In her acclaimed version of Otis Redding’s original, Aretha Franklin famously sang:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB

What is taking care of business as a business leader, and as a Teaching Artist?

5. Account for all work hours at one pay rate.

I often receive requests to review pay rate schedules. What Teaching Artists share with me often mirrors the schedules organizations provide me—complicated itemized tables with differing rates for various project tasks. Something like: planning ($10), meeting ($15), teaching ($35).

Teaching artists must stop fluctuating rates for tasks and end to wasting time itemizing invoices, overlooking the totality of tasks to do the work. Let’s think this through:

• Why is our planning or meeting rate set at half of the direct contact teaching rate?
• Have you ever kept a running list of all the things needed to do a project?
• Does an administrator get a fluctuating salary and benefits depending on their task?
• Do they clock out when they walk away from their computer to grab more paper from the supplies closet to refill the printer?
• How about that conversation with their colleague about your contract that happened in the hallway on the way to get the paper? Are they paid for that?
• Does their salary take a dip when they get in the car to come and observe your lesson?

Your high-quality projects and services demand your full attention to a varied task list. You juggle a lot. At every step, you shine, and that shining deserves compensation. A project may include, but is not limited to, direct instruction or implementation, planning, researching, set-up, load out, driving/commuting, putting gas in the car/money on the transit card (remember you have multiple gigs, more than the average full-time employee), gathering materials, debriefing, marketing, administrating (contracts and invoices take time), corresponding via email and by phone or zoom, and so much more. While you may teach a one-hour class, you may spend 2 hours or more doing all other tasks supporting one teaching hour. As a creative, you may sit and stare at something (research, your artistic tools, or even mere air) until you have an idea on how to begin or midway when a problem arises. Who pays for that time? None of these tasks are meaningless, and all are required to complete a project.

Also, don’t forget to consider that when projects involve youth participants, it is a professional requirement to complete a background check, which has a cost. Sometimes the partner pays for the clearance, but you schedule it and take time off to drive to and complete it. You may spend 1-2 hours submitting your fingerprints. I know I’ve had to complete two already this year! I even watched an online webinar about child protection and completed a test to be granted final permission to enter the school building. These tasks are part of the TA workday. They are requirements to meet a client’s project. Include these business employees and material costs in your business budget.

Independent contractors are expected to provide materials to complete a client’s project. Our clients benefit from this expectation, especially in current norms where they set our rates, undervaluing our work and business. We must actively shift this dynamic and set our rates as business leaders. While clients may not be obliged to pay for our business’s materials and equipment, the CEO and Finance Director of YOU, allocate a percentage of each fee to a fund designated for material acquisition and maintenance. You are a business, and this is standard practice for running a business, strategizing about costs for the current project and capital costs for next year, five years, and twenty years from now.

As an independent artist, it should be a professional expectation to have liability insurance. Note the costs of liability insurance in your business’s budget.

Don’t forget to make your quarterly taxes/FICA payments. When you do, consider how you are building an emergency fund for sick days! Speaking of sick days, do you have healthcare. If not, get some. Finally, if there is anything leftover, and there better be, get a retirement plan going, and pay into it, regularly.

Now, when arts organizations and even teaching artists question the rates listed on the pay rate calculator as unreasonable, we can respond confidently. A high-quality professional teaching artist costs and the pay rate calculator recognizes our value.

Is it realistic and necessary for us to itemize all of this on an invoice? Absolutely not.

Let’s take a new approach. Let’s go elegant with our invoices. Two examples could be:

But wait, what does an invoice look like with a professional discount?

Urge clients for full professional pay with the understanding you are operating as a business. Calculate hours based on the totality of the tasks to complete projects—multiple that number by an appropriate pay rate.

Whether self-employed or the owner of an LLC, you should not regularly incur losses to complete work for clients.

Teaching artists shouldn’t have to choose:

• be a teaching artist or have a family,
• be a teaching artist or buy a house,
• be a teaching artist or have medical care,
• be a teaching artist or sleep at night.

Lead your business.

We all are struggling. And yes, even organizations struggle. But committing to resolving pay equity as a social justice issue is a challenge we can win. As we tackle it, despite the challenges, we are saying, I’ll take care of you.

My dear, sweet, working Teaching Artists,

Let them talk about us.

People sometimes do.

This is not going to be easy. But you are my hero.

I’ve enjoyed this video from fellow Maryland Teaching Artist Khaleshia Thorpe-Price, owner of Dramatic Play, and her son. They illustrate perfectly the power dynamic that I have experienced in contractual negotiations. There is little time to review the contract and ask our partners and clients questions.

Labor law classifications (independent contractor v. employee) impact budgets. Whether you started working for a new organization last week or worked there for 25 years, your contract and classification may change every year and even with every project.

We may love our freedom as independent contractors, but there is freedom in financial compensation. Overtime pay, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, employer payment of half of the social security and medicare taxes are on the table, and so much more! Stand together and ask for wages, benefits, and the most appropriate classification for each situation, in every community.

Let’s have each other’s back.

Stand together and stay committed to the goal of pay equity.

“Darling, I’ll take care of you.”

4. Communicate your rates and offer a professional discount.

This step is complex and may not be necessary for your collective. It is fitting to skip this step and take the position held during the Montgomery bus boycott.

We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system.

Martin Luther King in Stride Toward Freedom, page 51

What a great example of transformative collective organizing! Imagine us no longer lending our cooperation to the arts ecosystem. Do you accept your responsibility in the system? Are you complicit in social evils?

TAs must examine every situation and entity in every local community. It will be difficult to arrive at a collective agreement. It will take time.

If arts organizations, schools, or community centers do not have immediate funds to meet your rate, and you must lend your cooperation, offer a professional discount. 

They must know you expect them to reach the rates listed on the TA Pay Calculator on future projects. Your invoice detailing your rate with a professional discount becomes evidence and data they can share with leaders, funders, and boards when they’ve not included you at the decision-making table. Hopefully, you’ll receive an invitation soon!

Quality costs now and in the future. If they aren’t paying, you are donating. A donor acknowledgment letter doesn’t pay living costs, and living costs increase yearly, as does your rate!

In time, if their budgets can’t see your worth, stop working for them. Drastic, I know. But heck, they don’t deserve us if they can’t effectively include us and advocate for our worth when they are projecting budgets with their board, asking for money from their funders, and requesting support from their arts councils.

Let’s break out of our shells!

Come on out!

This tip would be on a Jeopardy Championship Game for Teaching Artists!

The category is The Business of Teaching Artistry:

This platform is widely used to set pay rates, ensuring pay equity and sustainability.

Answer:

What is the Teaching Artists Guild’s TA Pay Calculator?

3. Use the Teaching Artists Guild’s TA Pay Calculator to set your rates.

It’s not widely used yet. I’m confident it will be.

First, we must agree to stop creating our individual makeshift pay rate tables in excel. We must look at the hourly rates and salary fees listed on the Teaching Artists Guild’s TA Pay Calculator. Discuss them in our accountability circles and other local networks. Make collective agreements on how those rates should be applied in our local community.

We need to get better practiced as a collective and stop acting as if we are independent. Every decision you make and every contract you willingly sign has implications on the entire field for decades to come! We need some collective agreements.

Excerpt from Tip 2

I will forewarn you that you’ll get pushback when using the calculator. Organizations, funders, other TAs, and even yourself will work against you and your network. For some reason, they and we (and me) don’t think Teaching Artists deserve the fees listed.

Recently a TAMA TA Cafe attendee stated the figures were unrealistic. Admittedly, I agreed with the comment.

The fees are unreasonably high.

By traditional standards.

For decades, we have accepted wages that undervalue our contributions. We must work collectively to change this cultural norm in our field. Perhaps you can live sustainably at the rates we are currently receiving. Most cannot. A few of you are paid well. Most are not. Pay inequity has been a barrier to building TA networks and organizing. Talking about contracts is a no-no and discussing our pay is a faux-pas. Without networking, we cannot grow loyalty, trust, and commitment to each other. We cannot build credibility and morale as collaborators and paid professionals without coalitions. Without organizing, we don’t stand with each other and demand higher wages for all.

This is a paradox in our field, as much of our collective work aims to further social justice and equity. Yet, we must resolve the social inequities in our own house first – the home of the field. Without doing so, we are complicit in social evils. A sad, hard truth to face.

Imagine a doctor or lawyer. Would they ever suggest their fees were too high? I doubt it. Even the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts had expectations and costs for their session last week with the Teaching Artists of the Mid-Atlantic. They understand their value. They recognize their worth.

My dear colleagues, what the heck is wrong with us?

Our collectives are growing places that will advance our profession. I should refer to these tips as steps. I should also note this isn’t always a linear, forward marching process. More on that later this week.

For now, start with step one. Build loyalty, trust, and commitment to each other. Collaborate on art. Discuss the business of teaching artistry and what is needed in your local community. At some point, move to step two. Meet with local organizations, councils and other entities who hire, train, and support teaching artists and ask questions. Build your credibility and morale as a team working towards professionalism that promotes social justice and equity. The collective’s gut will almost seamlessly move you into using the TA Pay Calculator. It’s like a growing garden. Sometimes you have to wait for the fruits of your labors.

You must do the prep and the work.

But don’t give up hope.

While our self-esteem may wax and wane as we move along in our professional journey, our financial health should continually grow. All should thrive in this field; we must advocate collectively for our field and profession to expect living wages.

Use the calculator.

• What questions do you ask clients and partners?
• If you haven’t asked a question, why not?
• How do you refer to the organizations that pay you as a 1099 contractor?
• How about the organizations that pay you as a W-2 employee?
• Is there a difference?
• How do you imagine this relationship?

During the pandemic, I’ve bought into a client management system. Shout out to Nadïne LaFond, a TAMA member, who suggested Honeybook to me. (If you don’t know her, follow her. Learn from her!) Honeybook has been a game-changer for me.

But what I want to talk about is the word “client.” Before having Honeybook in my life, I referred to all of the organizations I intersected with phrases such as:

“I work for (organization).”

“I’m an (organization’s) Teaching Artist.”

Curiously, I never referred to them as my clients.

They are.

Jennifer Ridgway is a business as much as their organization.

Jennifer Ridgway has liability insurance and pays taxes/FICA.

Jennifer Ridgway obtains fingerprints, completes ongoing professional development, and keeps certificates up-to-date.

Jennifer Ridgway has a human resources department, marketing, development, communications, and education/community engagement team, and an entire artistic production team that only she occupies.

Side note: This is hilarious how I’m talking about myself in the third person. How uncomfortable!

The point is – that recognizing and fully embracing this concept of being a business is critical for the individual Teaching Artist.

It forces us to examine the power dynamic in our client-to-client partnerships, enabling us to assess our business needs to ensure they are met. It changes the conversation we can and should have with our clients about the projects we endeavor to collaborate on together.

That said – tip 2!

2. Ask questions of your partners and clients.

I’ve heard from teaching artists who struggled to discuss their contracts with colleagues and negotiate with partners. I attended the TAMA session last week with Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. We need to get better practiced as a collective and stop acting as if we are independent. Every decision you make and every contract you willingly sign has implications on the entire field for decades to come! We need some collective agreements.

Things to think about as you ask questions of partners and clients are:

1. Don’t sign contracts before reading them and examining them with your accountability circle, especially if something in it bothers you. This may seem like a given, but I’ve heard from TAs who have done both – signed before reading and signed even when something bothered them. I get it. We have fear. Lack of time. Lack of need. Lack of pressure. Lack of interest. And truthfully, I can’t say that I’ve not done this. It’s got to stop! We are all leaving power and money on the table for others to have. Others are those in power, often with money. Let’s step up as business leaders! Talk to the client about your concerns in the contract and talk to your accountability circle. Let your accountability circle look at the contract. They will expand your thinking to things that may not concern you but bother them. Their concerns should be your concern so that we can have an equitable and just field. Our profession and the contracts we all see and sign should hold all of us. That should be the expectation.
2. Always have a pre-written version of your contract available and ready to go for the client to sign. It is the cultural norm of our field for arts organizations and others to write contracts. Let’s keep in mind that their lawyers are writing those contracts prioritizing their interests, not ours. While organizations have taken the lead in writing the arrangements in the past, let’s try to shift the power dynamic here!
3. Take Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts’ suggestion and ask your partners, “How did you decide that TAs are (Independent Contractors/Employees) in your (organization)?” Our partners need to be transparent about who made the decision and how and why. Remember, they are your business partner. They are a client. There should be mutual respect. Conflicts are inevitable in business. But also, difficult conversations can and should lead us to better and more sustainable outcomes for all of us.
4. When a partner cannot meet your pay rates, ask about other benefits that they could offer you. Do they have a studio or rehearsal hall that you could access for free? Could they make their medical or retirement plans available to you (you will have to pay out-of-pocket, but you will have member access)? Want a lunch date and one-on-one time with their artistic director? Do they have access to a library or other resources? Think creatively about benefits. What does your business need that they have and could make available to you? Our business partnerships must share the same values as our business, and one of those values should include your value and worth! Remember that pie I mentioned Sunday.

You deserve more than crumbs!

Too often, we accept initial offers without any interrogation.

Let’s stop doing that.