Philanthropy and social sector specialist Peter Frumkin offers a useful series of posts on the concept of ”scale” in the nonprofit world. The impulse to increase scale — in organization size, in constituents served, in geography reached, and so on — is pervasive throughout the nonprofit system. But few organizations or funders seem to understand […]
Defining the future of Americans for the Arts
The good folks at Americans for the Arts are diving into a strategic planning process, and scanning the environment to see how and where they can focus their energy in the coming years. As part of that scan, they’ve launched an on-line survey to gather insight and input from a wide range of constituents. Lend […]
Chasing the fountain of youth
For those not yet concerned with the need to engage a younger generation in the nonprofit arts, cultural policy wonk Barry Hessenius offers more reason to panic in his new report, Involving Youth in Nonprofit Arts Organizations (available in PDF format), published this week with funding and guidance from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. […]
Quiet Junior, mommy and daddy are talking
Pitty the poor Joyce Theater, which seems to be the last political football still in play for the arts district of Ground Zero. According to a recent New York Times article (subscription likely required) the Governor is back in the game just as it seemed the City was to carry the ball. And the performing […]
Time to rethink the professional arts conference
The Philanthropy 2173 weblog offers a short list of innovative conferences now providing free video access to their content on-line (and a curator that’s pulling them together). The blog links back to a New York Times story on the TED conference, and its extraordinary success in giving away its keynotes on the web. According to […]
Button by button, thread by thread
A trail of web links led me to the work of Stuart Kauffman, a biologist with a thoughtful focus on self-organization and the science of complexity. In his book, At Home in the Universe, he applies those concepts to all sorts of organic systems — from the origins of life to human social networks to […]
Same basket, fewer eggs
In response to a troubled city, and what appears to be a desire to consolidate governance, the Heinz Endowments announced last month that they were refocusing their giving strategy in Pittsburgh, and shifting their significant resources into fewer causes. The three ”big bets” that will receive 30 percent of Endowment giving over the next five […]
Same as it ever was
A post at the Donor Power Blog posits that all the chatter about a next generation of marketing (”marketing 2.0”) and the related talk about ”fundraising 2.0” are ignoring a fundamental point: no matter the medium, the basics remain the same. …all of that is less important than what’s always been true: If you want […]
Planning the creative city
Developing a community cultural plan is a bit like creating a family budget — we all know we should have one, but we don’t know where to begin. Thanks to the good folks up north at the Creative City Network of Canada, communities now have a colorful and clear ”how to” resource for creating that […]
What do markets ”feel” like?
I’ve railed on before about the need to make cold, detached data more relevant and accessible to the working arts manager. After all, if our work isn’t informed by evidence — past performance, financial history, market indicators, demographics, economic measures, and so on — we’re managing on a hunch. While the obvious response is to […]
