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On organizations evolving: when short-term coping mechanisms become the new way of doing business

April 30, 2013 by 5 Comments
icebergs

A couple weeks ago, one of my favorite arts bloggers, Andrew Taylor (a/k/a The Artful Manager) wrote a post whose title conveys a pretty strong thesis: Organizations don’t evolve; they cope.  While I share Andrew’s skepticism of the field’s use of natural world metaphors (ecosystem, ecology, evolve, adapt, sustainability, etc.) it’s not because I think the metaphors don’t apply (within limits); it’s because I think we sometimes misapply them. Andrew begins his analysis with a comparison between individual organizations and … [Read more...]

04/30/13 8:59 PM | filed under: Innovation, institutionalism, nonprofit model, Supply/Demand, sustainability, Undercapitalization |

Renegotiating the value of a museum

August 28, 2012 by 9 Comments
dia levy passes

Over the past couple of weeks quite a few people have weighed in on the Detroit Institute of Art’s successful appeal to three counties in Michigan to pass a “millage” (a property tax) which would provide $23 million per year for the museum (91% of its budget) over ten years, while it raises $400 million for its endowment to replace the tax revenues when they run out. One of the most interesting aspects of this strategy is that the DIA offered free admission to the museum only to people living in the counties that passed the levy (which … [Read more...]

08/28/12 12:10 PM | filed under: community, Democratization of Culture, engagement, subsidization of the arts, sustainability, Undercapitalization |

Nonprofit Arts Orgs and the Boards That Love Them

August 7, 2012 by 19 Comments
Ashamed head-in-hands

Last week I read an article by Pablo Eisenberg in the Chronicle of Philanthropy in which he argues that greater oversight of nonprofits is needed because nonprofit boards can no longer be trusted to make sure the institutions they govern are serving the public interest, which they are legally obliged to serve. Eisenberg mentions hospitals and universities in particular, citing the recent debacles at University of Virginia and Penn State as evidence for why we can no longer put our faith in boards. However, I think it’s fair to say that the … [Read more...]

08/7/12 8:51 AM | filed under: community, ethics, institutionalism, leadership, nonprofit model, Supply/Demand, sustainability |

Are feasibility studies a racket? If not, then why do so many capital campaigns derail?

May 28, 2012 by 16 Comments
feasibilitystudyimage

Last Friday, I read a story posted on AJ about Michigan Opera getting a one month reprieve on the $11 million it must pay to Chase Bank if it is going to avoid a possible bankruptcy related to delinquency on a bond obtained for a capital expansion in 2004. How did this arts organization get here? I’m assuming there was a feasibility study at the outset and that the feasibility study gave the arts organization a green light, right? So how did it end up several million dollars “short” on its campaign? How did we end up hearing yet … [Read more...]

05/28/12 10:37 AM | filed under: community, sustainability, Undercapitalization |

Is Opera a Sustainable Art Form? Excerpts from a new keynote …

April 16, 2012 by 17 Comments
aida

I’ve been on hiatus in order to concentrate my time on the weekends to learning Dutch (state exam coming up). My last post was before Mike Daisey unhinged Ira Glass and Ira Glass exposed Mike Daisey and the whole world wrote about it. I’m not going to write about Mike Daisey. Instead, because I’m still concerned about the state of the arts and culture sector in the US (despite its “turnaround” according to Americans for the Arts), and because I’m still studying Dutch and neck-deep in my research at the moment, I’m going to share … [Read more...]

04/16/12 8:37 AM | filed under: institutionalism, Supply/Demand, sustainability, Undercapitalization |

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