Risk Management: An Essential Tool for Resilience

Over the multi-year stretch of COVID-19, the global pandemic has shaken, threatened, and challenged how the arts, culture and heritage sector operates, and how it sees risk management as an essential tool for optimizing our contribution, our impact. Consultants have been essential to supporting – often leading – the learning curve the sector has experienced.

Active as trainer, consultant, educator and leader, Jerry Smith established the professional theatre training program at Humber College, and their post-diploma certificate program in Arts Administration. His experience includes a wide range of leadership roles on arts and culture boards in the Greater Toronto Area for which he was recognized as Volunteer of the Year and Cultural Champion.

Currently, Jerry serves as a member of the ArtsVote Toronto and ArtsDay at City Hall campaigns, a member of the peer assessment panels for the ArtsVest Program, and the Imagine Canada accreditation program. As a freelance consultant, Jerry has carried out program reviews and strategic plans for MCC, OAC, the Living Arts Centre, Orchestras Canada, Lakeshore Arts, Clay and Paper Theatre, Urban Arts, Neilson Park Creative Centre and HCA Dance Theatre.

Heather Clara Young has worked in arts management for over thirty years. Her experience includes leadership roles with Ontario arts and heritage service organizations, theatre and dance producing companies, facilities, festivals, and community organizations. Her firm Young Associates, founded in 1993, provides full-service bookkeeping and payroll as well as consulting services to not-for-profits and charities, primarily in the arts and culture sector. Heather also teaches in Humber College’s Arts Management program and has taught for the University of Toronto’s Arts Management program. She was the 2012 recipient of the Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in Arts and Culture, and a 2004 recipient of Humber College’s Continuing Education Award for Outstanding Academic Contribution. Her unique self-study guide, Finance for the Arts in Canada, will have its second edition published in 2023 and is a invaluable reference source for cultural organizations.

Recommended Resources:

A selection of effective worksheets to support the process of developing a working plan for Risk Management

• Risk Management Toolkit, produced by CREATIVE NX, the Arts Council of New Zealand
• Essential Governance Practices For Arts Organisations
• Case in Point | What is Resilience anyway? | The Audience Agency
• ASOs – Arts Service Organizations at the national (NASO), provincial (PASO), and municipal LASOs) serve as a gateway - Mapping Arts-Service Organizations in Canada (massculture.ca)

ACCA links:

• artsconsultants.ca
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• At The Mic podcast