I Staycationed

 I’ve just returned from a one week staycation (as the media would have me call it) in Dorset.  Where we stayed had the most amazing views looking down the valley to Corfe Castle. So it was no surprise that we found ourselves there. Corfe Castle is not only the inspiration for Enid Blyton’s Kirrin Castle but also a National Trust property.  The Castle was great, the family guide book was good and as we paid for our tickets we were politely asked if we would like to become members of the Trust (free gift included). 

I recalled hearing recently that the National Trust has more members than all the political parties combined, and that started me thinking, how many members do the National Trust have and how much income does that generate for them? Back home a little Googling found me the National Trust’s Annual report for 2008/9. 

The National Trust is independent of Government and receives no direct state grant or subsidy for its core work. So, as they say, “Instead, our future depends on the generous support of 3.6 million members, 14.8 million visitors and 55,000 volunteers, as well as benefactors, tenants and other partners.” So there’s the answer 3.6 million, that’s a fairly hefty number.  A little further flicking through the accounts reveals the members generated £121,987,000 or 31% of their annual expenditure (or 35% of this year’s RFO investment from Arts Council England). I have to confess I was extremely impressed, the numbers were big.

How many arts organisations could claim their members generate 30% of their income? I don’t know, but the answer I guess is few.  But there again it’s not a fair comparison, membership or friends of an arts organisation or museum is just for that one organisation, not the more than two hundred properties owned by the Trust.  But what if all the organisations got together…is it time to do some really big scale collaboration? 

So a bit more Googling and I find a piece written in July 1999 on how to survive the millennium bug - Making a NICER Transition to the Millennium: Five Keys to Successful Collaboration by David Smallen and Karen Leach. In those worrying months leading up to what some predicted would be a great disaster they wrote these words:

“The most important precondition for successful collaboration is the existence of a common, strongly felt need. That need can be as simple as survival, but it must be strong, since collaborative work takes time and energy, of the kind that will be sustained not merely by ideas but by desires. In the wild, animals sense that collaboration increases their chances of survival. In the lion kingdom, male lions that work together have, on average, bigger prides of lionesses, more cubs, and better overall chances of survival. Zebras are herd animals because working together confuses their predators.”

They went on to say

“In general, the need to collaborate can simply be the necessity of dealing with uncertainty, or of having someone with whom to share our concerns, or of solving a very real, common problem. Michael Schrage suggests: "People collaborate precisely because they don't know how to -- or can't -- deal with the challenges they face as individuals. Collaboration is a necessary technique to master the unknown."

As we face difficult times ahead, the attitude may be to hunker down, focus on what we need to do as individual organisations and perhaps try and ride the storm alone. The reality may be that we should get out and work more closely together - a survival by collaboration. Anyone want to buy a National Arts/Museum Trust membership? We’ll throw in a free rug.

James Gough. James is Director of Audiences South and Vice Chair of Audiences UK

References:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/html/erm/erm99/erm9945.html#3

Michael Schrage, No More Teams! Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1995)