Notes from the Field
Radical Imagination: Findings from Year One
July 31, 2023
In June 2022, 2nd Story began collaborating with leaders from A Red Orchid Theatre and Teatro Vista. In this moderated discussion, 2nd Story's first cohort will share their triumphs, setbacks, and learnings from Year One of The Rising Tide Project. Register today to reserve your virtual seat and gain early access to Year One's Impact Report.
Download the Impact Report from Year One
RADICAL IMAGINATION: GETTING YOUR BOARD ON BOARD WITH PAY EQUITY
mARCH 27, 2023
On Monday, March 27th, 2023, a group of folks from the theater & arts field (artists, arts administrators, funders, freelancers, board members) gathered on Zoom for our fourth town hall, Getting Your Board On Board with Pay Equity. This conversation was a part of 2nd Story’s Rising Tide Project, and one of a series of Town Hall conversations that 2nd Story will be hosting to build on some of the big questions surrounding care for arts workers.
We first want to note that, though the title and content focused specifically on Board members, the ideas we dove into apply to building solidarity around arts worker care with anyone.
The event went a little like this:
We began with some space setting/acknowledgements and group agreements, and outlined our agenda for the evening.
Next, we invited participants to share a little bit about what has helped them/what they need when they’re grappling with big or new ideas.
For the list of responses, please visit the Slide 4 from the event slide deck.
We did some defining of terms (including pay equity, and what 2nd Story means when we talk about Arts Worker Care), and our two panelists, both 2nd Story Board Members, spoke for a few minutes about what they’ve seen/noticed/experienced during their tenure, as 2nd Story has explored and built upon the goal of taking care of its arts workers.
Then, we did an activity related to barriers and solutions.
We split into breakout rooms to talk about the obstacles we have encountered (or could imagine encountering) as we have thought about bringing people along in a conversation about arts worker care.
Then, as a group, we spent some time looking at those lists and discussing potential solutions to these barriers.
The summary of our conversation around barriers and solutions is available here.
In closing, our panelists shared a few thoughts, including the fact that this work takes Time and Patience.
We ended our time together by asking that everyone present share in the chat something that they would take with them out of the conversation, i.e. a goal, question, challenge, etc.
RadiCal Imagination: Care for caregivers
November 7, 2022
On Monday, November 7th, 2022, about a dozen folks from the theater & arts field (artists, arts administrators, funders, freelancers) gathered on Zoom for our third town hall, Care for Caregivers. This conversation was a part of 2nd Story’s Rising Tide Project, and one of a series of Town Hall conversations that 2nd Story will be hosting to build on some of the big questions surrounding pay equity. The first took place in January 2022 and centered the question: What does it mean to thrive?, and the second took place in April 2022, and centered the theme of Pulling Back the Curtain on Pay Transparency.
Some of the questions we asked ourselves as we grappled with the concept of “How Can We Care for Caregivers” were:
How do we take care of people who are taking care of others?
How can we build systems and organizations that support folks who are giving support?
The core of this inquiry (and of many of the conversations we’re having about pay equity) is that if we can build systems and organizations that work for the most vulnerable among us, they’ll work for everyone!
The event went a little like this:
We began with some space setting/acknowledgements and group agreements, and outlined our agenda for the evening.
There was a short framing conversation between 2nd Story Artistic Director, Amanda Delheimer (she/her), and our three panelists:
Dana Cruz (she/her), who is a mother of 4, a small business owner/operator, and an artist/performer who has largely left the field due to lack of supports for parents.
Sadaf Ferdowsi (she/her), who brought the point-of-view of someone who is responsible for long-term care-giving for one of her parents.
Whitney Hill (she/her), who is a Disabled caregiver-in-training; with Alzheimer’s incredibly prevalent on both sides of her family, she has been “in training” to eventually become a primary caregiver within her family. Her professional work is also within the Disabled community.
During this framing conversation, the panelists each spoke to different questions about their experience with caregiving.
Those questions were:
As a caregiver, what are the things that make you feel invisible / unseen?
How did you prepare? Did it prepare you?
What have you learned? (either philosophically or “pro tips”)
What are the “cultural norms” or “unwritten rules” that you’ve experienced?
When/why do you feel guilty, or what are some tension points for you in this role?
You can watch the video of their remarks here.
Then, we did a flash brainstorm as a group around the question: Where do we see/not see overlaps in the comments we just heard.
We used Mural to collect the shared wisdom of the group.
You can see their thoughts here.
Then, we split into breakout rooms.
We split into three groups, each group going with one of the panelists to discuss these questions:
What are barriers to participating in the arts for folks who are engaged in this type of caretaking?
What kind of strategies/solutions/scaffolding can we create (individually or collectively or organizationally) to counteract these barriers?
A scribe took notes during those breakout room conversations, and you can view the full notes of what the different groups brainstormed about these questions here.
We returned to the full group and shared back with each other what came up within those conversations.
Themes that came up during that full group shareback were:
What is visible/invisible?
How can we make the things that are invisible visible?
What kind of labor is happening that we are not aware of?
Mental fatigue of caregiving
Transitioning from work life to caregiving can be enormously stressful
Lack of resources, access
Normalizing having needs (access needs, childcare needs), that these things are not “extra”, they are a core part of being human
Self-care is a necessary practice, and not an indulgence
Boundaries can be an important part of self-care
Feelings of isolation and loneliness are pervasive in caregiving
Understanding can go a long way
Compassionate managers make a huge difference
Cultural perspectives on caregiving can differ widely, and what is assumed to be the “norm” in one culture is sometimes considered an “outlier” experience in another culture
Jobs that require coverage–how can we build in backups? (like doctors have an on call system, or servers/waitstaff have on call systems)
Much of the barriers are infrastructural (either organizational or societal), how can organizations be more proactive?
After the full group shareback, we spent a few minutes in reflection.
In closing, our panelists shared a few thoughts, including:
Dana: Caregiving is a part of life, not something that happens in the shadows. It is ever evolving and you are changing with it.
Whitney: Caregiving isn’t only within families, sometimes it’s a part of your job.
Sadaf: Caregiving is an invisible and undervalues form of labor, and it’s radically caring for yourself and others that can kickstart powerful personal and political change.
Sadaf also shared the following resources:
We closed by asking that everyone present share into the chat something that they would take with them out of the conversation, i.e. a goal, question, challenge, etc.
RadiCal Imagination: Pulling back the curtain on pay transparency
April 11, 2022
On Monday, April 11th, 2022, about 20 folks from the theater & arts field (artists, arts administrators, funders, freelancers) gathered on Zoom for our second town hall, Pulling Back the Curtain on Pay Transparency. Some of the questions we asked ourselves as we grappled with the concept of Pay Transparency were:
What do we mean when we call for “Pay Transparency”?
What can this look like?
What’s scary about it?
What can it advance for us, collectively?
The event went a little like this:
We began with some space setting/acknowledgements and group agreements, and outlined our agenda for the evening.
There was a short framing conversation between 2nd Story Artistic Director, Amanda Delheimer (she/her), and 2nd Story Company Member Aimy Tien (she/they), who wears many hats: producer, writer, freelancer (i.e. sometimes she’s the decision maker/budget keeper, and sometimes she’s the person being hired.)
We started with a reminder of what we mean when we say “Pay Equity”
What is Pay Equity? Pay Equity is compensating workers without discrimination.
Then shared a working definition of “Pay Transparency”
Pay transparency is the practice of sharing, openly and explicitly, information around compensation and/or benefits.
It is an ongoing practice of communication.
It can manifest in many ways:
Eliminating secretive or outdated compensation practices/policies
Clear structure and strategy around compensation programs and plans
Informed discussions about the value of labor.
Then Aimy shared some of how she thinks about pay transparency, as well as some examples of what she has found to be challenging and exciting about centering pay transparency as a part of her compensation philosophy.
You can view this conversation below.
Then, we did a flash brainstorm as a group around the question: What does pay transparency look like? Those notes are available here.
Then, we split into breakout rooms.
In those groups, we discussed two questions:
What about Pay Transparency is Empowering?
What about Pay Transparency is Terrifying?
A scribe took notes during those breakout room conversations, and you can view the full notes of what the different groups brainstormed about these questions here (there is a summary below).
We returned to the full group and shared back with each other what came up within those conversation. Themes that came up during that full group shareback were:
Things that are terrifying can also be empowering, they are sometimes two sides of the same coin.
Transparency can build trust within an organization.
It’s empowering to have something that can be shared and referred to, which is in turn used as a backbone for conversations about pay.
This might include:
A compensation philosophy
A budget that has been built with collective input/responsibility
A set of reasoning for how decisions have been made
A budget/compensation plan that is tied to the values of the organization
Something that is replicable across years/programs
Part of what is terrifying is that the entire system is broken, there isn’t a model that we can collectively look at and say “okay that’s excellent let’s all do it that way.”
This is tied to:
The cultural undervaluing of the arts/the arts worker.
Industry standards being way lower than they should be, as compared to other fields/industries.
The idea of the starving artist, that folks make art because they love it and passion is enough.
Historical inequities that need to be addressed.
When we begin to be transparent, there may be harm that is caused, or we might be embarrassed about revealing internal numbers.
How do we learn from other ways of repairing harm?
“Sometimes it hurts to be a part of the change.”
After the full group shareback, we spent a few minutes returning to that brainstorm about action steps. We asked ourselves: What are strategies that we can use to build on the things that are empowering, and remedy the things that are terrifying? Check out that list here.
In closing, Aimy shared a few thoughts, one of which was encouragement to the group to think about the ripple effects that we might have. That we might not be able to change the whole world, but that we can definitely impact the lives of a few folks and that’s amazing, too.
We closed by asking that everyone share into the chat something that they would take with them out of the conversation, i.e. a goal, question, challenge, etc.
Radical Imagination: What does it mean to Thrive?
January 25, 2022
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022, about 30 folks from the theater and arts field (artists, arts administrators, funders, freelancers) gathered on Zoom to grapple with a big question: What does it look like to THRIVE? For our first town hall, Radical Imagination: What does it mean to Thrive?, we decided to begin with the end goal. Specifically: as we consider pay equity and what it means to take care of people, where are we trying to go? What are we trying to build towards?
The event went a little like this:
We began with some space setting/acknowledgements and group agreements, and outlined our agenda for the evening.
There was a short framing conversation between 2nd Story Artistic Director, Amanda Delheimer, and pay equity organizer and On Our Team co-founder, Elsa Hiltner.
This conversation set the foundation for what we mean when we say “pay equity”.
What is Pay Equity? Pay Equity is compensating workers without discrimination.
Elsa also introduced the four questions that she and her team used as they interviewed ~50 arts workers to develop the Pay Equity Standards, namely:
What is pay equity?
What would motivate you to start making changes towards better pay equity? How would it benefit you?
What are the barriers to pay equity?
What tools do you need to start the process?
You can view this conversation below.
Then, we split into breakout rooms.
In those groups, we discussed two questions:
What does it look/feel like to THRIVE?
What concrete action steps could be taken to move closer to this experience of thriving?
A scribe took notes during those breakout room conversations, and you can view the full notes of what the different groups brainstormed about these questions here (there is a summary below.)
We returned to the full group and shared back with each other our biggest and boldest ideas. Themes that came up during that full group shareback were:
Looking at the brainstorms together was an (unsurprising) gut punch.
One of the opening questions from a group was “Has anyone experienced thriving”?
Getting paid enough is a bare minimum
There isn’t room for failure & learning
People don’t have space to take care of themselves, to rest/relax, to engage with friends and families
How can we engineer what we do to take care of the most vulnerable? (this came up w/ regard to freelancers, specifically)
There is a real desire for pleasure, as we think about what it means to thrive.
This is not just about me thriving, it’s about the people around me also thriving, the whole ecosystem thriving
How much of thriving is about being connected, being in community, not being siloed, not feeling alone/unsupported
Time and Spaciousness.
Time as a form of compensation (i.e. if I can’t be paid at a certain level, how can I have autonomy with how I spend my time? If we can’t compensate at a certain level, can we compensate them with more time)
Getting rid of false urgency
Understanding capacity and limits. This was discussed on multiple levels:
The individual level (i.e. “right sizing” jobs, positions, tasks)
The organizational level (can the organization handle X project, can we put processes in place so freelancers are not forgotten, etc.)
The industry level (can organizations share resources–e.g. a bookkeeper) across organizations, can we create a “backstop” for folks who are struggling (i.e. one executive director can call another for help with something that they’re struggling with.)
Thriving is not a one-size-fits-all model.
It looks different for different people, we all have different needs.
How can we customize for individuals and their needs/wants?
The necessity of transparency, research, trust, and information
Information/research helps us tailor to individual needs.
Transparency and information helps us make better decisions, increase trust
We closed by asking that everyone present share into the chat something that they are taking with them out of the conversation, i.e. a goal, question, challenge, etc.