Unlikely Allies in Atlanta’s Nonprofit World

Some might wonder what an arts organization and an organization working for criminal law reform have in common. Ariel Fristoe, founder and artistic director of Out of Hand Theater, and Doug Ammar, executive director of the Georgia Justice Project (GJP), discuss the unique collaboration between the Atlanta-based nonprofits they represent.

Can you introduce yourself ?

A F: My name is Ariel Fristoe, founder and artistic director of Out of Hand. Our mission is to use the tools of theater to help create a more just world. We do this by combining plays and short films with information and conversations. All of our programs include art to open hearts, information to open minds, and conversation to inspire action. We create programs for community partners and bring them to homes, businesses, schools and places of worship.

D.A.: My name is Doug Ammar, Executive Director of GJP. Our mission is to reduce the number of people under correctional control in Georgia and reduce barriers to reentry. We worked toward this mission by doing three things. Above all, there is direct service, which means representing people as lawyers, following our clients over the long term and providing them with social service support. Second, there is policy change. We take the lessons we learn representing our clients and find solutions to implement at the next level. Third is community engagement, which means making sure people know about new laws and their rights relating to issues such as voting and probation.

GJP has always been innovative in identifying ways to increase positive outcomes for those impacted by the system. We also work with system stakeholders to not only implement the processes we helped design, but also to create mechanisms that allow more justice-involved people to access help. We are a small organization and 4.5 million Georgians have been arrested or convicted. It is therefore our responsibility to leverage our independent status and create more innovative opportunities for justice-involved people to re-enter society, even if we do not serve them as clients.

How did this collaboration start?

A F: Each spring we produce Shows in Homes, which feature an actor in a one-hour show in 30 to 50 living rooms. There is an hour of theater on a social justice topic, a cocktail reception, and a conversation with a community partner about the issues represented in the play. Before working with GJP, we wanted to talk about mass incarceration, but we weren’t thinking about reentry. The depth of knowledge you brought to the collaboration helped us clarify the message. The play we commissioned is “Calf,” written by Leviticus Jelks, starring Marlon Burnley and directed by Nikki Young.

D.A.: When you contacted us, we saw an opportunity to reach a different audience and talk to people about our work and the deeper issues behind our work. It seemed unusual to be talking to people after a play that we might not know much about, but you were all flexible and willing to let us show how we wanted to present ourselves. This gave us the opportunity to clarify our message, determine the most important information to share, and reach new audiences in a new way.

A F: There are many critical issues that we want people to know about, care about, and do more of. Candidates for office often hold small, intimate fundraisers and talk to people one-on-one. Likewise, if we want thousands of people to know more about GJP’s work, we may need to attack this in small chunks by approaching 30 people at a time in someone’s living room and offering them a way intimate to address issues.

D.A.: Additionally, within our collaboration, GJP and the criminal law issues we address felt less like an object and more like a subject. It would be easy to commission a play and invite a group for color commentary. But our collaboration was not that way, because you were trying to raise awareness of the issues, and you invested your skills in part of that equation, while inviting others to flesh out the equation in its together. Your partners are therefore not objects, but subjects of the same company.

A F: This is exactly what we are looking for. Arts and entertainment are the tools we use to uplift and serve our partner organizations.

What is the impact of this collaboration?

D.A.: Nonprofits are often jaded when it comes to working with other nonprofits. This collaboration reconfirmed our confidence in the nonprofit sector and the value of collaborating with other nonprofits to create social change. You reminded us that there are many people in the nonprofit world eager to understand their area of ​​work and expertise, and to bring other organizations together to work toward a common goal. This is why I love that, embedded in your DNA, there is an understanding of your expertise and a commitment to inviting the expertise and goals of others.

A F: Our vision is to increase understanding, empathy and action around social justice. We are a non-profit organization, so it is important that we do good work for our community with the funds entrusted to us while demonstrating the value of the arts. We have presented this program to more than 1,000 people, and more than 90 percent of participants said they learned something new about incarceration and reentry and were moved and inspired to take action on the issues discussed.

D.A.: For me, one of the advantages of this collaboration was reaching a new audience. Also, I don’t consider criminal law issues to be very complex, but we work with a lot of moving parts. This was an opportunity to refine the narrative of our work and the issues we address in this landscape. Finally, this collaboration opened up possibilities for future partnerships and inspired us to think about what we could do to move things forward in partnership with other arts groups.

You’ve already mentioned that many arts and criminal justice organizations are in crisis. How have you worked together to create change in this atmosphere?

A F: Theater has been in a slow-burning crisis for years, but it came to a head last summer with national headlines saying things like “theater is in free fall.” Many companies are closing their doors, interrupting their programs or laying off staff: running a theater company is a difficult time. I feel lucky to have found a business model where my business is thriving and growing in the midst of this crisis through collaborations like this.

D.A.: Criminal justice as a whole is in crisis due to the war on crime and mass incarceration over the past several decades. In response to this, people have adopted a number of approaches that have not always been successful. At GJP, we focus on fighting for something, while others focus on fighting against something. We also don’t just focus on starting an arrest, reentry, probation or employment – ​​we approach it all together. We address the long-term aspect of the criminal justice system and our clients’ involvement in it on a large scale. If we think creatively and holistically to bring hope and possibility to a difficult system, whether it’s the arts or the criminal justice system, we can make a difference and thrive.

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