Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trike Theatre and Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra merge to form Ovations+
Afew years ago, while facing challenges amid the covid pandemic, two nonprofit arts organizations decided that they would ultimately be better and stronger if they worked together.
The Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra and Trike Theatre saw their shared vision spring to life recently with the help of two community partners — the Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE) and the Walton Family Foundation.
Now they are finally officially and legally one entity, known as Ovations+.
“We started this conversation a number of years ago, really in terms of how we might be able to make things easier for two understaffed, spread-thin organizations,” said Paul Savas, executive director for Ovations+. “We quickly determined that (due to) the values … and the perennial needs of both organizations, the best way to do it, frankly, would be to merge.”
Joining hand in hand would allow the revenue, often donations from the community, to go further. That way each could extend programming and educational endeavors to more people, as well as begin to collaborate in other ways, like through co-productions.
To start making such a big move, in 2020 they jointly applied for a bridge grant from CACHE that totaled a little more than $20,000.
“When the panel was considering who to award grant funding to, (they) overwhelmingly saw that this is such a great investment for the arts and culture nonprofits of the region in general,” said Kelsey Howard, director of arts services and strategic partnerships for CACHE. “It could be a great model for others.”
Howard said she’s eager to see if Ovations+ blazes a new trail for more nonprofit organizations to strengthen operations, whether it’s through a merger like this one or in less complicated partnerships — to consider how they can share resources.
“I’m hoping for some more outcomes and success stories, even if it takes time,” she said. “…CACHE is uniquely positioned to help arts and culture nonprofits become stronger and more influential in their communities.”
The reality is that work of that complexity — creating meaningful, long-lasting change — takes a great deal of time and patience. But if it goes according to plan, it’s worth the wait. The bridge grant accomplished exactly what CACHE staff members hoped it would by providing runways, resources and new opportunities for long-term plans and investments.
“The whole point was long-term stability and the goal of sustainability,” Howard said.
Trike and APO used the grant funding to hire a consultant, who guided them through streamlining their processes, which included outlining job responsibilities and solidifying a funding structure.
The consultant, Savas said, came back with a number of options for how they could work together. Executing the actual merger was easy in some respects because the values and methods of Trike Theater and APO were so clearly aligned.
“Although they may have been called different things, the methods we used to work toward our vision and execute our mission were pretty much the same,” Savas said. Trike had three major program types: production, education after school and education in schools, and Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra had the same. Merging merely took some time and consideration for how to combine them thoughtfully.
Of their shared values, both organizations strongly believe that exposure to the arts has lifelong benefits, far beyond taking classes when you’re young or in school. They served all ages separately, and they’ll continue that all ages approach together.
A natural extension of that is the belief that access to the arts makes communities stronger “especially when the opportunity to experience the performing arts is made possible to all sectors,” Savas said. “Access to the performing arts is super important.”
Both organizations had been doing what they could to remove barriers to the arts, whether those are challenges of a financial sort, a lack of transportation, time or convenience. And they both do so while remaining “good shepherds of the charitable dollar.”
What’s especially important to Savas in the sustainability of Ovations+ is making the workplace a good place to be by honoring each staff member’s capacity.
“We want to make sure we aren’t burning people out,” Savas said. “That’s real common in the arts field for nonprofits. In the traditional way, with a scarcity mindset, it’s easy to just squeeze people, but both parties have a good value working against that.”
When folks are on the clock, they are working really hard, he said, but
they’re also making sure everyone gets a proper amount of time off, ensuring that their hours are respected and that work doesn’t creep into vacation time.
It’s not always easy to accomplish, in part because the merger did make the work more complicated in some cases. Some roles at Ovations mean doing the same job for both sides of the organization, essentially double duty, but they now have more resources in place to prevent burnout.
So far, the merger has allowed Ovations+ to hire a couple of folks to key positions. One was a director of development, who will be focusing on getting sponsorships on board, something that was never a huge part of the equation for either previous organization. The other position is freeing up artistic director Kassie Misiewicz so she can focus on growing the educational programs, which is where most of their growth opportunities lie.
“Our largest program is in the schools,” Savas said, noting that the organization is in 11% of classrooms of Northwest Arkansas, within a certain age range. As is, the teachers in the nonprofit are in schools each week Monday through Thursday. They hope to get into 25% of classrooms eventually, or to expand the age range that they serve, but to do so would require more philanthropic revenue.
Among the things on the Ovations+ wish list is a retired superintendent of a Northwest Arkansas school district who could sit on the
board of directors and help them grow access to more classrooms so they can “change the lives of more kids in all areas of our programs.”
Other hopes for Ovations+ expansion include a desire to represent dance in the region through classroom performance and dance instruction for kids in the region. To start, Savas said, they’ll partner with dance companies. Already they have a partnership with Ozark Ballet Theater, in which they can borrow platforms, for instance, or alert each other when supplies are marked down; and another good working partnership with Dhirana Academy of Classical Dance.
However they wind up going about it, the end goal is to make Northwest Arkansas a more viable place for more and more performing artists to work, teach and perform.
The creation of Ovations+ from Trike and APO was an essential building block to improving that landscape, since they already shared the same vision.
“We both didn’t want to do it the way other organizations do it,” Savas said. “We want to challenge people, challenge kids, we want to stand up for marginalized populations in our community. We want to help people feel a true sense of belonging to their authentic selves in the region.
“One of the beauties of this merger is it amplifies how many ways we’re able to do all of that.”