The Chronicle of Philanthropy notes a slightly happier fundraising machine in the nation’s largest charitable organizations. Overall donations in their ‘top 400’ are up 2.3 percent. It’s nothing like the glory days of the past decade, when annual increases in giving hit the double digits. But it’s something. As with all development news, this aggregate […]
Archives for 2004
On-line goodies
Just a few quick pointers today to sites of particular interest: Google has a grant program now for nonprofits who want to use their AdWords service at no cost for three months. AdWords is an exceptionally useful tool that allows you to set up keyword ‘campaigns’ within the Google search engine. When Google visitors type […]
Overbuilt: The Sequel
There was a healthy spike in readership and comment related to my recent post about how the nonprofit arts might be ‘overbuilt’. Interestingly, many comments agreed with the general feeling of an overbuilt and overstretched industry, but quickly focused on the individual organization’s size and scope: I have to agree that we are overbuilt, but […]
Catching a clue from The Cluetrain Manifesto
Back in April 1999 (eons ago by weblog standards, I know), a list of 95 theorems written by three techno-leaders caused quite a stir. The Cluetrain Manifesto was an attempt to define the new model for business-consumer interaction, given the invasive, conversational style of the Internet. In the forward to the inevitable book based on […]
Learning about art and audience from designers
Commercial and industrial design is a fascinating subset of creative endeavor, raising all sorts of relevant issues to the arts and cultural manager. Designers develop complex aesthetic and functional responses to real-world problems, often seeking to engage an audience in their solutions (design is what makes you want a VW Bug over a Honda Civic, […]
Returns on investment
‘Valuing culture’ can be an abstract exercise, full of theory and pontification about instrumental and intrinsic worth. But the topic is getting a real-world workout in Colorado, where Denver’s sales-tax-supported Scientific and Cultural Facilities District is coming up for renewal. Does a public investment in culture return public benefits from the taxpayers’ perspective? In this […]
Corporate myopia
I’ve been blabbing a lot about the ecology of arts and cultural activity in communities — whether it’s overbuilt or imbalanced, how we can juggle established nonprofits and small, often unincorporated, initiatives. There’s good stuff on this perspective from an older report by the Center for and Urban Future. Author Mark Stern celebrates the transformative […]
Some Friday diversions and fluff
Are you jealous of corporate America that seems to have all the good business-speak? Are you longing to take a break from the earnest board and staff meetings focusing on mission, vision, and the new cookbook fundraiser project? Are you looking for new lingo to pad your latest grant application? Then go ye forth to […]
Overbuilt?
There was a strange consensus among the many arts professionals and keynote speakers at my recent alumni/student conference in Madison. The consensus surrounded this point: the nonprofit arts industry is overbuilt. Speakers pointed to the massive growth in the nonprofit arts over the past 30 years…due in part perhaps to the leveraging power of matching […]
Value and the arts
The MBA degree program I direct recently held an alumni/student conference focusing on how we ‘value’ culture in the public realm…or how we attach value to creative expression and experience when confronted with the question: ‘why should you be supported as an industry, as an organization, as an endeavor, when there are so many other […]
