How Bloomberg Helps Arts Organizations Develop New Technologies for a Post-COVID World – Inside Philanthropy

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When the pandemic began to manifest last spring, cultural organizations quickly increased their digital presence. Annual galas have gone virtual. The dancers streamed the shows from their bedrooms. Museums have launched online galleries. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but countless organizations have been able to stay afloat throughout 2020 thanks, in part, to an expanded virtual footprint.

Art organizations are now at a turning point. Resuming face-to-face meetings will require leaders to review pre-COVID expenses such as staffing and facility rentals. They will need to formulate a forward-looking digital strategy as it looks like streaming performance is going to last. And many will have to do it all while earning less revenue than pre-pandemic levels.

It’s a problem perfectly suited to Bloomberg Philanthropies. The funder, which has been funding technology innovation in cultural organizations for over 20 years, recently announced the $ 30 million Digital Accelerator program to help its first cohort of 46 organizations in the US and UK stabilize and thrive on the in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic through strategic improvements to their technology infrastructure. Beneficiaries include art museums such as the Oakland Museum of California and Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, as well as art groups such as the Apollo Theater and Ballet Hispnico.

Kate Levin, who oversees the Bloomberg Philanthropies Arts program, told me the initiative will provide technology acquisition funding and strategic guidance at a time when cultural organizations are extremely small but have unique opportunities to benefit from strategy based on technology piloted as a means to survive the pandemic.

The program is Bloomberg textbook, reflecting the firm belief that the technology of the same name can help institutions achieve their strategic goals. It is also a testament to the enduring affinity of lenders for limited funding. While more and more grant holders are beginning to appreciate the flexibility that comes with general operational support, they also know that many nonprofit leaders lack the time and in-house expertise to execute critical projects such as strengthening their technology infrastructure. Programs like the Digital Accelerator represent something of a classic pre-pandemic scholarship with high funder engagement and targeted outcomes, set up to ensure participants can do a specific line of work needed.

Layout of the land

Bloomberg Philanthropies’ work in the cultural technology space dates back to 1999. He was one of the first funders to harness the power of audio guides, mobile apps, and location-aware navigation tools in a museum setting. In November 2019, it launched Bloomberg Connects, a free digital guide to cultural organizations around the world.

Art nonprofit leaders often had trouble developing digital infrastructure strategies during this pre-COVID period. Levin told me that many lacked the time to evaluate strategic goals and skills to understand how technology can and cannot help, which, in turn, has thwarted their efforts to generate sufficient consensus from leading companies. stakeholders.

So while organizations moved to a virtual footprint in the early days of the pandemic, they often did so arbitrarily and without sufficient foresight. As the crisis deepened, leaders lacked the time or resources to prioritize investments in improving the technology infrastructure, Levin said.

The Bloomberg program announcement cites a Knight Foundation survey that outlined the situation in October 2020. Seven months into the pandemic, 31% of museums lacked a digital strategy while 29% said their era under development. Only 25% had a shared digital strategy or incorporated one into their overall strategic plan. Knight also found that 41% of museums did not have defined goals, key performance metrics or outcome measures for digital projects, and another 37% only did so on an ad hoc basis.

More alarmingly, only 18% of respondents said they used audience data to shape their offering, a statistic that likely caused notorious technocrat Mike Bloomberg to reflexively spit coffee on a computer screen.

The timeless appeal of limited support

The Bloombergs Digital Accelerator program funds the acquisition of technology, including hardware, software and staffing skills to help organizations build audiences, increase fundraising and increase revenue. It also provides guidance from tech experts nicknamed Bloomberg Tech Fellows to help organizations plan and implement these new resources, Levin said.

For example, in the first phase of the program, a Bloomberg Technical Fellow will help grants in the US and UK launch a digital project. (The initiative does not provide for direct funding for staff training at the beneficiary organizations.)

The announcement comes as some lenders are likely moving away from pandemic-era commitments to provide organizations with general operational support. A report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy in December found that 44% of foundation leaders were undecided whether to permanently grant new grants as unlimited as possible (29%) or had ruled out the idea entirely (15%).

For years, both beneficiaries and critics of philanthropy have been calling for fewer restrictions on granting grants and, for good reason, with the vast majority of funding limited to specific projects. Even if only a slight majority emerged from the pandemic by making more general support grants, that would mark some serious progress. But the Digital Accelerator program shows why there will always be lenders like Bloomberg driven by specific data and goals who will continue to rely on limited support. This is not always a bad thing.

Bloomberg could have granted general operational support with the hope that recipients would direct funds to strengthen their digital infrastructure. But as Levins’ comments illustrate, many leaders lack the bandwidth to identify and engage technical consultants, seek out the necessary resources, and implement the types of data management techniques cited in the Knight study.

Our goal, Levin said, is to provide holistic support along with advanced perspectives on the evolution of digital strategies to achieve long-term goals.

Defending the technology

Bloomberg Philanthropies invited organizations to apply based on criteria that included creative excellence, service to diverse communities, and talented leadership. Organizations that have not received a call will find comfort in knowing that the lender will develop and share best practices gathered from their Digital Accelerator cohort.

Digital Accelerators’ emphasis on best practices causes its architects to take another page from Bloomberg’s grants playbook. The funder’s flagship arts program, Arts Innovation and Management, has helped leaders of small and medium-sized arts organizations share best practices during the pandemic.

There seems to be a renewed appetite to learn from each other, share best practices, and advance the entire industry, Levin told me. Our hope is that this initiative will help harness the generosity and insight of dynamic arts administrators to benefit the industry as a whole.

Digital Accelerator also brings up another challenge for arts fundraisers: How do they support lenders for admittedly unsexy tech support in a post-pandemic world?

For Levin, fundraisers can frame demand as a critical infrastructure for delivering services effectively at a time when the reactive, stimulating, and healing elements of creative practice are urgently needed. Every technology, from customer relationship management systems to online archives, plays a key role in helping organizations reach new audiences, develop new revenue streams, and increase impact.

Regarding the next phase of the initiative, Levin said she and her colleagues firmly believe in the importance of data and evaluation to drive program expansion and plan to assess the impact of Digital Accelerator before determining the next ones. steps in its development.

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