I had a blast last week participating in the special ArtsJournal collaborative weblog asking ‘is there a better case to be made for the arts?‘ There was so much depth and context to the entries and the comments, I don’t need to dwell on it here. But one recurring theme kept striking me throughout: our […]
Archives for 2005
The blog next door
I’ll be working the blog next door this week — a collaborative weblog exploring the recent Rand study, Gifts of the Muse, and its implications for arts advocacy, arts management, and arts in the public purpose. Come take a look, and lend a comment to the conversation.
That’s how much we want the money
In an surprise ending to a story I linked to earlier this week, the entire board of the Lodi Historical Society in Lodi, Wisconsin, switched gears at the last moment and resigned, clearing the way for the organization to receive over $500K in bequest money. In the town of 2900, the skirmish over a donor’s […]
The new price of symphony in St. Paul
In response to my drone about Wal-Mart pricing yesterday, I was interested to hear of at least one bold experiment in traditional concert pricing. The folks at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra are radically rethinking the price of their neighborhood concert series for the coming season, hoping to draw a new family crowd. Says this […]
Pricing a la Wal-Mart
I’ll admit to a strange fascination for how Wal-Mart does business. As one of the world’s largest companies (they added about 50 million square feet of store space around the world last year, opening 50 – 70 new stores a month), the company is a machine of terrifying efficiency. And their sales volume offers them […]
Yet another hyphenated competitor
Just as I was getting used to edu-tainment (education that’s entertaining), eater-tainment (restaurants that sell themed experience), and enter-tailing (retailers with an experiential eye), along comes another contender for audience time and attention: agri-tainment. It’s a catch phrase for farms and other agricultural businesses that push tourist or attraction revenue to balance their books. According […]
How much do you want the money?
A strange story out of Lodi, Wisconsin, raises a question of how flexible a nonprofit should be when faced with prospective donor demands. Such is the case of Raymond Brown and the Lodi Valley Historical Society, where $500,000 awaits the organization if they make one minor change…their entire board. From the AP Wire story: When […]
God saves the queen, but HSE saves everyone else
In many arts organizations, stress and exhaustion are worn like badges of honor…public evidence that you’re giving your all to the cause. Of course, the downside is that once you’ve given everything, the cause is out of luck. So, it’s great when individual organizations recognize the value of balancing stressors in the workplace where they […]
The future of philanthropy
There’s a world of wonderful things in this new website and its corresponding report on The Future of Philanthropy. Thanks to the good folks at the Monitor Institute and their über-think-tank, the Global Business Network, we’ve got a full-fledged exploration of the dynamic forces shaping philanthropic efforts over the next decades. Better yet, the extraordinarily […]
The no-overhead organization
Fixed costs can the bane of the nonprofit arts organization’s existence. Overhead expenses like rent or facility heat/light/security chew away at the bottom line, and are often the most difficult to support with contributed income (who wants to donate to keep a light bulb glowing in the basement?). So, I’ve often wondered how lean and […]
