Welcome to Outside the March’s 2023-2028 Strategic Plan
The plan is the result of over two years of dreaming, analysis and self-reflection on the part of our staff, associate artists, Board and community. We’ve acknowledged these individuals below; this plan is theirs as much as it is ours, and we’re grateful for their rich contributions and collaboration.
We believe this planning process has been ambitious, rigorous, and inevitably imperfect. It included internal and external consultation alongside other strategic activities including our participation in Metcalf’s Staging Change program and our internal anti-racism processes. We were greatly aided by responses to a publicly circulated community feedback survey, completed by over 150 OtM audience members and community members.
Above all our aim with this plan is to more perfectly embody our newly re-articulated core values, which you’ll find below. Developed in collaboration with our facilitator Michelle Yagi—to whom we owe many thanks— this approach to planning marks something of a departure from traditional strategic plans and is designed to balance rigour and elasticity. Instead of solely measuring the plan against unbending metrics (key performance indicators, growth, etc.), it holds the company’s values as the lens through which all future activity is held accountable. While it includes metrics for success, this plan is designed to leave room for responsiveness. We believe this approach is particularly suited to the company’s care-centred ethos and the unpredictable realities of our current moment.
Our values represent the sensibilities that have always propelled our work and will continue to in the future. We’ve organized the plan’s 10 goals according to their most dominant corresponding value, though we believe that the strength of these goals is how they each bring many of our core values into harmony. Some of those goals are radical and new; some are commitments to build on what we’re already doing; together they represent the most cohesive vision we have for our company culture and identity.
We believe the goals contained in this plan are thrilling. We hope you will too.
Mitchell Cushman
Artistic Director
Katherine Devlin Rosenfeld
Managing Producer
OUR CORE VALUES
IMMERSION
We create epic and intimate worlds tailored to the unique needs of each project. We engage with every facet of a production as a chance to deepen the storytelling experience—from the first interaction with a marketing campaign to the ride home from the show, and everything in between.
CURIOSITY
We are on the hunt for the hidden theatrical potential in the world around us. We are open and adaptive as we seek new ways to tell stories together.
CARE
Our approach to hospitality celebrates that every artist, every staff member and every audience member has different needs and desires. We strive to be compassionate and empathetic, building a safer, more accessible, and more equitable space for everyone who interacts with the company.
CONNECTION
We consciously forge relationships between artists, audiences, our neighbours in Toronto, and the land on which we share stories.
THRILLS
We relish the unknown, embracing joy and risk in our processes and surprise in our artistic offerings.
OUR GOALS — OVERVIEW
GOAL 1: We will re-prioritize our work animating found spaces across the GTA, doubling down on our roots as an artistic organization passionate about site-specific work.
GOAL 2: We will create more time and space for our artists and staff to dream, explore and play.
GOAL 3: We will see every opportunity to expand our team and every decision we make as chances to further put our anti-racist and anti-oppressive values into practice.
GOAL 4: We will evolve our art-making and operations models to center considerations around access at earlier stages of planning—prioritizing building strong and ongoing relationships with members of access-seeking communities.
GOAL 5: We will continue to strengthen our care-centred company culture and bolster our HR policies accordingly.
GOAL 6: We will only move forward with new projects if they take into account our team’s well-being. We will aim towards a model where staff are consistently operating at 80% capacity, leaving room to respond to new challenges and unexpected events with the remaining 20%.
GOAL 7: We will continue to develop long-term relationships with Indigenous artists, audiences and consultants.
GOAL 8: We will reflect the urgency of the Climate Disaster in our art and operations.
GOAL 9: We will continue to develop Outside the March’s national and international presence.
GOAL 10: We will continue to harness the unique artistic and producing possibilities of immersive creation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the tireless, generous, sage efforts of our Strategic Plan Coordinator Michelle Yagi, as well as the members of our Strategic Planning Committee which have included Board Chair Madeleine Cohen, Board Members Jarel Cockburn and Josée Rhault, and company members Mitchell Cushman, Katherine Devin Rosenfeld, Griffin McInnes, Laura McCallum, Sébastien Heins, Jeff Ho and Nick Blais.
We would also like to acknowledge the invaluable support and wisdom contributed by the external facilitators and reviewers brought into this process, including Clayton Baraniuk, Kristin Ferguson, Devon Healey, Natércia Napoleão, Emma Stenning and Lori Willcox.
We would also like to acknowledge the additional support of Sue Balint and the Metcalf Foundation Staging Change Program. In addition to OtM’s core staff, our Staging Change innovation team included Robert Binet, Katherine Cullen, Thurga Kanagasekarampillai, Amy Keating, Annie Luján, Janice Peters Gibson, Anand Rajaram and Merlin Simard.
Outside the March is grateful to be based in Tkaronto—the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit.