ADAM JOHN ROBERTS

The 7 Why’s?

 

1. There has been a great divide between people with/without autism for many years.

2. Dance has been the least accessible for one of those minority groups.

3. 15% of autistic adults are ever employed (National Autistic Society, n.d.)

4. One feels that people with autism who also identify as homosexual (or bisexual) feel socially unaccepted within the LGBT community not because of their sexual orientation, but their ‘invisible disability.’

5. The concept of Labelled? is influenced from my personal experience of being a dance artist with a previous diagnosis of autism. Since entering the dance industry after my very first graduation, I recognized the competitive nature of the typical audition/interview process. I was almost never shortlisted nor appointed a job (or other opportunity) for a dance company or organization/agency.

6. Up until the age of 19, I was in special needs education where I was surrounded by peers who were disadvantaged.

7. In my early twenties, I attended a mainstream college and university to study dance where I recognized the different behaviors and possible prejudices demonstrated by non-disabled students and seen the limited understanding of autism in the artists who I network with.

 

The ‘ask’ should be a question, but I set mine as a statement: In order to realize these projects, I ask for this amount of money to pay company dancers, artists as facilitators, outreach workers, choreographers/mentors and office staff, some of whom will reach their potential as performers/creators/facilitators and inspire (yet change the perceptions) of others.

 

My marketing strategy consists of a workshop package, a company website and business accounts across social media (SM). On SM, we have 95 likes on Facebook, 90 followers on Twitter and 130 followers on Instagram.

 

When all of leadership, prioritizing, delegation and triple win conversations were covered, I already had a strong grasp of understanding everything except delegation.

 

In preparation, I had to complete a personal values assessment and a behavior preferences questionnaire online. My personality type is a defender. This is a sentinel role whose strategy is constant improvement.

 

71% introverted in mind – this trait determines how we interact with our environment.

62% observant (energy-wise) – this trait shows where we direct our mental energy.

61% feeling by nature – this trait determines how we make decisions and cope with emotions.

61% tactical judgement – this trait reflects our approach to work, planning and decision-making.

56% turbulent, in terms of identity – this trait underpins all others, showing how confident we are in our abilities and decisions.

 

(Barret Values Centre, 2019)

 

We completed another leadership questionnaire. As a result, the questionnaire’s scores proved that I prefer building, nurturing and encouraging leadership styles where emotion, creativity, risk and personal touch play a major part than preferring to direct, control and structure leadership styles where analysis, logic, planning and calculation play a major part.

 

In relation to prioritizing, I plan my weeks every Sunday by updating a weekly schedule completing tasks from Monday-Friday, allowing 2 hours per task as according to my ‘to do’ list and e-calendars. I experienced triple win conversations when making propositions to my dancers to be involved in the first milestone of my project-based enterprise in March 2019, telling them they would be paid £471 worth ITC rates per week, exact rehearsal dates/venues, and platform details. In response, they confirmed they were interested.

 

We also spent some time reflecting upon and updating our Objective Key Results (OKRs). Originally, mine dating November 2018, were as follows:

 

“I will write my funding bid for Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants to re-work a trio performance linked to the theme of autism, so I can pay myself and artistic team members, pay for venues and travel/living costs. I will seek feedback in order to make it a winning application. I will communicate with Arts Council England’s [ACE] Relationship Manager for Dance in the North of England, informing her about the outcome of previously unsuccessful commissions to gain further advice. I need enough money to hire venues and pay other dancers who need to be paid proper standard rates for the work they are doing!”

 

My ACE advisory meeting took place at Manchester in December 2018. Because theatrical venues do not curate nor include productions by newly ‘fresh-faced’ artists/companies unheard of in their programmes, the Relationship Manager for Dance advised me that platforms should be the top priority at this stage. However, the funding bid was deemed weak if it was to be submitted between February-April because two annual festival/platform opportunities, i.e. Homotopia – the annual LGBT festival in Liverpool every Autumn - and Resolution! (at the Place in London), would be marked as ‘Expected’ before any confirmation after their deadlines (if applicable) every Summer unlike platforms at Edinburgh Fringe Festival which were confirmed depending on successful application.

 

Over 4 months of bid-writing for my project-based enterprise came to the conclusion that the project proposed for had to be postponed until 2020. Even though two platform opportunities were offered at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, one of those curators were charging £3,500 for the deposit whilst the overall project was exceeding the limit of 15% of activity taking place outside of England, as according to ACE’s eligibility criteria. Most of my activity was going towards Edinburgh. One of my collaborative dancers has restricted availability between April-August every year due to their teaching commitments in vocational performing arts.

 

We looked at finance, bookkeeping and accounting, and measuring social impact – when you do a piece of work, how do you know you are making a difference to the people you are working with? How do you tell people about it? How do you know you are making a difference to the people who are taking part in your projects or programmes? Once you know you have made a difference, how do you tell funders?

 

I had 4 Action Learning Sets (ALS) and 4 mentoring sessions.

 

During the first ALS dating March 2019, the issue I brought to the table was gaining an interest from specialist schools based in Wirral (links through Autism Together) and Greater Manchester following previous research 1.5 years before and the generic North West of England via Special Needs UK and the Special Needs Guide online. In response, 28 questions followed, some of which were how many workshops would I run using ACE funding? Who are the people I need to talk to? From what my peers addressed to me, I need to get to the right person, i.e. a subject leader in the performing arts department, because the mistake I was making was writing to reception via email who are unreliable for not attending to such enquiries nor forwarding the message to the more appropriate members of staff.

 

I shared the same issue to my mentor as well as disclosing the key learnings since starting the programme.

 

The second issue raised at the second ALS in April 2019 was having to pay the deposit of £3,500 for one platform opportunity in Edinburgh this Summer. This would cover the payment for three dance artists (including myself) - £1,700 each – participation fees covering six nights/seven days accommodation provided for us by the curators, theatre rental and production costs for five performances, a promotion package, box office, liability insurance, technical assistance, office support, and pre-show rehearsal arrangements. Me and the other two dance artists would also receive an equal share of 95% of the revenue from ticket sales of five performances.

 

Approximately 18 questions were posed during the second ALS, some of which were what benefits would we gain from the festival? What kinds of promotion have I done to date? What have I already done to raise money? The outcomes were very supportive. Whilst Just Giving and Kickstarter are the two main methods for fundraising, one needs 350 people to give £10. One felt sceptical that this would be deemed unachievable within a 2-4 month period, so one platform opportunity in Edinburgh got cancelled because the project activity is neither eligible for funding from ACE nor Creative Scotland to use for paying myself and other artists whereas the other platform still went ahead. The trio got replaced with my solo choreography as its curator was not charging deposits.

 

I was allocated to a mentor who I met for our first mentoring session in January 2019. During my research for a £2,000 start-up fund from LJMU’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, my mentor defined shareholding, potential barriers and critical risks associated to my business (or social enterprise), the impacts in terms of higher sales and profitability, brand awareness and improved corporate image, recurrences, sales detail, evidence/trends to support projection, capital, stock, and sundries, all according to the application form.

 

I did seek advice from him about SM marketing. Since publicising SM accounts of my social enterprise, I have announced the platform opportunities and relevant updates, the dance artists involved and their biographies, guiding the followers to our other SM handles, and sharing the workshop package around the time of Autism Awareness Week in April 2019. Three months later, I promoted a crowd funder after approval by the Just Giving team. It’s knowing how else I could promote my social enterprise on a regular basis. I continued promoting the crowd funder on SM before 9am, during lunch hours and between 7-8pm as peak times.

 

I set up the crowd funder to raise £300 via Just Giving and reached my target! But the Just Giving team transferred £283.78 to my bank account. When I asked them why, they said they exclude processing costs (the fee per transaction for donations made in GBP via debit or credit card is 2.9% plus 25p).

 

Using Labelled? Dance Theatre’s SM handles, I identified the 7 Why’s and statistics evidenced by NAS, all of which reached 5955 Facebook users even though those posts engaged 637 users altogether as according to Facebook. There were 18 donors altogether who contributed, 5 of those were dance artists, and only 2 were based in the Liverpool City Region. But how else could I have engaged people with autism, the dance and LGBT communities in the Liverpool City Region (and perhaps surrounding areas), all of whom form the target market?

 

When SSE covered measuring social impact, I visited a social enterprise café in Bootle that was set up by Y-kids which is a local youth charity that is directed by an SSE Fellow. The problem they were solving was the rise of unemployment in young people who have multiple barriers to work such as poor mental health and conditions such as Asperger’s Syndrome. According to their impact report, some clients have gone on to work at Range Rover, Santander, Frankie & Benny’s, and the Beatles Story at Albert Dock. How can that influence what I do in my own social enterprise? All I know is that the sustainability plans for my social enterprise are that non-autistic dancers will have an advanced knowledge of autism. Dancers who hold previous diagnoses of autism will be granted traditional mainstream opportunities to observe and participate in dance-related activities whilst boosting confidence in performance opportunities. That is the long-term impact. I want to change artistic/social barriers faced by such disabled artists and increase knowledge of ASD demonstrated by dancers without the condition.

 

The final study day focussed on finance which covered tax, profitability, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), pricing, the Do’s and Don’ts for funding applications, long-term planning and terminology.

 

My tip for all social entrepreneurs is reflect on the struggles, celebrate the breakthrough and look forward to the sustainable prospects.