Establishing and Building Relationships
Textiles are woven into the fence surrounding the community garden at Bell Manor Park, by Sean Howard (2018)
Building and maintaining multiple partnerships can be daunting but it is a necessary part of creating public arts programming. Beyond developing connections in the community and raising awareness of an initiative, strong community relationships allow for community input to help develop events and activities that are suited to community needs and wants. This in turn fosters greater long-term sustainability for the initiative. Collaborating with community can have other spin-offs, such as creating local jobs, greater involvement of residents in local initiatives, and overall community capacity building. Strong relationships also strengthen your ability to act quickly if there are changes in a community.
Having a strong vision will help you determine who your partners might be by identifying who is in alignment. A strong vision will also help decide when to say “No” to a partnership that might threaten the artistic or ethical integrity of the project.
Whether you’re looking for political champions or sponsors, start by finding potential partners and stakeholders to bring into the project at a deeper level. Figure out who might be able to support your arts project. Create a list of public and private organizations in your region, city or neighbourhood. When you are ready to meet with potential partners, be prepared with support materials (hard copy and digital) to back up your verbal pitch, and prepare an “elevator pitch”: a concise explanation of your project and why it would be of interest to a potential partner. Allow adequate time to talk, brainstorm and plan with your potential partners. Be flexible. It may take time to get to your grand vision for the project but creating a shared vision builds deeper community relationships. Being open to collaboration can build ownership of your project among partners which adds motivation, responsibility and accountability.