Whose Muse?, an upcoming book from Princeton University Press on the conflict of market and mission in the museum world, gets a summary treatment in this month’s ARTNews. Among the lectures and discussions of five leading museum directors contained in the book comes this wordplay from MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry:
³There has been an invidious migration of business strategy into the not-for-profit world,² Lowry comments. The notion that ³the same methodology that applies to the for-profit business world can also be applied to the not-for-profit world is profoundly wrong.²
While Lowry gets extra Brownie points for working the phrase “invidious migration” into casual conversation, he also raises the familiar question to this weblog: are cultural organizations businesses or are they not?
Websters gives seven definitions for the word “business” (Dictionary.com lists five), the most related to this question are:
Any particular occupation or employment engaged in for livelihood or gain, as agriculture, trade, art, or a profession.Financial dealings; buying and selling; traffic in general; mercantile transactions.
Über-economist William G. Bowen took a shot at the question in the context of higher education in a speech at Oxford University (a great speech, by the way, on the role of the university in a digitized and commercialized age, available in PDF format):
A principal theme of this lecture is that universities are not businesses (though they have many businesslike aspects). They are highly unusual institutions with missions and attributes unlike those of any other entity in either the for-profit or the not-for-profit world. Society depends on them to do much more than produce ‘products’ at a fair price. In keeping with most other economists, I love the market (it is, as it were, ‘our baby’). But I also know the limits of markets as definers of values and allocators of resources, and one of my greatest concerns is that, either inadvertently or by design, universities will be so bemused by market opportunities that they will lose sight of, or downplay, their most essential purposes.
I gladly agree with both Lowry and Bowen that the dynamic struggle between market-based and mission-based decisions is a central issue for nonprofits in all forms — especially those supporting creative expression, heritage, education, and similar pursuits. But I’m still not ready to give up on business strategy and business thinking.
Perhaps, like anything else, it’s a matter of definitions. To me, a ‘business’ is a collection of individuals and resources, aggregated through ownership, contract, and common purpose to address a defined goal. That goal can be commercial (to maximize shareholder gain) or it can be non-commercial (to support, foster, create, preserve, and present forms of cultural expression that could not survive in the pure commercial market). More often than not, it’s somewhere in between (there are plenty of small businesses driven by passion rather than cash). In any case, the ends may be different, but the tools are the same.
You’ll find that sentiment in this weblog’s purpose statement, and dusted throughout its entries. Like any tool, business tools can be used for a thousand ends, especially when handled by an innovative craftsperson. We certainly need to understand these tools, perhaps better than our for-profit counterparts. But let’s not shun them from the toolbox. In this extraordinarily complex profession, we need every tool we can get our mitts on.
p.s. Invidious was a ‘word of the day’ on Dictionary.com a few years back. Try to work it into a staff meeting conversation to impress or annoy your co-workers.
