Funding Failure

For nearly four months the @Phillyhistory team has consistently published content on this innovative platform in hopes of raising funds to support different Philly-based cultural organizations. Topics included strategic planning, deaccessioning, developing digital strategies, collecting, forming mergers, etc., but an overarching theme during the semester has been optimizing the allocation of resources. As we prepare to make a final decision on how we want to allocate our accumulated Steem Dollars, @KenFinkel asked the crew to consider how we might dispense larger sums of money like $100,000, $1,000,000, and even $10,000,000.

Image from the Library Company of Philadelphia's Market Street Postcards.

These are much larger amounts than our modest Steem award(s), and my initial reaction was to consider earth-shattering projects. But maybe that’s the problem. The systems rewards big, bold projects and it does not recognize experimentation with the possibility of failure.

Most cultural institutions operate as nonprofits and prioritize cultural impact over capital gain. This approach, however, places enormous pressure on nonprofits to effectively use the limited funds available. These nonprofits want to get the most bang for their buck, to use the colloquial expression, because they don't necessarily know when or where their next buck will come from. More often than not, the “biggest bang” includes physical deliverables like projects, buildings, collections, etc. These massive projects would garner media attention and presumably raise public interest, but would these deliverables provide a lasting impact on the cultural sector? Or would they just add to an already crowded and underfunded landscape?

In order to receive grants and other forms of funding, nonprofits try and impress funders with precise planning and strategic goals. This is a conservative approach because institutions fear failure and they tend to recycle old ideas that prevent the field from evolving and progressing forward.

Maybe individual organizations would disagree, but the overall health of the cultural landscape depends on failure. Failure is necessary for the field to experiment with new ideas, and it allows the field as a whole to recognize what works and what does not.

So let’s fund failures!

Well, maybe not, but I think the cultural sector would be healthier and more robust if funders invested more in people and ideas and less on tangible deliverables. @HourofHistory proposed the idea of awarding “microgrants” of $200 or $2,000 (depending on the project and available funding). This could diversify the field and add more voices to encourage new ideas to surface and rise to the top.

More of these smaller grants could attract more idea-driven institutions that want to test the waters and experiment with innovative thinking (as opposed to the large grants that many institutions seek just to operate and keep its doors open). These "microgrants," to borrow @HourofHistory 's wording, could generate a system of innovative ideas capable of quickly adapting.

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^{100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment conducted by graduate courses at Temple University's Center for Public History and MLA Program, is exploring history and empowering education. Click here to learn more.}