Why Arts Councils Must Attract Ethnic Members - Minorities: The California Arts Council, which controls grant money, criticizes as inadequate the number of minorities on cultural boards of directors.

It’s a sensitive subject. People admit nervousness when asked to talk about it. “It strikes terror in my heart,” one woman said.

But arts organizations in California, indeed, nationwide, have been talking about it a lot more lately. It has to do with the color of one’s skin, with numbers and ratios.

The subject is the number of racial minorities who serve as board members for the large museums, orchestras, theater troupes, dance companies and other major arts organizations. The catalytic agent here is the California Arts Council, whose job it is to distribute $13.5 million in arts subsidies statewide this year.

The number of minorities on some boards has been too low for too long, charges the council, which this year slashed its grant to Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory by 23% from 1988--despite top praise for artistic and managerial strength--in part because of weak “ethnic diversity” on the theater’s board and staff.

A lack of diversity on arts boards, entities that set the tone for institutions and shape programming in conjunction with paid staff, is a national problem, many experts say.

“Continued and increasing efforts to include minorities on the staff, on the boards and in the audiences of the nation’s cultural life have met with only very limited success,” wrote Robert Garfias, an anthropology professor at UC Irvine, in a report to the National Endowment for the Arts on cultural diversity and the arts.

“The problem is that many organizations feel the need to have minorities on their boards in order to comply,” said Garfias, who serves on the National Council on the Arts. “But the reason (to seek diversity) is not simply to comply, but to hear what these people have to say.”

During a California Arts Council meeting in August, just before the vote that reduced SCR’s grant, council member Consuelo Santos Killins issued the strongest statement on the topic ever made by a council official.

“This is the last time I’m going to vote to fund applications for large-budget organizations unless board of directors’ makeup starts to change radically,” Killins said.

Three minorities serve on SCR’s 48-member board, according to data used by the council to determine 1989-90 organizational grants to 34 groups with budgets of $1 million or more. The data may have changed slightly since sent to the council by these groups last year, but overall, boards statewide still aren’t much more integrated than SCR’s, and sometimes they are much less.

SCR vigorously protested its decreased grant of $81,950. But the council stood firm, noting that the situation on some boards has not improved at all over several years, even though all 34 big-budget groups have been told repeatedly to make their boards better reflect California’s multi-ethnic population.

Among other organizations’ board compositions: One minority sits on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 35-member board; the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art’s 26-member board includes one member of a racial minority; three sit on the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco’s 27-member board.

This year, a council panel that evaluates grant applications sent word to all but two of these groups that, in the panel’s view, need to better integrate their boards.

Locally, Newport Harbor Art Museum, which added five minority board members this past year, did not receive the panel’s comment. But the evaluation on Costa Mesa-based Opera Pacific, like SCR and Santa Ana-based Pacific Symphony, read: “Their board needs further diversification.”

The county’s single largest arts organization, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, is privately funded and, therefore, subject to none of the California Arts Council’s scrutiny as to its board makeup. The Center has one minority person on its 52-member board.

For the record, Center President Thomas R. Kendrick says that fund-raising ability, not ethnic diversity, is the chief concern of the Center’s board in aligning new members. As an institution that presents arts from “Anglo/European traditions . . . clearly you are going to more easily find people (from that group) to give to that than (people) from specific ethnic cultures,” Kendrick said.

According to CAC grant procedure, board diversity is a vital element of community outreach activities, such as free concerts for low-income schoolchildren, that bring arts to the under-served.

For smaller arts organizations with budgets of up to $1 million, outreach is suggested, but not mandatory. But for the state’s largest institutions, which annually win the heftiest grants and serve the largest audiences, it is a prerequisite for a grant.

Why is outreach--and specifically board diversity--a council concern?

Because as a tax-supported state agency, “it is our legislative mandate to serve all the people of California,” said Killins, of San Jose. “The board is a legal policy-making body in the arts so it has to be participated in by all constituents, not just one segment.

“People say we have to have (minorities on boards) because of the state’s demographics,” Killins said. “Demographics are important, but the main reason for it is we have to have all constituencies in on the decision-making and in on the hard work and responsibility.”

The CAC sets no quotas for evaluating ethnic diversity on boards. And, to help determine grant size, it scrutinizes board makeup not by itself, but as one aspect of an organization’s total outreach picture.

Still, “we have not seen the kind of progress we would hope for,” said CAC Executive Director Robert H. Reid.

Board diversity “is not something one does overnight,” said Gerald Yoshitomi, a council member from Los Angeles. “But over four or five years, people have gone through four or five board nominations, and in some cases, obviously not made many changes.

“Then you see the strides made by an institution like Newport Harbor Art Museum, which is in the same community as South Coast Repertory. That says if it’s possible for Newport, it should be possible for other folks in the area.”

In Orange County, there are 12 minority persons (or 7.4%) among 161 board members on four large-budget arts organizations that receive state subsidies, according to the council. It defines minorities as African Americans, American Indians, Chicano/Latinos and Asian/Pacific Islanders.

But even that low figure is slightly inflated by the fact that some individuals may serve on more than one board. Cal State Fullerton President Jewel Plummer Cobb, for instance, sits on the boards of Newport Harbor Art Museum and Pacific Symphony.

By comparison, minorities make up 26.7% of Orange County’s population, according to the National Planning Data Corp., which estimates that number will rise to 29.8% by 1994.

Elsewhere in the state, 101 (or 7.8%) of 1,293 arts board members are from minorities. Statewide, minorities make up about 38.4% of the population.

Locally, officials at the major state-funded arts organizations say they’ve made progress in board diversity and stress that they intend to go further.

In addition, all these groups have outreach activities. They range from SCR’s Hispanic Playwrights Project, which helps young Latino writers produce their works in mainstream resident theaters, to Opera Pacific’s children’s presentations about the dangers of drug abuse, to Pacific Symphony’s free concerts given in the county’s Latino community, a program guided in part by an eight-member Latino advisory committee.

Still, the big question looms: Why do Anglos continue to hold the vast majority of seats on arts groups’ boards?

Many Orange County arts officials say that board members are selected first and foremost for an abiding interest in the art form, not for ethnicity or other secondary concerns, and that finding such leaders takes time.

“Ethnicity is an important criterion we have in seeking leadership,” said David Emmes, producing artistic director of Tony-winning South Coast Repertory.

But, Emmes stressed, probably the most important criterion is that prospective board members “are capable of providing the kind of community leadership we need and have demonstrated their interest in supporting professional resident theater.” Accordingly, “we will move forward to meet (the council’s requests for diversity) when we can and in conjunction with being responsible to the needs of this theater.”

Pacific Symphony board President Randy Johnson said a general lack of interest in Western classical music makes finding minorities for his orchestra’s board especially challenging. Two minority persons sit on Pacific Symphony’s 42-member board.

Asserting that only 2% of the total population regularly attends classical music concerts, Johnson said that figure is even less encouraging among minority populations. “There are many people, particularly among minorities, who do not have a cultural tradition of listening to classical music,” said Johnson.

“I suppose if someone told me to find (several minority board members) between now and Jan. 1, I’m sure we could probably do that,” he said. “But the most crucial thing is finding someone interested in the symphony.”

David DiChiera, general manager of Opera Pacific, echoed the notion.

Now starting its fourth season, “Opera Pacific is a very young organization,” DiChiera said. “What we’ve been doing in these first years is simply to find people who want to support the opera company and who are interested in its growth, rather than focusing on who they are or what they represent.”

But Ruth Ding, a founding board member of the troupe and leading supporter of local Asian cultural groups, had another idea about why she is one of only two minority persons among 38 Opera Pacific board members:

Opera Pacific requires board members to make personal donations, though not all organizations do. Ding said that most minorities are not wealthy enough to meet those demands.

Ding said that last year she gave Opera Pacific $2,000 and hopes to give the same amount this year. But “minorities often don’t have the means to give that much. If my husband did not have the money,” she said, “I could not sit on the board. You have to donate a certain amount each year.”

Council member Killins rejects the defense she hears from arts groups that they can’t find minorities because minorities aren’t wealthy enough. Personal contribution is not what it’s all about, she said.

“I know some minorities that aren’t wealthy but that are able to move and raise a great deal of money. And when you think of the economic clout of Hispanics in California, you’re missing the boat.”

Indeed, Ding said last year she raised $60,000 for Opera Pacific and hopes to raise $100,000 this year.

But one man who is a major fund-raiser for local Latino political, cultural and community causes, who is also an Orange County minority board member, disagreed with Killins. Insisting on anonymity, he said that in the Latino community, raising money for the arts is most difficult of all.

“It’s a question of priorities. We do have Hispanics with affluence and discretionary income in Orange County, but there are so many needs or perceived needs in the Hispanic community. It is very easy to raise $5,000 for academic scholarships or amnesty, but (getting) $5,000 for the arts is very difficult.

“Arts groups need to make some adjustments. I don’t mean lower their standards, but they should understand that Hispanics don’t have access to large amounts of money they can bring to an organization.” But, he added, they can serve on boards in other important ways.

Council Director Reid agreed--in part. “The assumption that only Caucasians can raise money is fallacious,” he said. But he does not believe, contrary to what he is told by grant applicants, that money--giving it or raising it--is the “basic” duty of a board member.

“Boards function as more than just entities to raise money,” he said. “Their responsibilities also include guiding institutions artistically, providing the leadership that hires the professional staff.”

No officials at major local arts groups questioned whether it is fair for the council to ask for greater board diversity in Orange County, where the percentage of minorities is lower than it is statewide.

SCR’s Emmes, however, said that “it might be easier to find leadership” within the black community if there were more blacks in Orange County. (Blacks represent 1.2% of the county’s population.)

But state-funded groups have an obligation to make their boards reflect “what the state looks like, whether a community does or does not have a particular percentage of an ethnic population,” Reid said. “Certainly Orange County is looking for tourists to come to its cultural institutions.”

One black arts figure said that officials at county arts organizations aren’t working hard enough to add blacks to their boards.

“If they are reaching out to get them, I don’t know about it,” said Adleane Hunter, executive director of the Black Actors Theater, the county’s only black theater troupe. She has never been asked to join a local board, nor been asked to recommend anyone for such a position, she said.

While the issue of board diversity continues to concern arts officials nationwide, local leaders offer some solutions.

“I think the arts organizations should make it known to the Hispanic community that they are in good faith seeking memberships on their board,” said Rodolfo Montejano, a Pacific Symphony board member.

“At least 500 to 1,000 Latinos in Orange County” with interests in the arts and time to serve can be contacted through such Santa Ana-based organizations as the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Santiago Club and the Relampago del Cielo dance troupe, Montejano said.

Council member Killins said she is working with the council on a manual “that will teach people how to do develop outreach.” The booklet will include information on how organizations seeking to diversify their boards can find qualified minorities.

Minority advisory panels, such as Pacific Symphony’s Hispanic committee, are a good way to develop ties with minority communities and find board members, said Tere Romo, council organizational grants program manager.

But the long-term solution--to board diversity and an overall cultural diversity--essentially boils down to more diverse arts programming, Romo said.

Given the state’s changing demographics, the product performed on stage or displayed in galleries must be expanded beyond “Western European” art forms in order for arts groups to thrive, “or even to sell tickets,” she said.

“If arts groups hold onto a very narrow viewpoint of culture, they are not going to build audiences or find board members who want to commit all that time or money to promote something that has nothing to do with them.”

Some institutions have made progress in this regard, but some still take a missionary approach and far too few regularly integrate arts from other cultures into their programs and, critically, collaborate with ethnic groups to present works with them, Romo said.

“The council would like to see that major institutions create bridges to ethnic communities so that it’s a two-way street, so that culture is going both ways.”

NEXT STEP

“Developing Multicultural Boards: Experiences and Opportunities,” a panel on how to develop executive and advisory boards of art institutions “that adequately reflect the cultural make-up of the community,” will be held 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Monday at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Sumitomo room, 244 S. San Pedro St., downtown Los Angeles. Speakers are Jerry Allen, executive director, the Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco; Hansonia Caldwell, dean of fine arts and humanities, Cal State Dominguez Hills, and Willow Young, independent arts and culture consultant. Sponsored by ArtTable Inc., Southern California chapter. General admission is $20. Reservations required: (213) 874-1625.

BACKGROUND

The California Arts Council has criticized arts organizations statewide for inadequate representation of ethnic minorities on their boards of directors. The issue is affecting arts groups to the extent that the council has cut back on the amount of grants to some organizations that otherwise have been highly praised, including South Coast Repertory.

BOARD COMPOSITION OF ORANGE COUNTY ARTS ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVING 1989-90 CALIFORNIA ARTS COUNCIL GRANTS

MAJOR ORGANIZATIONS

SOUTH COAST REPERTORY:

ANGLOS: 45

MINORITIES: 3 (1 Asian/Pacific Islander, 2 Chicano/Latino)

OPERA PACIFIC:

ANGLOS: 36

MINORITIES: 2 (2 Asian/Pacific Islander)

PACIFIC SYMPHONY:

ANGLOS: 40

MINORITIES: 2 (1 African American, 1 Chicano/Latino)

NEWPORT HARBOR ART MUSEUM:

ANGLOS: 28

MINORITIES: 5 (1 African American, 1 American Indian, 2 Asian/Pacific Islander, 1 Chicano/Latino)

THE PRIVATE SECTOR

O.C. PERFORMING ARTS CENTER:

ANGLOS: 52

MINORITIES: 1

FLUOR CORP.:

ANGLOS: 16

MINORITIES: 0

BERGEN BRUNSWIG CORP.:

ANGLOS: 11

MINORITIES: 0

SMALLER ORGANIZATIONS

ORANGE COUNTY PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY*:

ANGLOS: 28

MINORITIES: 4 (3 Chicano/Latino, 1 Asian)

MASTER CHORALE OF ORANGE COUNTY*:

ANGLOS: 18

MINORITIES: 3 (2 Chicano/Latino, 1 African American)

LAGUNA ART MUSEUM*:

ANGLOS: 21

MINORITIES: 0

*Organizations not required to include minority representation on boards

TOTAL ORANGE COUNTY BOARD MEMBERS OF 4 LARGE-BUDGET ARTS ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVING CAC GRANTS: 161

ANGLOS: 92.6%

MINORITIES: 7.4%

TOTAL BOARD MEMBERS OF 30 OTHER LARGE BUDGET-ARTS ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVING CAC GRANTS IN STATE: 1,293

ANGLOS: 92.2%

MINORITIES: 7.8%

Statewide minority population: 38.4%

Minorities as defined by the California Arts Council, are African Americans, American Indians, Asian/Pacific Islanders and Chicano/Latinos. An “others” category of minorities refers to populations outside of these four groups, such as Arabs or “people that the arts organizations don’t know how to define,” according to Juan Carrillo, the council’s deputy director of programs.

Sources: Large-budget arts organization figures supplied by the California Arts Council and used to determine last round of grants. The board composition of some of these groups may have changed slightly since these figures were reported to the council. Figures for the smaller budget arts organizations and the private sector organizations supplied by the organizations. Figures for statewide and Orange County minority populations supplied by the National Planning Data Corp.