3. Grounding Questions
These questions are designed to make technical planning easier and aligned with who you are as an organization.
Question 1
Are you allowed to reopen?
This is a legal question.
​Go HERE for links to your official direction and tips for reading it. Please consult with counsel.
Question 2
When is reopening the right thing?
This is a question of mission and ultimately cost.
The Department of Public Transformation (a small/rural/arts nonprofit organization in Minnesota) has lovely Guiding Principles for the Times that I encourage all to read as part of this planning process.
The BridgeSpan Group’s structure for principles to articulate may be a useful process guide:
A Compass for the Crisis: Nonprofit Decision Making in the COVID-19 Pandemic
TO PROTECT MISSION
TO PUT PEOPLE FIRST
TO ELEVATE EQUITY
TO FOCUS ON FINANCIAL RESILIENCE
Question 3
Where and what do individuals touch?
The answer to this requires a mapping exercise.
Walk through your space, your day, your audience experience
Where are spaces narrower than 6 feet?
What do people have to touch, hand things to each other, share space or equipment?
Where do people cross paths?
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Inventory all of it.
Ask which are easily adjusted, which are expensive to adjust, which are necessary.
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Be sure to think through every user group and role as you map
Employees, Artists, Crews, & Contactors
Volunteers -- from ushers to docents to board
Students, Audiences, & the General Public
And all the ways we work:
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Rehearsals
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Live Performance/Projection
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Static Exploration & Exhibit
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Interactive Activities & Things
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Shopping & Point of Sale
Question 4
How risky are we? Can we be safe(r)?
This is first a question of research, then art form, and ultimately cost.
Definitions of low, moderate, and high-risk jobs: World Health Organization
The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them, Professor Erin Bromage, University of Massachusetts ​
Reopening safely: Sample practices from essential businesses | McKinsey & Co.
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Visualizing the Occupations with the Highest COVID-19 Risk | The Visual Capitalist
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WHAT SHOULD REOPEN FIRST? MIT RESEARCHERS WEIGH THE RISKS | Associations NOW
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Rationing Social Contact During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmission Risk ... (April 18, 2020).
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Is It Safer to Visit a Coffee Shop or a Gym? | New York Times
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Creative Worker Safety -- research, union recommendations and more
Question 5
What decision points and imperatives must we address?
Scenario Planning
The Bridgespan Group: Nonprofit Scenario Planning in the COVID-19 Pandemic
SC Arts Alliance Question-Style Reopening Guide for Venues & Organizations