Anshe Chung has all the elements of a good prospect for your nonprofit board — she’s a millionaire, a real estate mogul, and an innovative entrepreneur with an eye for design and aesthetic value. While it’s true that she’s not technically a real person, but an avatar…an on-line character in the virtual world of Second […]
The non-representative fundraising photo (that works)
Jeff Brooks of Donor Power Blog has a thoughtful post on the tension between the actual work of a nonprofit, and the perceptions or messages that attract contributed income. His case in point is ”Old Man Eating,” a perennial fundraising photo archetype used among urban rescue missions. ”Old Man Eating,” or OME as Brooks and […]
More ways to express your public self
Social networking technology is vastly changing the face and nature of the web, and how individuals use it. Massively popular user-driven sites like MySpace or Flickr or YouTube enable users to share their voice and vision with a wider world — in photos, in videos, in text, in network connections, in playlists of favorite music. […]
If we want to measure the arts, we’ll need new metrics
During the recent Grantmakers in the Arts conference in Boston, the issue of measurement continued to rise and fall in various sessions. After all, if arts grantmakers are in the business of positive change (or sustaining positive things), they inevitably wonder how they’re doing in delivering on that promise. Such evaluation requires both a target […]
Does ‘smart business’ trump good governance?
Forbes has an opinion piece on board governance in the corporate world, calling into question Apple’s board appointment of Google’s CEO, while Steve Jobs is already a powerful force on Disney’s board. In theory, the article says, boards are supposed to be uniquely focused on the interests of a corporation’s shareholders, not playing multiple games […]
Separate and connected…like a giant fungus
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking to a gathering of arts leaders from around the Midwest, hosted by the Alliant Energy Foundation and intended to build partnerships and connections in the arts across state lines. I went on a bit about my usual problems with the myths and metaphors of ”partnerships,” which strike […]
Haggling vs. higher ground
A few weeks back, my MBA program hosted fellow blogger Drew McManus for a mock orchestra negotiation exercise. The idea was for the students to play professional symphony musicians working on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with Drew, who played the management of a fictious symphony. Drew went on quite a bit about the experience. […]
Architecture of value, part deux
Finally getting back to my summary last week of Alan Brown’s ‘Architecture of Value,’ rethinking the RAND efforts on the values and benefits of arts experiences. Alan’s model suggests five clusters of benefits, radiating out from the individual and ‘in the moment’ to the community and cumulative. In a nutshell, the five benefits clusters are: […]
Exploring the architecture of value
Continuing my summary of our recent alumni conference in Madison on The Rise of the Active Audience, our afternoon keynote meshed fabulously with Lynne Conner’s morning conversation (discussed here and here). Alan Brown is among the leading audience research consultants and consumer behavior specialists in the arts these days. And his library of reports and […]
Encouraging co-authorship
So, what’s an arts manager to do if the premise of yesterday’s post is true (which it seems to be) — that the history of audience interaction with art has been more active than passive, and that the current emphasis on sitting quietly and receiving art is an anomaly? What, especially, are you to do […]
