[BCMA] BCAC Arts Council Program Review Issues

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.]

Hi,

 

I went to the BCAC program review yesterday in Victoria. This is part of a
series of meeting being held around the province. Was good to see Theresa at
the meeting. The meeting was packed and in too small of a place, which I
believe hindered getting information across. Having said that, the BCAC
staff were good and seemed willing to listen. I encourage all of you to
attend and to submit feedback via the BCAC website.

 

To me there are a few basic issues that need to be highlighted:

 

1.       BCAC needs to understand and speak to museums. While there has been
some effort at the operating grant level, most of the other project based
grants do not speak in a language of museums. The focus is mostly on public
presentation and artistic excellence, which though are an element of
museums, ignores things like collections management, conservation and
research. The focus ignores the fact that a community museum might not do a
significant change to their exhibits in a year, but they might have redone
their cataloging or storage.

 

2.       Peer review is often not done by peers. I have sat on a number of
juries (not BCAC), and a consistent problem with grant programs that are
aimed at the broader arts community, is the lack of understanding of our
primary functions. Once again the example of a museum applying for someone
to assist with cataloging  artifacts. The other arts jurors typical saw
these functions as administrative in nature and did not recognize that they
are fundamental to our operations as a choreography is to a dance troop,
until I was able to explain the importance. So how many museums have not
received support because the jurors were ignorant of museums? So can the
BCAC make sure that on their jury's there are people with museum experience
on board.

 

3.       Penalizing success. The BCAC says that an organization that has
more than 6 months yearly operating expense in a reserve may not be eligible
for funding. SaskCulture says if you do not have a years worth of funding in
reserve, you might not get funding. Two totally different approaches. In
Saskatchewan, if for some reason the amount of money available for
distribution is cut, you have an effective reserve in place, in BC, you may
have to cut programs. Plus having the reserve allows you to take advantage
of special funding programs that come up from time to time where you have to
match funds.

 

 

4.       CADAC: This is the national system where we are expected to
configure our financial and statistical data into a form that fits the
funders needs. The first problem is that it totally ignores museums, it is
set up for the arts community. Second it is a pain in the butt to work with.
Each year I have CADAC program officers have me change what line I put in
specific financial information, often the change is the complete opposite to
where I was told to put it in during previous years... I have yet to come
across a user of CADAC (museum or otherwise) that likes the system. One of
the promises was that it would provide us with useful statistical
information, the reality is that it has extremely limited reporting
functions and frankly the data is questionable to start with. The questions
I would ask the BCAC are: Has CADAC made it easier for BCAC staff? Has it
made it easier for BCAC Clients? Has the information available through CADAC
caused any change to programs or processes? If yes, what changes?

 

Unfortunately the feedback for is very text limited. There is 4 spaces,
three with 500 characters and one with a 1000. I would just start at the top
and roll over to the next box.

https://www.bcartscouncil.ca/program_review/program_review.html

 

Cheers

Lee Boyko

 



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