?!?!

Zainab shared that there’s space for it, but that the work can’t happen from there, and instead offered that it needs to happen from a place of love.

She also suggested that maybe that was a wound I needed to heal.

She was right. I could easily go into a spiral rant about how offended i was, and frustrated, but in an attempt to center my own healing i will tell you that Zainab was right. I have often felt like I offer feelings and emotion, and I make it acceptable and necessary to bring those things into professional settings; so, when Zainab said feelings weren’t necessary, (and my feelings are so intertwined to my self worth) I felt like I wasn’t necessary to those spaces.

I wonder what happens when instead of linking our self worth to what we bring to the room, we connect our self worth to the quality of connections that we hold with the universe?

I wonder what happens when we operate from places of love and generosity and spirit?

I wonder what happens when we carry all of life in all of its relations, with us?

Zainab says that even the things we don’t like are our relatives.

They are an expression of us. So, I wonder what happens when we love ourselves so that we can heal ourselves.

I wonder if healing ourselves, could heal our relations which could heal the way our relations are organized.

We cannot heal structures with more structures. We must find ways to exchange with anything and everything. We must stop delineating experiences. From human to human, from energy to energy.

And perhaps then our organizations will serve us, because they will be us.

I wonder.

Written by

desirée leverenz is a theatre director, creator, mover and shaker, who will never wash treaty 6 soil from beneath her feet. she exists here to bring questions, and reveal stories and conversations, for artists and audiences alike, so that we can all dream of a better future together. desirée is attracted to epic stories: epic in content, in aesthetic, and in spirit. she’s received institutional education from university of alberta (BA), and york university (MFA), and has directed in large institutions, and quiet back alleys. desirée has a particular affinity for working on art that is devised in nature and loves to play with traditional text in a way to transform ideas and institutions that are no longer serving us.

Nidhi Khanna 1/10/22 Nidhi Khanna 1/10/22

Nidhi Khanna on Reframing Governance

In the second post in our ‘Governance Reimaginings’ series, Generator Strategic Advisors Co-Chair Nidhi Khanna responds to a session on Reframing Governance led by Jane Marsland.

This is the second post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, Generator Strategic Advisors Co-Chair Nidhi Khanna responds to a Governance Reimaginings session led by Jane Marsland.

Over my 20-year non-profit arts career, I have interacted with various organizational boards in different capacities, ranging from frontline employee that only hears sparingly about the nebulous “Board”, to senior leader presenting and pitching at board meetings and committees, to Board Member myself. I’ve worked with large institutional boards, smaller community non-profit boards, governance boards, working boards, and all the committees that go along with Board governance.

Most boards I’ve worked with have had similar characteristics: members are predominantly white men—more recently, increasing numbers of white women—with varying levels of experience working in the arts or non-profit world.

When there is a diversity of representation in the Board composition, members from equity-seeking groups rarely have any real power, are frequently relegated to committees that have limited reach within the overall organization, and are often a lone voice expected to represent a whole spectrum of opinions in the governance of the organization.

It’s encouraging to see changes in these demographics in the arts space, however we have a long way to go before the dynamics of board composition filter into meaningful impact on the work accomplished by an arts organization. We see organizations tout their EDI initiatives and attempts at achieving representation in their workforce, but when marginalized and racialized people are still accountable on paper to a predominantly white board, we must accept that this is tokenism and colonialism in action. Generator’s outgoing Lead Producer, Kristina Lemieux, breaks down the history of the prevailing governance model in Canada in this blog post, and surprise, dear Reader, “the nonprofit/charity model is inherently patriarchal and capitalist and therefore colonial and racist.”

In the midst of many challenges in the arts sector, our entrepreneurial, grassroots model for engagement, creation and audience building is often at the mercy of an archaic model of non-profit governance.

Arts boards are often composed of volunteers who have little or no experience with the creative process. Rather, they are chosen for their potential fundraising network or expertise, creating a power dynamic that is fundamentally rooted in capitalism and white privilege, leading to board dysfunction, particularly amongst boards that are embracing “diversity” without truly giving up power.

So what to do about this archaic model that at best has active, engaged members who understand their responsibilities to the organization and the overall arts ecosystem, and at its worst, is padding in someone’s corporate bio or LinkedIn profile?

Traditional roles and responsibilities of non-profit boards are summarized elsewhere (you can refer to this webinar or to the Board of Directors page on ArtistProducerResource.com here), so let’s move to the more potent question for today: “what exactly is the responsibility of a non-profit arts board in this current time?” As part of Generator’s Governance Reimaginings project, Jane Marsland led a session addressing this very question, focusing on the need to shift board dynamics beyond approval of audited statements and strategic planning sessions, to broader discourse around transformation of the current arts ecology away from classism, patriarchy and subservience to….well, something else.

ARTS Action Research’s arts-centric concept for a healthy arts organization, via Jane Marsland. The Centre holds the principles, values, mission, purpose and particular aesthetic of the arts organization which is articulated in a document that is most fully understood by everyone in the first circle around the Centre, the Core.

Jane Marsland on Reframing Governance

With over 40 years in arts leadership, and many a board experience over the years, Jane has been instrumental in pushing to redefine non-profit board governance in the arts. In her session, Jane highlighted several areas of current governance fragility to be considered as we better understand how to create a dynamic and sustainable arts sector.

Here are three questions any arts board should be asking itself as we move through the next iteration of the arts sector in Canada:

1. Do we truly understand the artistic process?

The effective functioning of an arts board is tied to the creative process. Board members must have a true understanding of the artistic process of an organization in order to bring those values into this process at the governance level. Many of us have been there, that first meeting when you welcome in new board members, round robin introductions ensue, and sure enough a newer board member openly jokes about how this is the first time they are interacting with the organization, they know nothing about the arts, and thank so much for having them. It seems absurd, but it happens more often than you might think. A board that doesn’t understand the artistic process of the organization cannot understand how creative ideas are incubated and explored, how conflict is uncovered and resolved, how fiduciary decisions take place, and ultimately, how the organization functions—yet these are all foundational frameworks of effective governance, even for a board that is not involved in day-to-day operations.

2. Who is on our Board and why?

If you have sat on a board you may be familiar with the often heralded “board recruitment” conversation. Board renewal is an integral part of governance, but all too often arts organizations will use the opportunity to bring on board members who are believed to hold value without any real connection to the mission, vision or values of the organization. I once interviewed for a board where staff had asked me to put my name forward because of my understanding of the organization, my previous volunteer activities with the company and my overall expertise in the arts. I had a great conversation with the Board Chair for over an hour only to be told that at this particular moment, they needed someone with more fundraising experience. The traditional understanding of Board composition prevailed, with the Board looking for someone who had fundraising listed on their resume. This rigidity in their approach meant they missed out on someone with a network of emerging potential donors to contribute to donor renewal, new relationships with sponsor organizations, strong business acumen and sector expertise. Next time you engage in board renewal, ask yourself, does the “job description” work for the communities you want to engage, or is it based on a colonial notion of what it means for someone to add value to a board?

3. What is the lifecycle of our organization?

Understanding the lifecycle of arts organizations is central to understanding how they function. Boards are generally galvanized around the hope of growth, increased funding, dynamic programming, and the proliferation of hiring. Exciting times. But what about the opposite end of the life cycle, the part that no one wants to speak of or engage in strategically? When is it time for an arts organization to have its last curtain call? What is the Board’s responsibility in that discussion and strategy? I have seen first-hand as boards struggle with the difficult choice of saying “no” or redirecting staff when they know at their core that operations aren’t working, the financials are a mess, staff are unhappy and the narrative they are receiving isn’t the complete picture of what is going on. Toxic soup for sure! These conversations usually play out with one or two board members raising concerns that are explained away with vague answers or discussed “in camera” or, when they really hit the nail on the head, are met with silence or redirected (often these board members suddenly leave the board at the next AGM). This odd dynamic can fuel an environment that is psychologically unsafe for board members to speak up and truly adhere to their fiduciary responsibility. What is left is a rosy picture of success—until the organization is in crisis, put on notice by funders, and forced to consider winding down operations. But what if there was another way, one where arts boards openly discuss the lifecycle of the organization? A healthy arts organization fuels creativity by ensuring arts leaders and board members are only in their positions for a set period of time (a topic for another day). What if the same intentionality was applied at the organizational level? Like the last season of your favourite TV show, the last season of a performing arts organization could be one of celebration, excitement, and renewal as it morphs into a new form.

Strategy Knotworking from Liberating Structures, via Jane Marsland: six Strategy Knotworking questions are arrayed graphically with LS [Liberating Structures] methods useful for answering each question in parentheses. A visual approach reinforces the sequence of answers that reveal a story unfolding. Read more here or visit LiberatingStructures.com.

With all this food for thought, I encourage you to engage your board in central questions around governance. Maybe these ideas resonated with you or maybe they sparked another train of thought. Maybe you think I’m off-base. Great. My call to action is for Board Members to make this a standing agenda item at your board meetings, a discussion for your next board retreat and an action for your next board renewal process.

Let’s start talking, because the next generation of the arts in Canada needs to rethink structures and systems at every level, including governance, reimagined.

Written by

Brendan McMurtry-Howlett 12/13/21 Brendan McMurtry-Howlett 12/13/21

Governance Reimaginings (or, There’s Got To Be A Better Way)

Brendan McMurtry-Howlett on the challenges of navigating a board of directors as a young artistic director, and the project Generator has undertaken with Shakespeare in the Ruff and Toronto Dance Community Love-in to look at alternative governance models.

This is the first post in Generator’s ‘Governance Reimaginings’ blog series. You can find all posts in the series here, and everything we’ve published related to boards here. In this post, Generator Strategic Advisors Co-Chair and Board Member Brendan McMurtry-Howlett introduces the project.

Kaitlyn Riordan, Brendan McMurty-Howlett, and AJ Richardson (left to right) in Withrow Park, Shakespeare in the Ruff’s home base, in 2012 (perhaps contemplating the nature of governance, who’s to say?) — photo by Daniel Daley

So, my friends, we’ve had a couple blog posts about boards and governance already, primarily highlighting the shortcomings and challenges of the legislated model (i.e. systemic patriarchy and white supremacy). You can do a quick little recap here and here. You can also basically ask anyone who has ever sat on a board or worked with a board and they’ll likely give you a litany of issues…as well as a handful of positives.

Despite the widely acknowledged flaws of the non-profit board governance system that a company becomes beholden to as soon as it incorporates, “to incorporate or not to incorporate” is a question Generator hears routinely.

This, of course, is never as simple a conversation as the independent companies asking hope it will be (although we did write an ArtistProducerResource.com page about it to cover the basics). There’s pressure on indie companies who are looking to grow to pursue incorporation, either for regular non-profit status, or the coveted, yet misunderstood “charitable status” (Cue the pots of gold dancing in artists’ eyes.)

We’ve been having this discussion on repeat for years, emphasizing the systemic white supremacy and patriarchy that plagues the non-profit board of directors model—but we haven’t really had a clear alternative to point to. So, we thought we’d try to do something about it. We teamed up with Shakespeare in the Ruff and the Toronto Dance Community Love-in, two companies we’ve worked with closely over the past few years through our Company Collaborator program, to propose a project exploring alternative governance models—and lo and behold, the funding came through!

But first, how did I get here?

I’ve been peripherally connected to Generator (and even the former version: STAF) for a number of years. I helped found Shakespeare in the Ruff and served as the Artistic Director for the first five years, before passing the torch to Kaitlyn Riordan and Eva Barrie, who have now completed their tenures as well. More recently, I joined Generator’s board, curious to experience the board structure from the other side. See, as a young artist producer launching Shakespeare in the Ruff, I myself was lured by the promise of incorporation and charitable status. Well, to be perfectly honest, we were forced to incorporate in order to obtain a permit to perform in a city park. But, it seemed like a reasonable step to take since we wanted to grow the company and increase our access to resources.

I flew headlong into incorporation, and the accompanying “corporate” requirements and mandated board of directors, without much thought to what it actually meant.

I soon found myself trying to quickly learn the language of a corporation: Robert’s Rules, by-laws, minute-taking and motions. I filled our board with non-artists, as per the advice of the day: lawyers, accountants, corporate marketing experts, and the like.

I soon found I was living a double life: an artist in the rehearsal hall, actively embracing uncertainty with a robust creative process and vocabulary to navigate it; and a corporate executive in the board meetings, faking my way through meetings, discussing corporate decision-making procedures —steering clear of uncertainty at all costs lest the board of non-artists get scared and panic in a way that might undermine the organization. I found I was frequently undermining my own expert knowledge of the arts industry to defer to a corporate lawyer who waved around their “fiduciary duty” like a beating-stick.

I couldn’t provide leadership within the vocabulary and processes of a corporation, and the corporate directors couldn’t provide leadership for an arts industry they knew nothing about.

At the lowest point, our board imploded over disagreements of corporate procedure, and the company very nearly folded. No joke: Shakespeare in the Ruff, now celebrating its tenth anniversary and welcoming a third generation of leadership, almost went belly-up in year three.

I don’t believe there was malicious intent from any party. We were all simply pushed into a system of operating that did not arise from the values or ways-of-knowing of the artistic company itself. None of us had clarity on the actual functions of governance, beyond fulfilling the legal structure insisted upon by the Incorporation Act.

There were also many great experiences with Ruff’s board, where I was genuinely supported by a community of artists and non-artists alike to achieve more than I ever could have on my own. These polar oppositional experiences piqued my curiosity, and ever since leaving Shakespeare in the Ruff, I have sought to learn more about the spirit of governance and the legal structures we have in place. (I even went and did a Master’s degree looking at some of this stuff, but that’s a different story.) When the opportunity arose to join this project (and help write the grant), I jumped at it.

Brendan with Wayne Burns (right) in a production photo from *Romeo and Juliet* in 2016 — photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

Brendan welcoming Ruff audiences before a performance of *Two Gents* in 2012

So what is the project?

From the outset, the core of this project has been the desire to tackle the seemingly overwhelming topic of ‘governance’ within the context of a community of artist producers thinking about similar questions, but each through the lens of slightly different operating structures.

The Toronto Dance Community Love-in is an incorporated non-profit, and has operated with a collective leadership model since their inception. Shakespeare in the Ruff is a theatre company that has been operating under a co-leadership model, but is now undergoing a leadership transition towards a collective model, as well as a moment of transition with their board. Ruff is an incorporated charity which means they’ve got an extra layer of regulations and reporting requirements on their “corporate” structure.

We wanted to achieve a few things through this project. First, we wanted to learn. What are the other possibilities for governance models and structures? What are the exact legal requirements, and are there any loopholes in fulfilling them? What does “governance” actually mean separate from the non-profit board-of-directors model? Second, we wanted an opportunity within each of our three organizations, to try things out, do things differently, and experiment with governance and organizational structures based on our learning. Third, we wanted to share our learnings with the broader community…hence this blog post. And there will be more blog posts coming.

Throughout the past six months, we’ve structured our project as a series of (mostly Zoom) learning sessions, inviting in various knowledgeable folks who each bring a different perspective to the concept of governance and non-profit structures. These have been incredibly enlightening and exhilarating sessions, filling my head and heart with so many ideas, and allowing for an intimate discussion about the issues. We’ve been meeting with folks such as Jane Marsland, Yvette Nolan, Zainab Amadahy, Elder Whabagoon, Cynthia Lickers-Sage, and others.

What has struck me so far in these sessions is that governance is no one thing for any one person. It is about a practice of decision making that is undertaken in community. There is no magic wand, or perfect structure that will solve all the problems. Anything we create must be engaged with, nourished, and sustained by those impacted by and connected to the organization.

We’ve also had sessions where we’ve all shared our current thinking and questions, as well as how each of our uniquely structured organizations are wrestling with the shared issues. These sessions have been just as enlightening as those with invited guests, as I’ve been exposed to the innovative thinking and practical adjustments that my fellow participants have been doing within their own organizational contexts.

Over the next couple of months, we will be publishing a series of blog posts written by various people participating in this project. Some of them will be engaging with the learnings offered to us by our guest speakers. Some of them will be personal reflections on an evolving understanding of governance. We hope they will all be wildly entertaining. Or, at the very least, we hope to contribute to a growing community of folks in the arts (as well as other sectors) who are taking a good hard look at governance and the ways we make decisions together. We are all starting to recognize that in order to address systemic racism and patriarchy, we need to address our systems, and be bold in dreaming up something different.

These times of upheaval are an opportunity, if we can find the energy. As Yvette Nolan said to us, "I don't know how long this window is going to be open for." This is urgent work, and the more we share our growing knowledge on the subject of organizational transformation, the better our chance of enacting change that will reverberate through our sector…and honestly, hopefully the world too.

Ontario Arts Council, an Ontario government agency / Conseil des arts de l'Ontario - un organise du gouvernement de l'Ontario

Written by

Generator 8/31/21 Generator 8/31/21

Not-for-profit Law and Governance in the Creative Industries

We’re in a time of unprecedented momentum for reimagining systems of board governance in the performing arts sector. Generator teamed up with ALAS (Artists’ Legal Advice Services) on May 11, 2021, for a webinar and Q+A to help non-profit workers understand legal requirements, and explore what’s possible—watch it here.

We’re in a time of unprecedented momentum for reimagining systems of board governance in the performing arts sector.

Generator teamed up with ALAS (Artists’ Legal Advice Services) on May 11, 2021, for a webinar and Q+A to help non-profit workers understand legal requirements, and explore what’s possible.

The webinar begins with a presentation from Terrance Carter, Managing Partner of the law firm Carters, laying out the legal responsibilities of board members, and legal requirements for non-profit organizations and charities. The second presentation is from arts consultant Jane Marsland, exploring how small to mid-size non-profits can safely navigate legal structures, explaining paradigm changes in the sector towards new conceptual understandings of organizations, and offering ways to align governance with company values. Topics range from recruitment, to strategic board management, to successful planning.

Thanks to our wonderful panelists and moderator Cat Lovrics, as well as to the participants who joined us live for the webinar and contributed questions to our discussion.

Watch the Webinar

Watch a recording of the webinar on our YouTube channel here.

Part One: Understanding Legal Requirements

0:01-9:40 Introductions from Generator’s Lead Producer Kristina Lemieux and moderator Cat Lovrics
9:40-31:00 Presentation from Terry Carter about the legal landscape for charities & non-profits
31:00-40:00 Question and answer period with Terrance Carter

Part Two: Exploring What’s Possible

40:00-1:11:40 Presentation from Jane Marsland about emerging thinking in non-profit governance

Part Three: Discussion Period

1:11:40-1:30:50 Question and answer period with Jane Marsland and Terrance Carter
1:30:50-1:48:29 Extended question and answer period with Jane Marsland and Kristina Lemieux

Please note we did experience some technical difficulties, but they were resolved promptly. Captions are available in YouTube.

Resources

From the webinar

Slide deck from Terrance Carter (includes link to Legal Risk Management Checklist for Ontario-based Charities)
Slide deck from Jane Marsland (includes links to the reports 'Peering into the Future: Reimagining Governance in the Non-Profit Sector' and 'Framing Forward: Reimagining Governance'
Organizational Profile referenced by Jane Marsland

Websites for further learning

CharityLaw.ca (affiliated with Terrance's firm Carters)
Carters.ca
ALASontario.ca (Artists' Legal Advice Services - webinar presenter)
ArtistProducerResource.com (generated by Generator, this website has basic information about boards, as well as Incorporation and Non-profits)

As a general note, as you do your own searching for resources around boards, you may find the most success looking for resources created specifically for charities—generally these will still be applicable and helpful for non-profits (even if you are not in fact a registered charity).

About the Panelists

Terrance Carter

Terrance S. Carter, B.A., LL.B, TEP, Trademark Agent – Managing Partner of Carters, Mr. Carter practices in the area of charity and not-for-profit law, and is counsel to Fasken on charitable matters. Mr. Carter is a co-author of Corporate and Practice Manual for Charitable and Not-for-Profit Corporations (Thomson Reuters), a co-editor of Charities Legislation and Commentary (LexisNexis, 2020), and co-author of Branding and Copyright for Charities and Non-Profit Organizations (2019 LexisNexis). He is recognized as a leading expert by Lexpert, The Best Lawyers in Canada and Chambers and Partners. Mr. Carter is a member of CRA Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector, and is a Past Chair of the Canadian Bar Association and Ontario Bar Association Charities and Not-for-Profit Law Sections.

Jane Marsland

Jane Marsland has been an articulate advocate for the arts for many years and has served on a wide range of boards, advisory groups and committees. Jane was co-founder and director of ARTS 4 CHANGE, a three-year program designed to create positive change for and by arts professionals in Toronto, as well as co-founder and Director of the Creative Trust: Working Capital for the Arts. Ms. Marsland has managed arts organizations since 1970 and was General Manager of the Danny Grossman Dance Company from 1982 to 1999.

Since 1999, Jane has been working as a free-lance arts consultant and has worked with more than 100 arts organizations. Recently, Jane worked with the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and ARTS Action Research on a two-year community initiative, Theatres Leading Change Toronto involving 18 small and mid-sized theatre and dance organizations. Theatres Leading Change was designed to illuminate and better understand change: on an individual learning level; on a community co-learning level; and as a function of broad-based change that may hold within the possibility of paradigm change in the field.

She has been the recipient of two arts community awards: a “Harold” in 2001 and the Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in the Arts in 2002. In 1995, she received the first M. Joan Chalmers Award for Arts Administration for outstanding leadership in the arts. In 2011, she was the winner of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Rita Davies and Margo Bindhardt Cultural Leadership Award. In 2012, Jane was awarded the first Metcalf Foundation Innovation Fellowship in the Arts to examine Shared Platforms and Charitable Venture Organizations and their applicability to the arts sector in Ontario. Jane was honoured as the recipient of the Silver Ticket at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2017.

Cat Lovrics (Moderator)

Catherine (Cat) Lovrics is a Partner at Marks & Clerk Canada. Cat’s practice focuses on copyright law, as well as trademark, personality and publicity rights, as well as marketing and advertising, consumer protection and data and privacy laws. She specializes in emergent legal issues related to the Internet and digital media, in addition to traditional entertainment and media. Cat helps her clients protect, exploit and enforce their IP, and advises on clearance, rights acquisition and licensing. Her clients range from multinational and Canadian media companies to individual artists. Her experience spans a wide range of sectors, from creative industries to AI & emergent tech to consumables.

Artists’ Legal Advice Services (Co-Presenter)

ALAS’s mission is to empower Ontario’s creative community by providing access to summary legal advice, information and education. Learn more about their work here.

You read Kristina Lemieux’s bio here. We also recognize the contributions of Carol Hansell, who was unable to attend the live webinar but contributed important thinking to the development of the ideas presented here. You can read Carol’s bio here.

Find more posts related to boards on our Learnings + Explorations blog here.

Have a question or a reflection to share? Please email info@generatorto.com.

Annie Clarke 1/19/21 Annie Clarke 1/19/21

Board Governance: What is it? What is possible?

Reflections on a discussion about what power boards have, what is possible when we look at alternative ways of operating, and what we mean we talk about accountability.

A conversation with Generator Generations

What power do boards have? Generator’s Lead Producer Kristina Lemieux used this prompt to launch a conversation around what we know (and what we think we know) about boards of directors, and what is possible when we look at alternative ways of operating.

Present at the Zoom discussion this blog post was based on: seven community members (Eva Barrie, Robyn Breen, Jacqueline Costa, Rohan Dhupar, Brock Hessel, Brendan Howlett, and Kaitlyn Riordan) and Generator’s staff team (Annie Clarke, Sedina Fiati,… — Present at the Zoom discussion this blog post was based on: seven community members (Eva Barrie, Robyn Breen, Jacqueline Costa, Rohan Dhupar, Brock Hessel, Brendan Howlett, and Kaitlyn Riordan) and Generator’s staff team (Annie Clarke, Sedina Fiati, Kristina Lemieux, and Keshia Palm).

Over the past few months we’ve been inviting our community of program alumni to ‘Food for Thought’ conversations, exploring topics related to transformation, opportunity, and growth—much like we’re doing right here on our Learnings + Explorations blog. One of the big topics we’ve been exploring is boards of directors (Kristina got us started on the blog in October with We’re going to talk about boards a lot—here are some introductory frameworks to get us started). This post is based on a discussion that took place over Zoom in October that we called ‘Board Governance: What is it? What is possible?’

Why boards?

Boards of directors of non-profit organizations in Canada have a fiduciary duty, tasking them with the responsibility to act in the best interests of the organization by overseeing the resources of the organization in line with its stated mandate. There may be additional external oversight if the organization has charitable status and/or is operating beyond the financial threshold at which public funding bodies require an annual external audit.

It’s important to note that many of the reasons why our boards are the way they are stem from the requirements of public funders.

The relevant acts for organizations incorporated in Ontario, BC, and at the federal level, all say that compensating board members is permitted for non-profits (this is not the case for registered charities); the funders, however, expressly forbid it. As a result, one of the givens we work with in the non-profit sector is that individual board members are volunteers—a fact that inevitably dictates the amount of work and engagement it is reasonable to expect from them.

Boards are often held up as forces for accountability. But what kind of accountability are we talking about exactly? Financial accountability is achieved by an audit—having boards as additional oversight is arguably redundant. Accountability to the funders is provided through reporting—if you’re awarded money for programming, you need to provide evidence of that programming being carried out. You probably do similar forms of reporting to donors, sponsors, even audience members. But what about the more nebulous form of accountability that many of us crave so deeply: accountability to community?

Towards community accountability

“The more involved artists are in an organization, the easier it is to support them,” says Sedina Fiati, Generator’s Training Consultant. She offers the example of the outbreak of Covid-19: institutions were too cut off from artists to understand how to best support them in a crisis. Artists are often intentionally held at arm’s length from an organization’s governance: an artist who sits on your board is an artist who’s no longer easy for you to hire for a project—that would constitute a legal conflict of interest. Sedina challenges this premise: if artists are both engaged by an organization and involved in the decision-making that goes into it, “why is that a bad thing?”

We want organizations in our community to be accountable to their mandate, to their values, and to their community—but we don’t feel like that’s happening. So if boards are failing to achieve that accountability, what happens if we take it out of their job description? Kristina asked the group:

“How do you want to create systems that hold organizations and leaders accountable?”

She asked folks to reflect both as leaders and as community members, and emphasized the importance of identifying the community they want to be held accountable by.

Brendan Howlett adds that an accountability structure would optimally include people who are inside the organization’s operations and those who are not. “So in the case of Generator, if you want to be accountable to the people who have gone through your programs [Generator Generations], you also need to ask: who are the people who are not participating in Generator Generations, and why?”

Dreaming of alternatives

Seeing an organization’s programming is not the same thing as seeing their mandate. Accountability to the community you’re working in would mean moving beyond quantitative measures—Did this program happen? How many programs did you run? How many people participated? What was your box office revenue?—to investigate the qualitative.

What would it be like to centre the people who are working on the projects, and their experiences with your organization?

“The people who are the most engaged are artists,” Sedina says, “partly out of love, partly out of desperation.” (And this can extend to all those who work on your projects—the production team may or may not identify as artists, but you better believe they’re just as engaged as those who do!)

So how do we make space for those voices to impact the way your organization works, and integrate feedback into production processes? Sedina suggests sending out a pre-rehearsal questionnaire so that you can begin a process with access needs in mind. Kaitlyn Riordan wonders about sending out a survey at different points throughout the process as a way of actively checking on how you’re doing on your values. Whether you’re managing a staff team, production team, creative team, or some combination, you can allocate time and money for feedback in your contracts, and identify what folks will be evaluating from the outset.

One of the models that was suggested to support community accountability was membership. If you have a membership, you can consult with them! Kristina references the long-standing model of the artist-run centre, which is prevalent among independent galleries in the visual arts sector. The first step? Defining who your membership is, or could be.

“Clear terms of engagement and incentive,” Brendan emphasizes, are key to any governance model. If you’re looking at taking accountability off the board’s plate, and/or redefining what accountability can mean for your organization, clarity and intentionality will serve you well. The questions we kept coming back to in this discussion were Who do you want to be accountable to? and How do you create systems that support community accountability? The ideas above are just a beginning!

One of the areas non-profits tend to lean on boards for? Fundraising! The Generator board put a ton of work into our summer fundraising party, Wrecked, in June 2019. Left to right: Sedina Fiati (staff), board members Elenna Mosoff, Claire Burns, and… — One of the areas non-profits tend to lean on boards for? Fundraising! The Generator board put a ton of work into our summer fundraising party, Wrecked, in June 2019. Left to right: Sedina Fiati (staff), board members Elenna Mosoff, Claire Burns, and Quinn Harris, with Kristina Lemieux (staff) and Mikaela Demers (seated).

What do we want to keep?

In the current/dominant model, there are certainly ways in which the institution of the board of directors provides value to the organizations it serves, and to the individuals who serve as directors. Brendan talks about how rewarding he’s found some of his work with boards; he sees them as a potential avenue for meaningful involvement from non-artists. They can “help us make sure we’re not exclusively making art for other artists,” he says.

Kristina has found that boards can, at times, be a useful place for organizational leadership to go for emotional and professional support; for better or worse, they’re the closest thing the non-profit sector has to the clinical supervisor model (whereby social workers have access to someone with context for their profession, who can offer some support and function as a sounding board).

Boards may also operate as a place for leaders to consult as they make decisions. But the question then becomes who should leaders be consulting before making decisions? Is it the board? Their peers? The staff team? The broader community? All of the above?

Where do we go from here?

It feels as though there’s great interest in moving away from positioning boards as the arbiter of organizational accountability, towards a model that emphasizes accountability to community. In one sense, there’s already room to play around with different models—when you start to unpack it, the intrinsic power that boards have is actually pretty limited—but in another, there are very real obstacles that prevent us from subverting the systems and norms that are already in place. Funders are certainly the source of many of these norms, and it stands to reason that we would see a much greater diversity of governance (and accountability) models if certain requirements were changed. Advocating to policy-makers for the removal of the compensation prohibition for boards (and, while you’re at it, the requirement to have a board in the first place) is a great start. Other obstacles come from a place of scarcity, or at least perceived scarcity: limited time and resources to experiment and make change happen.

And yet, if nothing else, 2020 taught us that there’s room to dream bigger, to demand better, and to move with intention. Questions about governance and accountability aren’t so different from the bigger questions we’re asking each other right now: what does it mean to be in community? What is the role of an artist? And how can there be space for those who want different things, and for institutions that support different ways of working? No one on this Zoom call had all the answers—but if you do, we’d love to hear them: info@generatorto.com.

We’re going to talk about boards a lot—here are some introductory frameworks to get us started

“I have lost my faith in this model, but what it really comes down to is: the nonprofit/charity model is inherently patriarchal and capitalist and therefore colonial and racist.”

Over the next couple months, Generator is going to unpack and share the thinking we’re doing and steps we’re taking in this time of immense transition and opportunity for our organization, and for the live performance sector as a whole. We’re chronicling this process in this blog, which we’re calling ‘Learnings + Explorations.’ Our goal with these sharings is to be as transparent as possible about our decision-making and path forward, as well as to offer opportunities for cross-institutional learning.

Kristina at the Generator office, back when we were humans who worked out of offices! #throwback

One of the areas we’ll be writing about is boards of directors. I’ve been the Lead Producer at Generator since 2017, and I have over two decades of experience with board governance. I have several topics planned around boards, and this initial blog post will serve as the primer for what comes next. If you want to know more about boards, I encourage you to check out the links at the end of this post and the Board of Directors page on ArtistProducerResource.com. If you have a specific question, please reach out (you can email me at kristina@generatorto.com) and I’ll make sure to incorporate it.

At any given time between the ages of 19-39 I sat on at least one board of directors, and often reported to 1-3. Currently, I sit on none and report to two boards directly, as well as others indirectly. A large portion of my professional career in my 30s was dedicated to being a consultant to leaders and boards around the transition from friends and family/cheerleader boards to policy/governance boards—i.e. the process of increasing the professionalism of the board and creating and maintaining clear guidelines between management/staff and the board. In all these cases the size of the non-profit (sometimes charitable) arts organizations were under $750K operating budgets.

Over time, I realized that no matter how much we planned, established policies and procedures, and went on retreats to help us learn and work the ways we wanted to, the fact remained: boards members are distracted kittens who are only paying attention 30% of the time, even when they are sitting in the same room as you— even less when they are not. I’m being a tad hyperbolic here, but in my 20 years’ experience working with boards, I have found that at best they support and don’t get in the way of leadership, and at worst you get what we are currently seeing all over Canada’s arts community—massive sector-wide failure to be leaders. I have lost my faith in this model, but what it really comes down to is:

The nonprofit/charity model is inherently patriarchal and capitalist and therefore colonial and racist.

The first meeting of the Carnegie Foundation in 1911. I know - women! Not what you were expecting. But don’t get too excited, that’s his daughter and wife on the right. We call this a ‘Friends and Family’ board, folks! [Wikipedia Commons]

The charity model comes from the success of capitalism. Rich white guys, who were also super religious, began to feel bad about all the financial success they were having—plus, they had to pay taxes on all those profits. Their social and religious backgrounds were steeped in a sense of social responsibility, volunteerism, and altruism. So they created a system that allowed them to do all of: appeasing their rich-person guilt by helping those who can’t help themselves; looking and feeling good about their actions in support of the “social good”; and providing themselves tax breaks. But of course, the people who were actually interested in doing the work of helping those who can’t help themselves as their profession couldn’t possibly be trusted to manage these dudes’ money (oops, I mean the money they graciously parted with because of altruism/tax breaks), so naturally a system had to be set up to oversee the management of that money. This system was designed to ensure that those doing the overseeing would be acting out of the best interest of that money—oops I did it again, I mean the best interests of the people that money is intended to serve/improve the lives of. And, tada, we were gifted the non-profit, volunteer board structure.

The idea that we need the board to oversee fiduciary duties (especially for organizations with budgets under a million that are already being independently audited on an annual basis) seems ridiculous to me, but funders still love this model and see it as necessary—though that is changing...slowly. Very slowly.

I have taken some creative license here (no distracted kittens were harmed in the making), but if you want to learn more about where the charitable model has come from, have a look at these books and links:

Uncharitable -Book | -TedTalk
Decolonizing Wealth
Philanthrocapitalism
Patronizing the Arts
Why Billionaires Won’t Save Us | Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj

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So why have I been undermining my own experience and competence as soon as I step into the context of board governance?

Right from the beginning of the workshop care and sustainability were themes that came forward.

I think about the ways artists have been having conversations about this internally; in creative processes and on stage. I wondered how often we consider these themes from a board perspective.

Are our boards just fitting into models that we think can work vs. are we finding systems that work on a project-to-project basis that aren’t always prescribed?

How can this perspective allow us to re-imagine, re-model or turn over and start anew with our governance models?

WHAT CRISIS? you may ask. Let’s start at the beginning.

What is needed in this period of initial transition from the strictures of pandemic coupled with the ongoing awareness and outrage at systemic inequities in the arts sector (and beyond) is none other than a radical act of collective unlearning and reimagining.

WHAT IS CO-LEARNING (aka. collaborative learning)?

My wish for future CCN activities and sessions?: A more flexible structure and framework for co-learning as a baseline strategy for movement building around reimagining/decolonizing ‘governance’.

Tansii - Bonjour - Good Morning!

CUE GENERATOR

OCTOBER’S GUEST OF HONOUR

CONTEXT

-The People

-Crisis

-Missing Tools

CHANGE NOW

COMING HOME TO VALUES

ALL MY RELATIONS

THE FEAST

FURTHERING REIMAGININGS

DREAMING BEYOND

This piece is filled with feelings.

Zainab Amadahy showed me that centering my own healing will lead to the transformation i am working for.

I feel like I’m not transforming. I feel like I am learning details, but nothing is changing. I feel stuck. I feel like I can’t imagine a future.

In case you can’t tell, I am a big feeler with feelings that creep feelingly around my feels.

I wonder.

In the midst of many challenges in the arts sector, our entrepreneurial, grassroots model for engagement, creation and audience building is often at the mercy of an archaic model of non-profit governance.

Jane Marsland on Reframing Governance

1. Do we truly understand the artistic process?

2. Who is on our Board and why?

3. What is the lifecycle of our organization?

Let’s start talking, because the next generation of the arts in Canada needs to rethink structures and systems at every level, including governance, reimagined.

Despite the widely acknowledged flaws of the non-profit board governance system that a company becomes beholden to as soon as it incorporates, “to incorporate or not to incorporate” is a question Generator hears routinely.

But first, how did I get here?

I flew headlong into incorporation, and the accompanying “corporate” requirements and mandated board of directors, without much thought to what it actually meant.

I couldn’t provide leadership within the vocabulary and processes of a corporation, and the corporate directors couldn’t provide leadership for an arts industry they knew nothing about.

So what is the project?

We’re in a time of unprecedented momentum for reimagining systems of board governance in the performing arts sector.

Watch the Webinar

Part One: Understanding Legal Requirements

Part Two: Exploring What’s Possible

Part Three: Discussion Period

Resources

From the webinar

Websites for further learning

About the Panelists

Terrance Carter

Jane Marsland

Cat Lovrics (Moderator)

Artists’ Legal Advice Services (Co-Presenter)

A conversation with Generator Generations

Why boards?

It’s important to note that many of the reasons why our boards are the way they are stem from the requirements of public funders.

Towards community accountability

“How do you want to create systems that hold organizations and leaders accountable?”

Dreaming of alternatives

What would it be like to centre the people who are working on the projects, and their experiences with your organization?

What do we want to keep?

Where do we go from here?

Further Reading

The nonprofit/charity model is inherently patriarchal and capitalist and therefore colonial and racist.

**So why have I been undermining my own experience and competence as soon as I step into the context of board governance?**