Artful Conversations 2020 Karen Ball Interview
Welcome to Artful Conversations - a podcast about arts and cultural management. Hosts Annetta Latham and Katrina Ingram, interview leaders who help shape the world of arts and culture. We share their stories, their insights and observations. This podcast season has been brought to you with the support of MacEwan University and The Rozsa Foundation.
ANNETTA: Welcome to Artful Conversations, I'm your host, Annetta Latham, I'm joined today with Karen Ball, interim president and CEO of Calgary's Chamber of Voluntary Organizations. Karen is a nationally recognized culture and community leader with over 20 years developing the community and cultural landscape in Canada. Through her consulting practice, she has been a thought leader and collaborator and key community planning within Alberta, including providing strategic direction and leading multiple stakeholder consultations for Calgary 2026 for potential of the Olympic and Paralympic bid. She's worked with the City of Calgary and the creation of their cultural plan and the Government of Alberta for the Premier's Council of Culture to advise Alberta's cultural perspective and provincial contribution to the ‘Canada 150’. She served as the director of Community Investment for Calgary Arts Development, Partnership Liaison, Western Canada with the Canadian Council, and the Executive Director of Calgary's Year of Culture Capital of Canada. Welcome, Karen.
KAREN: Thank you. Great to be here.
ANNETTA: I understand, first of all, what a fabulous first of all what a fabulous career. And I understand that you started your career in Toronto, but you've now relocated to Calgary and you've become a nationally recognized culture and community leader. Can you tell us a little bit about why you chose to base yourself from Calgary?
KAREN: Sure. You know, I all I have to be honest and say I am actually an Edmonton born and bred woman myself. I love the city. What a great place to grow up and a great place to experience culture. And I was educated in Toronto, so I started there by route of university. And then I kind of, I did what every 20 year old should do, and I bought a 1970 Dodge van and took off for a couple of years and drove all over North America and Canada, with this sort of idealistic thought that I would find the ultimate place to live. And it was good learning because I realized pretty quickly that place is so connected to people and I just couldn't kind of imagine living without the people that I had grown up around in Edmonton and miss so dearly. And so I actually returned to Edmonton and then went to the Banff Center for a number of years. And Banff is a funny little place. You work in the Banff Center, so you are connected to people all over the world all the time, and then you realize that you live in a very tiny town. So it's hard to advance a career in culture in a town like Banff outside of the Banff Center. So yeah, by virtue of just wanting to grow myself as a professional and challenging myself, I had to leave Banff. So I moved to Calgary. I moved to Calgary to become the director of advancement at ACAD right now, AU arts. So that was really interesting. And then I have been in Calgary ever since. And enjoy this city, miss Edmonton, of course. But I think how lucky are we to live in a province with two such great cities.
ANNETTA: Very much so. Karen, with your extraordinary experience and consultancy work in culture, what was it that drew you to working with the Chamber of Voluntary Organizations?
KAREN: I sat on their board for six years, which I always thought was a real privilege for me. I have this kind of rule of thumb with board members. When you're recruiting a board member, you can think, is this better for the person or is it better for the organization? And you should try to find board members where the advantage is a little bit more on the organizational side. And I think I brought a little bit to the Calgary Chamber when I was there as a board member. But I also really feel like I got the advantage, because there are few opportunities professionally, I think you would agree, where you can get a 30,000 foot view on a sector. And yeah, it's hard and often and particularly, I think in the arts, if you're working in administration, then it's very hard to kind of get your head up and see the larger moving pieces. It's often hard to understand advocacy at those levels, systemic kind of ideas about the ecosystem. And so when you know, when it's a chamber of voluntary organizations, which includes obviously arts and culture, they're the largest number of organizations, nonprofit organizations in the province for arts and culture organizations, closely followed by health and social. But it's hard to kind of get a feeling for the structure and system of that entire sector, when you're inside it and I'm a real mapping the sector kind of nerd. So I loved being on that board. And then they had a fairly rapid period of time where they realized they were losing their then CEO. And so they needed an interim position. And so they called me, because I was a consultant. And I was able to shift around and move in on an interim basis. And I suppose by the time this airs, it will be known. But I am now their permanent president and CEO.
ANNETTA: Congratulations.
KAREN: Thank you, has translated itself. So that's kind of how it happened. It was a bit advantageous, but I've always really enjoyed being situated in places where you can have effect on systems.
ANNETTA: And that, I was just about to kind of ask you and it leads into this question, like what is in the Chamber's vision and mission that really resonated with you, that drew you to it? Because I think one of the interesting things in Alberta is the very high level of voluntary organizations that are here and especially in the arts and culture. You know, a lot of volunteers are heavily involved and in some way make the, certainly in Edmonton, make the practice in the arts and cultural sector in our festivals quite sustainable because of the heavy involvement from volunteers. So for you, what was it that kind of resonated in CCVO’s mission and vision that drew you to it initially?
KAREN: Well, I love the concept, obviously, of volunteerism. Do you know that in a weird way, Calgary almost sort of invented the notion of volunteerism in large scale events through Calgary ‘88 Winter Olympics.
ANNETTA: Oh, that's amazing. Thank you for that.
KAREN: So, yeah, we had said at the time to the IOC, well, we're not going to pay for these staffing positions, people are just going to do them. And the international community didn't even really understand the concept of what volunteerism was. And Calgary is an interesting city with a long history that way of citizen engagement in building its future, as is Edmonton. The Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations is so inappropriately named in that it actually is a chamber for nonprofit organization. But at the time it was formed, there was a charitable is it a charity or is it a nonprofit, a social profit? And I think we're still probably having that discussion. What is this? So although we don't work directly with volunteers, we work completely with organizations in the nonprofit sector. And so what draws me to that is the notion of working at the policy level, at the research level, advocacy level to give voice. And I'm really a huge proponent of that. And then inversely also being able to bring people together. So I think we don't do enough generally at the cross-sector level. How is the private sector connected to the nonprofit sector, connected to government and how were we seeing the work that we do is advancing shared objectives that are really about the community?
ANNETTA: That tri-partnership is always an interesting dialog. And, you know, we always get into when you talk about tri-partnerships, you always get into kind of ownership and who has the most power and who has who, you know, who holds the most authority. And that navigating a tri-relationship I think is always a really interesting, interesting perspective. So, having watched the organization grow for you, you know, where do you think it should be heading? I mean, are you going to rename it?
KAREN: Yeah. I mean, it seems like an obvious thing, doesn't it? It's brand is good in Calgary, under its current name, so I don't know. I don't know that would be a nice sign.
ANNETTA: That could be a first thing in your brand new official role. Let's change the name. That's right.
KAREN: I think, you know, societally, the global pandemic, because this time based conversation, you can't really have the conversation without thinking about that as it has changed a lot of things. And one of the things I think that has changed is that people are a lot more aware of community in the down the street and around the corner sense of the word. So your neighbors are hyper important to you now? Our values are changing. Calgary does a vital signs survey, as does Edmonton I think, most major cities in the country, and in this year's Vital Signs survey, which just was released, they asked what things are most important and the types of things that are tracked and measured under that are our health, freedom, money and relationships. And Calgary has always had money fairly high. And this year's vital signs, seventy two percent of people said relationships. It's number one. Yeah. And twenty nine percent said money. It's the last not first. It is very interesting. I feel like what it signals to me is that I'm going to call the nonprofit sector the social sector. I think arts and culture sits squarely within that. Yeah, very much so. This is a serious opportunity to have a discussion about the kind of community we want to have and how we build the prosperity of that community, well beyond a conversation about our economic prosperity, which, of course, we have been having in this province for years and other places. And we'll continue to do so. But I do think that there is an Albertan people priority, on the prosperity of their communities.
ANNETTA: Yeah. So that’s a great segway into what for you in your new role, do you have important plans and goals for I think not only for Calgary but also the Albertan nonprofit community? Like what are you hoping to achieve now that you're officially in your new role in this role?
KAREN: Well, I mean provincially, from a government perspective, I'm hoping that we get a seat at the table. I personally think it's quite appalling that we have a provincial strategy for recovery that does not even consider or mention the sector. And when you think about parts of this sector, such as the arts and culture sectors, they have been decimated overnight. And to have no consideration for what strategically will be required to sustain and maintain cultural vitality through these organizations is a massive oversight, not to mention that there are massive swaths of the sector that are social service, that are truly frontline responders. And the ones that we rely upon, it's how we care for the elderly, it's how we educate our children. It's how we look after the most vulnerable and ourselves when we're sick. And yet we are not paying any attention strategically to how to support that work.
So we have this history in a province, I think personally that, you know, we should be saying, hey, look, when we're at our best, we save for when we're at our worst. And so when we're at our worst, we can give the support that is necessary for the sector that actually delivers a majority of the front line response. But we haven't done that. We've really stripped this sector to bare bones. Who amongst the arts doesn't know this work? Tireless hours under incredible stress, with very little capacity often to do the work that you need to do. And so when an opportunity comes to actually do something, I witnessed this when we were Canada's Cultural Capital and you can draw parallels between a pandemic and response. There is no gas in the tank. You know, it just just falls. It's more, it's less capacity, less resources and more work. And so, you know, for me it starts with the seat at the table, a way for people to say, hey, when I think about the top three things that are important to me in Alberta, it might be, you know, being able to work and afford to live here for myself and my family, but somewhere up there is a quality of life indicator that is one hundred percent reliant on the social sector. And we get there through a variety of ways. But I think that that's giving voice to that and pushing that forward is really necessary. And it's difficult to get a coordinated response on advocacy around these kinds of things. But that's what I'm hoping we can be doing at the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations. We're actually the oldest chamber of nonprofits in Canada and probably one of the strongest advocates in the province right now, even though we're physically based in Calgary. So I think it's attainable.
ANNETTA: I want to touch on something you mentioned earlier about the arts and culture sector. And I think it is really interesting, like you said in Alberta, we have been I think decimated was your word. And I think that does describe the situation in a fair manner, actually. And I think what's really interesting about that is when you think about that situation occurring, some of that was kind of a little bit pre Covid and now covered certainly has really, really kind of slammed against the wall, really. And what's really interesting is that some of the recovery strategy from Covid that's starting to happen on a, in a global dialog is the cultural tourism. And bringing that, you know, the thinking about tourism and cultural tourism in relation to economic recovery and all of those kinds of things. And, you know, I don't know how you feel, but my, when I hear that my kind of inner advocate says, well, hang on a minute, this the sector's decimated them. And to use that as a tool as recovery is an interesting thing, because to do that, you need to invest in it, to assist the sector. So it's really interesting work that you are heading into, like you said, to get yourself a seat at the table. So what from your perspective do you think are the key things that help the chamber give, you know, contribute to the voice for not-profits and get that seat at the table?
KAREN: A few things for us. It's a combination of research. So, I mean, we have to be able to quantifiably say certain things. Right now, I can tell you that, you know, across the country, sixty nine percent of nonprofits are seeing a diminished revenue. But in Alberta, it's seventy five or six percentage points higher. It's related not only to the pandemic, but also the softening of the economy. And of course, Alberta has always, and particularly Calgary and our arts organizations definitively have been, had a higher share of their percentage of revenue from corporate sources than anywhere else in the country. So when industry disappears, so does that funding. So, you know, being able to quantify the problem, who is the most affected and how and at what rate is a big part of it. And then being able to identify policy solutions that get at that problem. So we're building policy solutions for governments at every order, but we're also building private sector solutions. And solutions for ourselves as a sector and solutions for funders. So identifying recommendations. It's interesting because a lot of the things I've been thinking about lately are, you know, yes, it's great to be at the table. And yes, we have to ask for a seat at the table. And yes, we have to show that we have value to have that seat at the table. But we also can't wait to be invited. We just have to put our we have to say, yeah, we know you have a table, here's what we're recommending you do. And here it is quite clearly. And here's the people that support it and the advocates that have the ear. I think that's all very important. I think at this time in our province, we also have regional conversations. I mean, we have to figure that out. Regionality is interesting and important. You know, if you have a theater organization in a small center and they have the ear of their MLA, then that can be a very powerful piece of advocacy. But,we all have to be singing from the same song in terms of what we think the priorities are right now for the sector.
ANNETTA: Yeah, and I think there's something to be said for that collaborative voice and collective voice, because, like you said, it's us all singing from the same songbook, but it also empowers us, you know, empowers the smaller rural community organization to know that they do have somebody who is supporting them. And, you know, where they may think their voices aren’t heard in a wider provincial platform it actually is. So I think it's absolutely fantastic. One of the things I think that was really interesting around what the chamber does when I was kind of doing a little bit of background research, is you run a number of programs there and some programmings and you provide those both to members and non members. In relation to that, what, could you talk about what's a member? What's a non member? And we break it down those borders and in that is there a particular course that you kind of think sits in, that you're passionate about, that is really good for the members in the nonmembers?
KAREN: That's you know, we could do a whole podcast. I'm so excited for people like charts and graphs, charts on membership. But the reality is, I think all any member, organization and artist centers I'm thinking about, you know, there's tons of different membership models, alumni associations like that. Yeah. That sort of rule of thumb is it always costs more to run a membership program than you get in membership fees. So that's just a) so it's usually not about membership fees. And as I look at what we're doing with the chamber, I think, you know, there's another model there in the future, I think, that is less member and more supporter. And I look at some of the sort of disruption that's happened, for instance, in the media world where you had used to subscribe to a newspaper and that thing would come on your doorstep or you can have a digital subscription. I don't even wonder if digital subscriptions are growing. I doubt it. Actually, I don't know for sure. But one thing that is really growing is the notion of supporting independent journalism. And that's not really about subscribing, that's often very patient journalism. It's not coming every day. It's not part of the regular news cycle. In Calgary we have independent journalism. I'm sure that it's there in Edmonton as well. And I would support it as opposed to subscribing to it. And then as a supporter, I'm indicating that something is important to me becoming part of a larger voice. I'm more likely to be proud of my affiliation. I'm more likely to show that pride in how I identify myself. And that is a very powerful tool to harness a community. And I would love for our chamber to be less about members and more about supporters. And then just generously serve the sector. I mean, in everything that we do, I think for every organization you have to ask yourself, is this better for the people that we serve? And we're all if you work for a nonprofit, no matter what subsector you're in, you're in service. To something. So our membership program now, I would say, is a mechanism to meet sort of a system of how people get involved. But I think we have to evolve that quite rapidly because the world around us has changed. And so we're being very generous with our programs because we recognize that to do that is better for the people that we serve. And then we're helping our members be advocates. So we're saying thank you for being a member, here are the tools that you can use to be part of something bigger than all of each of us, collaboratively. To move more to a supportive perspective.
ANNETTA: I really liked your comment around support and membership because I agree with you. I think membership now is a changing field and we certainly curate our lives more than we ever, ever have done before, thanks to digital technology, you know, membership is an unusual thing that we're all part of or not part of. And, you know, that notion of being a member of something that because your mom was and your grandmother was before, you know, that kind of generational membership stuff, I think is, yeah, like we said, we could do a whole podcast on it, because I think that really does impact the arts, especially the traditional arts where that generational membership stuff, I think is really moving. But I'm taking this massively off track.
KAREN: Well, that subscriber's we could address that in our membership podcast.
ANNETTA: Yeah, but I want to come back to what you were saying about the programs and, you know, them being offered and the generosity that the chamber's showing to support people in doing this. One of the things that I saw was the Reach Higher, not for profit career center. And I thought it was a magnificent tool that the chamber's been doing. And do you from your perspective, in relation to that tool, do you feel it allows some strengthening in the voluntary sector in Calgary or, you know, for you, what's the key purpose, I guess, of that tool?
KAREN: Oh, for sure. It's essentially a nonprofit job board. I think if you go there and be more of a marketplace. And it has the ability to do that. We also run something called the Bollon Survey, which is a national salary survey. So if you're wondering, you know, how to place a new role inside your organization, what compensation or benefits should look like, then you can go there. For me, of course, they're delivering an important resource for nonprofit organizations, but because I come from twenty five years of working on the cultural sector, I've started to really think about what I can see for myself, is a juxtaposition between the cultural sector and maybe the broader nonprofit sector. The broader nonprofit sector tends to have a lot of people involved in it that are from social services. The difference, I think, is that in the cultural sector, we are all very good at thinking about enterprise. So we're doing something that is a mandate directive, whether it's creating a gallery show, or putting a play on the stage, or whatever it is, a festival. But it is an enterprise. And we think of it as an enterprise and we're selling tickets and we're thinking about how to build revenue centers and these kinds of things. And that thinking is quite valuable because it isn't as well developed on the other side of the coin. And so for me, I'm like, oh, we have a job board. That's an enterprise. We have a salary rate. So that's an enterprise.
And what we're seeing federally in Canada is that social enterprise and social enterprise funding is going to become, I think, the most promising area for nonprofit organizations in terms of seeking support from governments or other partners. And so the arts does sort of mean that the arts should be thinking carefully about what social enterprise means generally and understanding their intersection with it. But also, it's really helpful for me to come from that background because I'm like, OK, we're running a social enterprise right now. You know, 70 percent of our funding is from core funders in the government and in the public sector. But I like that to be switched so that 70 percent of our funding is self derived. And I think by scaling and growing some of the tools that we have that are actual enterprises that are delivering social impact will get there. So, you know, this is, that's how it sits in my mind. And maybe that's not exactly the tactical answer. But, you know, people there's four hundred and fifty thousand people employed. Ten billion dollars to the GDP, so this is not a small sector and the churn is massive. So a job board is a great undertaking for us to have. I wish that there was an arts job board that was provincial, actually. And if anyone's listening to this, that's thinking about a business idea. I think you could actually see this as a profitable enterprise.
ANNETTA: So I want to dip in a little bit into what you've said about being involved in the arts for quite some time, the arts and culture sector. And one of the most common things I get asked is, as an academic, who has also worked in the arts sector for the past 20 odd years of my life, is how do you do a consultancy practice? Basically, I have a number of people ask me that question. So tell us a little bit about your consultancy practice and what kind of work did you do? I mean, we talked at the introduction about your big ticket items, but what was some of the, how did you get into it and what was some of the work you did inside that arena as a consultant?
KAREN: Yeah, you know, it's interesting because when I was in my 20s, mid 20s, I was like, I'm a consultant, but I was not a consultant. I was a contract worker, I was a gig worker. And it's really different. And you can be a gig worker in this economy, in this sector quite easily. And everybody kind of knows that. And then the second kind of iteration of that, I really was a consultant. I'm bringing value in that an organization doesn't necessarily have. And it might just mean that they have it and they don't have the time for it. But it might also mean that this is not an expertise that they would carry inside their organization. And so I think you have to be able to identify that. And I think in the arts, a lot of people don't do that. They basically are gig workers that have a lot of experience. So you have to be super clear what is the value that you're selling and why and why would an organization want it? And so then people will get on on the kind of trajectory of strategic planning, things like that, that are just normally you would bring a consultant to do that. I really tried in my own practice to not do that. So one of the things that I am is a systems strategist. But that does not necessarily mean that I'm just going to come in and do your strategic plan. But if you want to have an interesting conversation with your staff or your board, I can make that happen. I guarantee you that you'll leave that conversation with a clear focus on whatever the problem at hand is. So being able to frame an issue and guide a conversation through it. And the other thing that I also recognize that I could do, and maybe it's because I was a fundraiser, I was a fund giver, I was a festival producer, I built infrastructure, was I can take a one off complicated idea and organize it and deliver it. So that it sounds like it's kind of gig worker, but it's sort of very specialized. And then the third thing I knew I knew how to do was create policy and policy positions. And so I made myself a promise that I would stay consulting as long as I had bread and butter clients, because I like to eat just like everybody else. And yeah, and I'm the breadwinner for my family, so there was no safety net. And so I had the government of Alberta asked me to step in and to work with the Premier's Council on Culture at the time to develop strategies for the advancement of culture and cultural prosperity for the province. And so it was working with the community of people to help focus them. I wasn't facilitating, they had a facilitator. I was designing the process through which the conversation would lead to whatever the strategic recommendation was. And that was really fun. And it kept me employed and it allowed me to do other things. And grow my practice from there. And that's why I was lucky enough to have that. I think that's part of how success is, right.
ANNETTA: So in your process as a consultant, what do you do that ensures the work you do is long lasting, deep and has meaningful connections, not only with the person who pays the bill, but also, with the community that they then engage with moving forward for them as an organization,
KAREN: A couple of things. One is I custom build everything. So it's not really the best business model for me in that it's quite labor intensive. But I actually don't really think one size fits all. But I have tools in my toolkit that I can apply. Obviously I'm not like there's this thing I invented called the SWOT analysis.
So I also make a lot of time for conversation. I believe in that. I think consultation is conversation. And so that's really important. And then I have learned for myself that knowing how to build trust is a very, very important professional tool for me. So if I can't,iIf I can't do something in a way that people trust me to deliver on it, I won't do it. And sometimes that's because I don't have the acumen, sometimes it's because the environment isn't right. But you have to be able to come into an organization and deliver something that people trust in you to do. And often that's something that, like often my clients are in the executive director chair. And that's a really lonely chair, where you don't have a lot of colleagues. And so if you can have someone you trust and they can do something for you that actually helps you solve something, then that's how you build a relationship that is a repeat client relationship for sure, and it's an interesting thing because trust often means telling people things they don't want to hear. So, you know, I take that really, really seriously. And I bring a lot of respect for the people I work with into the relationship, because I know that they are in need of that kind of trusted, collegial space.
ANNETTA: That is wonderful, thank you. I think what you've explained is actually just incredibly powerful. And like you said, you know, there are a lot of people who yearn for the ED after their name. And like you said, when you get there, it can be, you're the star at the top of the christmas tree, there's nothing up there with you. And it can be a very lonely, lonely place. You've had a pretty incredible career and you've worked with some amazing clients and some very big ones. Do you have favorites, and a favorite project.
KAREN: It’s funny, my favorite project to date has been the one I'm currently involved in. And I never thought that I would stop consulting because I love it. And what I love about it is that every new job is a new challenge. And I am that kind of person. I know that for myself, I get bored really easily and then I'm just making challenges for myself. But this organization is quite dynamic, and it is quite responsive. And I think that responsiveness kind of creates that constant challenge which I crave. But I have always loved being really complicated, really, one of the specific kinds of things that are born that happen and then, and then deliver legacy, but do not maintain themselves. I'm a big fan of, I'm more of a spider plant than an oak tree, so, you know,
ANNETTA: And a wonderful description. And so we've talked about, you know, now that you have the role that, you know, it clearly shows us what's in store for you in the future. And, you know, you've mentioned about stepping away from consultancy at this point to enable you to focus on your new role. But for the chamber, what do you, we touched on this a little bit. What do you think is in the future for the chamber? You know, we joked about changing the name, but for you, you know, if you're looking at five years of your leadership, what do you, would hope, if we were sitting having this conversation in five years time? What would you hope that you'd be able to say? You know what, we achieved that, and I'm really proud of that.
KAREN: That's such a good question, isn't it? I just wrote down in my notebook, like earlier today, in 10 years, blank.
ANNETTA: I shortened it, I only made it 5. I've been a bit kinder to you.
KAREN: You know, this is not achievable in five years. But I think if in ten years, people that are deeply interested in social change, understand that, something is happening in Alberta that they can work here, that that is possible. And it sounds so weird to say that now because we do such a good job of telling the world that it's not possible. You know, in so many ways in how we present ourselves. But we also tell the world that we are a province of entrepreneurs. And we tell the world that it doesn't matter what your last name is or where you came from, that when you come here, you're here. You’re part of our community. And we are a province of immigrants and we are a province of pioneers. And we have a rich, incredible thousands of years of cultural history here. I mean, we're an interesting, interesting place where we have been defining ourselves as the, what the iteration of the next phase of cities looks like. I think Edmonton actually is in a really good place to define what the future of large Canadian cities looks like. And it's not going to be like growing into a Toronto. It's going to be something totally different. And so I think that that will only be propelled and made stronger if we are also a place where people that want to change the world come. And to do that, we have to have the mechanisms for people to want to change the world, to be able to change the world from here. And so, you know, that's lofty, it's out there, terrifying, but if we were attracting and keeping people like that, as opposed to those people leaving, which I think now is a real danger. I'm starting to see if we haven't already, then we have to turn that around.
ANNETTA: I think knowledge drain is a very serious situation for any community. Karen, it's been fascinating talking to you and we could talk forever. We should just do a series of podcasts, the Karen and Annetta chat. Part wide membership, part charts and graphs. Karen is there anything else that you'd like to add to our conversation before we wrap it up for the day?
KAREN: Well, this has been really nice, actually. I feel like now I have to do a podcast and ask you lots of questions because we are very interested in your background as well.
ANNETTA: This is a second series and I haven't been on the ‘answer the questions’ end of things. It was lovely to meet you and thank you so much for your time. And really, you know, we can all look forward to seeing what the chamber's going to do in the next ten years. And I look forward to chatting with you again soon.
KAREN: Thank you, Annetta. The pleasure has been all mine. Thanks.
Analysis
ANNETTA: Katrina, it was so exciting talking to Karen, and if her and I ever run a sideline podcast, I’ll let you know. But I think one of the things, there was so much in that interview, there was so, so much in the interview. But one of the things that I thought was really interesting that we talked about was membership. And what does membership mean now, something you watch on YouTube and you go subscribe and your bell rings every Sunday when that person posts. I'm a member of something between them and what is a subscription. Is a membership, monetized or not monetized. And it's fascinating to me, really interesting watching how she develops the membership in the Chamber to see where she explores that thing. I just thought it was fascinating and also to see whether she changes the name. That will be interesting.
KATRINA: That will be interesting, I do, I picked up on that as well. This notion of what is a member in the context of the world today. And I also picked up on this other phrase: ‘seat at the table’. That was something that came up a lot. And she talked about the importance of getting a seat at the table. And sometimes you can't wait to be invited to get to the table. You have to kind of take your place at the table and just get yourself there. And then the last point that really resonated with me was around funding and this idea of the intersection of the arts and social enterprise. And she talked about 70 percent of the funding right now coming from core funders like the government and the public sector and the fact that she wants to kind of flip this into 70 percent being self funded through social enterprise. And that's ambitious. And I thought that was really interesting how she kind of framed this argument and really talked about the opportunity to do that and to fund the organization differently.
This show was created by Executive Producer and Host Annetta Latham; Co-host Katrina Ingram. Technical Producer Paul Johnston. Research Assistants involved were Caitlin McKinnon and MacEwan bachelor of music students.
Theme Music by Emily Darfur and cover art by Constanza Pacher. Special thanks to the Rose Foundation for their support and to our guests. Artful Conversations is a production of MacEwan University and Assistant Professor Annetta Latham, all rights reserved.
Latham, A. (Executive Producer and Host). Regan-Ingram, K (Host). (2020, October 2020) [Season 2: Episode 4]. Karen Ball. Podcast retrieved from: https://www.artfulconversations.com/season-2-1/2021/2/6/ep-3-karen-ball