Connecting People, Sustaining Cultures
Strategic Plan 2019–2023
Director’s Note
At a moment when globalization has accelerated cultural change to new levels, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage excels in its commitment to curiosity, exchange, and understanding. Here, we bring rich and diverse stories to the fore—critical perspectives on the issues that move us.
In doing so, we pose new questions about our underlying convictions: Where have we come from? Where are we going? And what brings us together at a time when so much pulls us apart?
We have come a long way in answering those questions, but there is still more to do.
Over the next five years, the Center will explore these and other questions through new scholarship and partnerships, expanded Folklife Festival and Smithsonian Folkways offerings, new cultural sustainability projects in communities near and far, and unprecedented digital access to the cultural knowledge held in our archives. Collectively, these initiatives highlight the work of individuals in communities and the shared humanity we uncover when we invite them to tell their stories.
That is the spirit that every single one of us—directors, curators, , educators, archivists, and program staff—need to provide for our communities and the individuals who comprise them. That is what stirs and propels us forward every single day: our spirit of inquiry and the understanding that curiosity inspires.
Michael Atwood Mason
Director, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Our Mission
Through the power of culture, we build understanding, strengthen communities, and reinforce our shared humanity.
Our Vision
Sustaining the world’s cultural diversity
UNDERSTANDING
Goal 1: Lead the global community of cultural heritage professionals and scholars in building cultural understanding
These times have reinforced the critical role that cultural institutions like the Center play in fostering exchange and mutual understanding. Now more than ever, the Center is poised to present new scholarship, train the next generation of cultural heritage professionals, and improve access to our rich collections. In doing so, the Center will pave the way for new explorations into the infinite and complex stories of our times.
Collectively, new research projects, scholarly symposia, and collections care initiatives will foster a critical understanding of cultural heritage and the traditions that make us who we are today. Through expanded research, mentorship, and outreach projects, the Center will bring to the fore new stories of music, craft, and culture—living histories that shape our everyday lives.
Strategy
Improve our research profile and production
- Produce and disseminate at least 175 quality research-based books, chapters, articles, films, and other media pieces
- Recruit new research staff with skills that complement and extend our current expertise, including a curator of American women’s music
- Organize and host at least one major scholarly convening each year
- Develop strategic academic partnerships to create new opportunities for creating and sharing new knowledge
Strategy
Train the next generation of cultural heritage professionals
- Actively recruit and create funding and other incentives to mentor 700 emerging cultural heritage professionals that reflect the demographics of the United States
FUNDRAISING PRIORITY
Fund the Diversity in Cultural Heritage and the Arts programEvery year, nearly 160 interns and fellows join the Center to pursue hands-on, collaborative projects. The Center’s decades-long investment in shaping the careers of diverse, talented emerging professionals has enabled many of our interns and fellows to achieve prominent positions in the arts and humanities. They are conducting exemplary research, leading celebrated programs, and serving their communities.
We intend to expand our inclusion efforts through the Diversity in Cultural Heritage and the Arts program with philanthropic support. Private gifts will enable us to establish a $1 million endowed fund to provide new opportunities for students, scholars, and young adults to explore careers in cultural heritage, the arts, and arts management. Gifts from donors will advance the lives and careers of young scholars and practitioners and ensure that cultural heritage efforts include diverse perspectives and voices.
The Center will welcome interns and fellows from Washington, D.C., across the country, and around the world. They will study cultural heritage, the arts, anthropology, folklore, ethnomusicology, archival science, media studies, and ethnic and area studies—especially related to African, Latino, and Asian diasporas and women’s cultural studies.
The program will also create a pipeline for graduate education in Goucher College’s Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability, George Mason University’s Folklore Studies Program, and the University of North Carolina’s Folklore Program.
Strategy
Cultivate and drive major, innovative research projects that support cultural sustainability
- Complete the research for the Sustaining Minoritized Languages in Europe project and produce actionable recommendations for language communities engaged in language revitalization and maintenance
- Initiate the Sound Futures project to apply the cultural sustainability model to practical interventions in music in sustaining endangered music practices
- Leverage our historic role in Washington, D.C. as a major source of documentation, cultural interpretation, and public outreach about the city’s diverse communities
Let’s talk about audio discs! From 2017-2018, the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at @SmithsonianFolk completed a major rehousing and condition reporting project for our archival audio discs. #PresTC19 #RinzlerArchives pic.twitter.com/QlVeJAPADM
— Dave Walker (@DWalkerAudio) April 24, 2019
Strategy
Expand, strengthen, and increase access to our collections in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives that document cultural heritage
- Digitize our most at-risk audiovisual materials
- Promote awareness of our collections through conferences, presentations, and digital outreach
- Publish an online finding aid with digital content for every collection by 2023
- Publish over 10,000 audio and video recordings and 20,000 images from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival through the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA)
- Make our collections more visible through live and digital programming
- Serve scholars, communities, industry, and artists by connecting them to the cultural heritage in our collections through existing and forthcoming Smithsonian platforms
EXPERIENCES
Goal 2: Connect people through diverse cultural experiences
In an era of polarization, the Center plays a pivotal role in connecting people, places, and perspectives with a deftness and appreciation of the many complexities of our world. Over the next five years, the Center will reach new audiences with year-round Smithsonian Folklife Festival programming, offer new releases and membership programs at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and expand its educational and digital programs.
Shifting away from social siloes toward cross-cultural dialogues has always been the way of the Center. Now more than ever, we will invest in amplifying marginalized voices, linking new perspectives across our offerings and upending cultural presumptions through storytelling with deep humanity.
Strategy
Create year-round opportunities to share the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and related live events with our public in D.C. and beyond
- Continue to pilot the thematic approach to Festival programming with the social power of music (2019) and the intersection of traditional knowledge and environmental change with the Smithsonian Conservation Commons (2020)
- Continue to re-stage Festival programs in other cities or countries
- Continue the local “Off-the-Mall” program series to connect with D.C.’s diverse neighborhoods, each with the goal of fostering participation, creativity, and intercultural dialogue
- Produce fifty public programs that are relevant to the issues of the day and that push forward the goals of the Strategic Plan
- Coordinate and help curate the Smithsonian Year of Music in 2019
FUNDRAISING PRIORITY
Offer local programming at the Festival and beyondWhen people of different cultures meet, share, and listen with curiosity and positive intent, the results are magical, and they are lasting: expanded understanding, inspiration, learning, and a broadened sense of the world’s complexity and richness. At this moment when so much works to pull us apart—as fear erodes compassion, and false narratives overtake fact—the Center is intensifying work on its mission to bring people together.
The Folklife Festival, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2017, has engaged millions of people in direct cultural experiences and spurred a range of partnerships and programs. As we look ahead to our next half-century, we seek to expand the Festival’s impact even further. The Festival will not only provide an intensive two-week experience on the National Mall, but also engage the public year-round with our artists and communities through vibrant new programs in music, foodways, the arts, dance, and other forms of cultural expression. Different program formats, audience sizes, and locations throughout Washington will forge deep and enduring relationships with the city’s diverse communities.
By supporting a vast array of expanded programing for children, teens, and adults, philanthropy will foster increased appreciation for the culture that links us all and strengthens civic life. It will extend the impact of the Folklife Festival and leverage the Center’s efforts to produce it, ensuring that tens of thousands of additional people participate in and are inspired by one-on-one cultural experiences each year. We will reach audiences beyond the National Mall through digital platforms.
Strategy
Diversify Smithsonian Folkways Recordings offerings to represent and reach new audiences
- Release 800 new or re-contextualized tracks of sound that support cultural diversity and foster increased understanding among peoples
- Engage 25- to 55-year-olds by highlighting touring artists who bring a fresh perspective to their music
- Enroll 1,000 members in the Smithsonian Folkways membership program, providing members with increased access to recordings, collections, and artists
- Reach over 500 million listeners through physical and digital sales, licensing, education, and research
FUNDRAISING PRIORITY
Endow Folkways’ acquisitions and mission releasesWe seek to create a sustainable future for the award-winning Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the extraordinary encyclopedia of sound that traces its roots to the 1940s, when founder Moses Asch set out to document the diversity of music and sound from around the world. Remarkable artists have contributed to and been influenced by the collection, like Ella Jenkins, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Carlos Rojas. Today, Folkways enriches the lives of hundreds of millions of people through the recordings and materials readily accessible online.
Unencumbered by profit-motivated interests, Folkways must nevertheless balance its public purpose with the financial realities of business. Folkways’ operating model has been negatively impacted by music industry and technology changes during the past decade. Downloaded tracks that formerly sold for a dollar, for example, now stream for four-tenths of a penny. To ensure Folkways thrives into the coming century as an independent record label, we are streamlining and strengthening our approach. We are ensuring our people and processes are as efficient as possible, and we are expanding development of entrepreneurial partnerships and innovative products.
Private support to build a substantial endowment will secure Folkways’ future. It will ensure that the Smithsonian has the ongoing capacity to conduct scholarship and share the beauty of sound. Philanthropy will enable subsequent generations to hear and be moved and inspired by the music, sounds, and voices that matter.
Strategy
Reinvigorate our educational programs
- Recruit a new lead educator to drive our efforts
- Research, plan, and implement a robust education program for informal learners that uses the Festival and Folkways as laboratories for cultural exchange and exploration
- Continue to deliver teacher training and lesson plans related to the Folkways collection
- Develop an operations plan for reinvigorating education
- Expand partnerships to support teacher training and professional development
- Develop and pilot cultural competence education in five school districts
- Develop and pilot 35 multidisciplinary learning pathways and related activities through the Folkways collection
- Develop an evaluation framework for all our public offerings and document impact on major outputs
FUNDRAISING PRIORITY
Through two new programs that make extensive use of the Center’s vast assets, we seek to strengthen American education, expand cultural understanding among young people, and strengthen civic society. These programs—Smithsonian Folkways Education and Disrupting Bigotry—are aimed primarily at schoolchildren and will teach the rich, complex, and moving human and cultural history of the United States. By teaching them to approach others with compassion and understanding, we will interrupt the quiet, insidious, and destructive forces of prejudice and bigotry just as they are taking hold.
Smithsonian Folkways EducationWe will enliven and deepen learning across PreK-16 by creating learning pathways through the richest parts of Folkways’ digitized archives. Our music, scholarship, and original source materials related to civil rights and cultural diversity in the United States will bring to life educational modules in a range of subjects, including history, social studies, music education, science, and reading. These pathways through the Folkways catalog will be adaptable to specific pedagogical standards, cultural concentrations, and different knowledge levels, customizing learning experiences for both classroom and remote learners. The program will help to reach underserved communities in new ways, meet the needs of multiple learning styles, and provide a diversity of perspectives that remains insufficiently reflected in most learning materials.
By supporting the creation and expansion of these extraordinary learning resources, private support will help to grow and equalize educational opportunity. Beyond PreK-16 education, it will expand lifelong personal enrichment and professional development for those who seek deeper insights into the cultural diversity of the United States.
Disrupting Bigotry: Teaching Inquiry, Engagement, and EmpathyThrough a bold new program for younger students, we seek to disrupt and reduce bigotry, changing the long-term trajectory of individual lives and strengthening the foundations of our democracy. Disrupting Bigotry will include awareness-raising exhibitions, public programs, and educational modules designed to teach cultural competence. By engaging with young people at the stage in their development before many lifelong prejudices are formed, we will foster curiosity and empathy. To grow recognition and affirmation of the entire American experience, we intend to build a broad coalition for change through partnerships with museums, libraries, cultural institutions, schools, and communities.
Philanthropy will help to reduce intolerance by enabling young people to develop the skills of cultural competency. Private resources will enable us to generate data that can be used to expand the program and garner greater levels of support through grants, public-private partnerships, and additional philanthropy.
Strategy
Broaden awareness and appreciation of cultural sustainability through partnerships, thought-leadership, and programming
- Consistently repurpose staff publications to share with larger public audiences
- Play a leadership role in national and international fora
- Reach national influencers through media partnerships
- Develop new speaking opportunities for staff to reach larger public audiences
- Collaborate with Advisory Council members to extend our impact
Strategy
Refine our digital and communications strategies
- Develop a new production process to include a robust, audience-centered digital presence for all public outputs
- Clarify each of the Center’s brands and integrate clear messaging into all communications
- Develop and deploy ladders of engagement for all users/visitors with incentives to build audiences
- Produce at least one major non-English resource per year to extend the reach of our content and best practices to new audiences and stakeholders
- Publish 550 multimedia content pieces that explore living cultural heritage and include a clear call to action
FUNDRAISING PRIORITY
Build an online cultural diversity platformWe seek to strengthen individuals and communities by democratizing culture and increasing cultural understanding through the creation of a bold, dynamic, and ever-growing digital archive. The Center will crowdsource cultural data, inviting the public to share personal narratives, videos, digitized artifacts, and other materials that tell the stories of their lives, their arts, and their traditions. We will curate these digital donations and place them alongside the Smithsonian’s extensive existing collections and scholarship in an interactive platform, thereby expanding the reach and depth of the Center’s other projects. Content will be of the broadest possible range—from raw to highly polished—with the most compelling materials featured in the Center’s electronic publications. Moderated, online communities of affinity and interest will be developed, enriching participation in civic life in ways that highlight similarities and bridge differences.
Private funding will enable us to open the doors of participation to all who wish to contribute, preserve, and discuss their cultural experiences. Through connecting individuals directly, it will realize the Center’s mission in the most powerful ways imaginable.
VITALITY
Goal 3: Champion cultural vitality in diverse communities
Around the world, globalization trends are privileging cheap, machine-made goods over traditional, time-honored crafts. At the Center, we are working with individuals and communities to document, preserve, and sustain those most vital traditions—providing training workshops, storytelling platforms, and sustainability measures to keep alive what is increasingly lost.
Drawing upon community-based research, the Center will embark on new cultural sustainability projects, develop additional research and documentation strategies, and design the necessary tools to sustain the world’s rich and resilient cultural traditions. Taken together with new impact measures, these projects will underline the Center’s commitment to cultural sustainability in communities near and far.
Strategy
Continue to support artists and musicians through public recognition and direct payments
Strategy
Implement our Cultural Sustainability pilot projects in Armenia, Bhutan, and Western China
- Engage more than 250 Tibetan artisans in China in efforts to sustain their traditional crafts
- Work with China Arts and Crafts Association to replicate the pilot Lag Zo Artisan Initiative in at least one other ethnic minority community in China
- Train 100 Tibetans in linguistics methods and ensure the long-term sustainability of the annual Sino-Tibetan Summer Linguistics Institute in partnership with Nankai University
- Engage more than 150 Armenian artisans in strategies to sustain their craft traditions, including trainings, product design and skill development, and access to new markets
- Support the development of the Royal Textile Academy of Bhutan, working with its staff to establish a research and in situ fellowship program, a five-year temporary exhibition plan, and an internationally accredited weaving curriculum
- Engage more than 100 Bhutanese weavers in efforts to sustain their traditions, including trainings, product design and skill development, and access to new markets
Strategy
Develop at least five new Cultural Sustainability projects
- Conduct community-driven, collaborative research and documentation to assess cultural sustainability in five new contexts
- Deploy proven and locally appropriate cultural sustainability strategies
- Create and share at least fifteen research-based tools to support community goals for cultural sustainability
- Archive significant materials from each project to ensure continued access and reuse
Strategy
Document and share the impacts of these projects
- Evaluate the effectiveness of cultural sustainability tools and produce at least three reports evaluating the impact of cultural sustainability tools in achieving community goals
- Develop digital content, at least two case studies for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and local programming based on these projects
FUNDRAISING PRIORITY
Expand cultural vitality initiativesToday, when so much threatens vulnerable communities and their cultural heritage, the Center must grow its efforts, expand its networks, teach other organizations the most effective ways to sustain cultures, and increase appreciation of these cultures and traditions among a broad general public. The Center seeks to accelerate cultural sustainability around the globe—through its own programs and those of other organizations—by scaling the use of a standardized framework for assessing a culture’s vulnerability, identifying targeted areas of needed assistance, and evaluating impact of efforts.
For the past four years, the Center has been piloting the method and testing its principles through projects with communities in Western China and Armenia. Our observations from working with nearly 1,000 artisans and tradition bearers are highly encouraging, and USAID has already adopted the Center’s framework for its cultural-evaluation efforts in Armenia.
Private funding will allow us to increase dramatically the impact and effectiveness of this work, expanding use of the framework and focusing our efforts around the following three goals:
- Understand and mitigate threats to cultural vitality through documentation and research-based interventions
- Scale our impact to empower the international community
- Transform public understanding of the importance of cultural diversity
Philanthropy will transform the Center, targeting its efforts to communities in which the urgency is greatest, independent of the variability and uncertainty of federal funding, which supports our current work in the pilot communities.
RESOURCES
Goal 4: Increase organizational capacity to achieve our mission
Guided by a longstanding commitment to cultural equity, ours is a spirit of inclusion and cooperation. Over the next five years, the Center will engage in new partnerships, establish robust collaboration funds, and ensure that staff have the resources they need to research, sustain, and present world cultures.
Our work relies on the hard work of many. In the coming years, we will add new research, education, digital communication, collections management, and administrative staff to our team. Together with streamlined orientation and career planning programs, we will work to mentor and train the Center’s next generation of cultural heritage practitioners. The coming five years will also be paramount in building a culture of philanthropy at the Center, raising funds to grow our work in new and diverse ways.
Strategy
Explore partnerships with tangible benefits on every project to leverage our strengths inside the Center, across the Smithsonian, and beyond
- Engage staff and align performance with Smithsonian-wide strategic goals
- Continue our long history of effective collaboration with other Smithsonian organizations
- Collaborate with others to work on issues of cultural sustainability to articulate and implement on-the-ground solutions
- Develop educational, programmatic, and media partnerships with local, national, and international organizations to share our content with new audiences around the world
- Develop an Innovative Collaborations Fund with an annual competition
- Strengthen relationships with academic and community-based cultural organizations by identifying individuals who will expand the Festival’s curatorial, design, technical, and operational resources, approaches, and creativity
Strategy
Manage succession across the Center
- Develop and implement a systematic new employee orientation to cover our key activities and procedures
- Build capacity in research, education, digital communications, collections management, and administration
- Update position descriptions for all leadership positions and recruit replacements
- Ensure retiring staff has ample opportunity to convey knowledge and experience
Strategy
Continue to build a culture of philanthropy within the Center
- Establish a clear advancement plan that reflects needs across the Center
- Prioritize our major fundraising goals
- Build staffing to support these efforts
- Cultivate a new generation of volunteer leaders, including Advisory Council members
- Raise at least $8 million for priority programs and initiatives
Strategy
Continue to streamline organizational structure and processes
- Train staff on Smithsonian policy and procedures to better manage budgets, human resources, and procurement processes
- Adhere to retention schedule and set procedures for effective file management
- Adjust the size and scope of the Folklife Festival to correspond to available revenue streams
- Build a robust and engaging program to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, and access
