scheherazadesghost

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I've decided to keep my limited opinions about her to myself. Too many DCPers jump to her defense before taking a breath to understand that I have lived experience with drum corps abuse (that doesn't give me blanket authority by any means) but does mean I have direct, professional experience in handling such situations. What I can say is hiring the daughter of such a person without taking significant, clear and transparent actions to keep her father away would be a risk to member safety. Not saying this didn't happen cause I wasn't there. Just seems like a risk I wouldn't be willing to take, but perhaps that's why I'm on the outside. Perhaps there's too much liability in even addressing it from an organizational standpoint. She's at Phantom now.

Any wonder why I was hair-trigger livid last season when I got wind he wanted to/did visit his daughter at a show Vanguard was at? Hasn't my corps endured enough predators through our ranks without adding more risks?

For better or worse, I'm not getting threats, so, in some fd up way perhaps there's improvement there. That doesn't make what y'all endured acceptable in any way and I've always looked up to y'all for stepping forward first. As well as the others who did so before me and a small subset of my own enablers. I've only experienced character assassination attempts and sabotage of my efforts from my lovely alumni peers. Fear of retaliation is the common theme of the other reporters though. Fortunately, some of alum are quietly actually helping me too. The absolute truth is also my best defense. That you were threatened doesn't surprise me and still boils my blood. Thank you for sharing.

Ty. But aren't those government- sanctioned and run? Private entities are regularly discouraged by their lawyers not to make blacklists for legal reasons in the resources I'm reading. I'm not against exploring this idea. I just have to keep in mind that for blacklisting to work, which MAASIN ruled out for at least themselves, violators have to be reported. I have 40 instances of violations sitting in my paper notes because so few will report to other entities. Many have no interest in reporting to Vanguard or DCI. I don't think any of us went to the cops. No. 1. Just 1. That's why I'm working on the advocacy and support side. It's crucial that all people involved know the red flags of a predator and what to do when they see them before a blacklist, if it's feasible, can work.

Everything I'm reading says blacklisting is illegal in most states. Am I looking at misinformation? Heck, MAASIN can't even go on record affirming that VMAPA corroborated my report. So now, apparently I'm without validation again. (More importantly, how the heck is a younger survivor supposed to navigate such a mess when I'm stumped and my profesional career focused on safeguarding?) I've said it before. This industry seems to have been historically more consistent about blacklisting young members that made age-appropriate mistakes than staff/leadership who violate members. That necessitated leadership sharing young people's confidential info without consent. I'd love to see the same rigor applied to violators. But you'll forgive me, I hope, if I'm lacking faith in the industry’s capacity to do so.

Blacklists violate confidentiality, at least formalized ones do. While I'm all for it, I don't think it'll fly in today's litigious society. Train the members, and hell, even demand compliance of them so they can at least confirm that they know their rights and defend themselves in worst case scenarios. Very worst case scenario, they are still violated, but know it was wrong and not their fault. I didn't get that until 15 years after the fact after extensive soul searching. Once you know what to look for and how to handle a report, the culture can begin to safeguard itself a little better. I genuinely hope that SafeSport was the start of this, but it's simply not enough. The easiest rule to put in place is no 1-on-1 meetings between staff and members (or even member-to-member if there is a power differential.) Ever. Period. If you see this happening, say something or interrupt it. Where we are mostly right now is, huh? what problem? oh snap, my fellow member/alum was violated? that really sucks... moving on...

I think drum corps has fallen into this category for most of its history, no? Even if they do checks now, many corps are behind on their policies and staff capacity to execute procedure when violated members need it most. Because that work is incredibly difficult. If I'm wrong about anyone's favorite corps, then show me that data, trained staff, and strategic planning to back it up. You have to have someone who's supported survivors before leading these situations, not HR folks who are quicker to protect the company than the very customers/beneficiaries the company is publicly obligated to serve. Worst case scenario is to have untrained staff... not knowing what to do when a member needs you.

The procedure you mention pales in comparison to what I'm suggesting. And what my decades of experience tell me is needed. And I've only offered pointers for how to safely place adults on busses, since it seems your and others corps are already doing that. Literally just said I don't know the perfect solution here as an outsider. If you aren't aware of previous leadership across drum corps history that matched some descriptions of psychopaths, then I can't help you. Also can't help you if you think your background checks are enough to stop the worst violators. There is no amount of safeguarding that eliminates this threat and all too often the worst of the worst have found themselves in position of power. Anyone who says they can eliminate it entirely is lying to you. JF got through all the background checks and look how well that went for Vanguard. I would carefully consider treading lightly in a thread with a survivor of abuse from the corps the thread is about. I'm engaging in a difficult topic about my own corps and I have lived experience of drum corps abuse that altered the course of my life. Unless you have something constructive or positive to contribute, I won't be responding to you further here.

Repeated violations against myself or other alum without so much as the acknowledgement that they happened is demoralizing. Admittedly, in some cases we don't step forward with our reports and corps wash their hands in those situations, but everything we're talking about is an open secret. There's no excuse for not prioritizing this work at this point. There's no excuse for Vanguard not to, given our history. And not just the victim/survivor suffers in these situations, but such violations fracture morale and lead to diminished capacity for members and staff. Sometimes my fellow members protected me from staff, and I have reports of other alum doing the same in other seasons. But they were outliers. All too often victims/survivors were further ridiculed by members and staff after they were violated. The manifestation may be different in the case of financial mismanagement, but the cause is the same: abuse of power.

I have reports from last season that some corps have tour admin rolling in member busses as staff reps. (This small fact was a side of the reports; I've got nothing on violations on busses rn, but sadly, it may only be a matter of time.) Some of the corps advertise the admin jobs with this specific responsibility in the description. I don't know the perfect solution here, as an outsider. But I do know that if a predator gets past extremely rigorous vetting, training, compliance, and reporting requirements, then you're potentially dealing with the rare but dangerous case of a psychopath. And this is the part where I remind everyone that you don't ever eliminate this threat, you diminish risk and harm as much as possible. Best thing to do is require rigorous training/oversight to detur most predators. Instill the fear of god in everyone else. Tighten up reporting protocols and channels. Follow through with rigorous investigations and reprimands for violations. I rarely see the professionals or training needed for all that among drum corps staffs. Train the members better too. Show them how to break the cycle of innocent bystanders not knowing what to do when they see or hear something credible. This new Gen is smarter than us, they'd pick that up quickly and potentially run with it for the rest of their lives as better citizens.

Require a higher standard of training, compliance, and reporting protocol for any non-member traveling in member busses.

Can you elaborate on this? I hadn't connected paying tuition to safeguarding prior to reading your comment, but I'm open to learning more.

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Yeah, apologies Terri. I didn't mean for that to read as confrontational as it does. I 100% agree, it did used to serve youth as its primary directive. I think that's still there, but it's buried under a bunch of buzz word goo and mission creep.

Love hearing these ideas. They won't start cookin' til corps collect the data to back them up. If the hard data is not being collected and/or integrated across the industry, no one will accept the need for change. This sort of data work usually falls under the grant writer or advancement officer's responsibilities bc reliable donors and grants require it. In academia, it's the institutional researchers. I'm stuck in this very pickle. No one wants to take drastic action to improve safeguarding? Fine, I'll continue to collect data until it's so vast it can't be ignored.

Congrats on completing your degree. My young life and beyond were also negatively affected by putting drum corps first. And boy, do I have too many reports that validate both of our experiences. To answer OP's first question, I'd say an alumni and member experience audit conducted yearly is in order. It doesn't even have to turn up negative experiences to be fruitful. If all feedback comes back 100% positive, great, you have more fodder for marketing. In case it doesn't, the org can directly address and integrate that feedback while also doing damage control among their internal and external stakeholders. The leaders in this activity should no longer be allowed to assume that their member experience is perfect. Show your stakeholders the data to back it up.

Point of fact: neither DCI's nor VMAPA's missions mention youth. Sure it's intended or implied, but technically neither are obligated by their missions to serve youth directly. This is why mission statements are important.

Only been a month, I spoze.

We're using vagaries here when it may not be helpful to do so. Those of us that have publicly and privately highlighted our concerns about Vanguard are not young, innocent cherubs, we aren't junior, and we aren't working within the hierarchy of the institution. We are external stakeholders and qualified professionals who earned our stripes outside of the insular drum corps world, and who are trained in the professional niches in which we bring up our concerns. For some reason, this has mostly been treated like a threat instead of an asset. The actual young or "junior" people in our scenario are now alumni who either (1) already tried to speak up and were dismissed/shamed/bullied by their own fellow alum or (2) were too scared to speak up at all and still choked up when they were reporting to me, often insistent that I keep everything confidential for fear of retaliation. I can't abide my fellow younger alum in this state. It's unacceptable to me. Because I know firsthand that a bad member experience can upend a young person's life for a long time. I would honestly sleep better at night if my report had been an outlier. Some of our current board members have been there since before I marched, and there has been no real accountability for this darker side of our member experience this whole time. I've listed, on this forum, how many reports of violations have made their way to my ears from fellow alum who marched anytime between 2004 and now. Sometimes earlier. In case you're still playing at home, the tally is 38, not updated to include last week's new reporters. I've been in dialogue with VMAPA, DCI, MAASIN, other corps who will remain unnamed for now, and even reached out to Tricia Nadolny. My last post that included which corps I had talked to (and heard little back from) and the names of my abusers was censored. 🤷🏽‍♀️ Lordy if anyone here has a better way to act on this information, I'm all ears. Edit to add another alumni-external stakeholder resource: https://www.nonprofitpro.com/post/building-engagement-most-important-stakeholder-individuals-we-serve/

👀 Boston values their watchers, huh? Weird. What's that like? I'm still being metaphorically patched up from the last time I was dismissed by my peers. Just in time to discover another alum-survivor just last week. 😬

A nuanced, researched take on overhead and donor expectations in the arts np sector: https://www.philanthropy.com/article/nonprofits-may-need-to-spend-a-third-of-their-budget-on-overhead-to-thrive-contradicting-a-donor-rule-of-thumb?utm_content=buffer73641&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I wouldn't normally recommend such a large board but it appears to be working and I'm under the impression that Boston underwent an arduous process to arrive there. But again, if y'all have offered help and it falls on deaf ears, more power to you in-competition. Naw, I was still ducking the industry back then. I am, however, glad they were able to put the fire out. 💦

Also it's not like Boston discovered fire here. They're following the conventional np playbook and succeeding accordingly. There are professionals, books, workshops, educational institutions, grants, fellowships, etc dedicated to teaching others how to fund a np following the conventions. This info isn't buried, in the case that a np doesn't want any help and to do it entirely on their own.

Maybe. But there's also a whole professional field dedicated to raising funds for non profits (off the golf course.) Some call it Advancement, others Development. Others Donor Cultivation. And they don't just get the money rolling cause the flood gates stay open naturally forever. It's a profession for a reason. Because donor cultivation requires constant attention and care. Constant communication and synchrony with other departments in the non profit. Constant pats on the backs of donors who want them and constant, painstaking hoops to jump through for big corporate donors who will easily take their demands to the next non profit who can meet them better than you. The work is constant.