{"id":131,"date":"2011-03-21T01:49:05","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T00:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/?p=131"},"modified":"2011-03-21T01:54:05","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T00:54:05","slug":"sector-transformation-unlikely-to-be-kind-or-gentle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/2011\/03\/sector-transformation-unlikely-to-be-kind-or-gentle\/","title":{"rendered":"sector transformation, unlikely to be kind or gentle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In 2008, Paul Light<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(professor of public service at NYU and author of numerous books) wrote an article for the Nonprofit Quarterly <\/em>in which he speculated on Four Futures<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for the nonprofit sector arising out of the recession: (1) Rescue Fantasy<\/strong>: nonprofits saved by significant increases in contributions; (2) Withering Winterland: <\/strong>organizations starve themselves into a\u00c2\u00a0weakened organizational state; (3) Arbitrary Winnowing<\/strong>: survival of the largest, oldest, and best connected; and (4) Transformation<\/strong>: a redesign of the sector that leaves it stronger, more vibrant, more sustainable, and more impactful. Light wrote:<\/p>\n

\n

“The nonprofit sector can always let the future take its course \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but in doing so, it would almost surely experience either the withering of organizations that comes from inaction or a random winnowing based on influence and ready cash, not performance. It can reap the benefits of transformation only by deliberate choice.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Light’s prediction appears to be panning out; across the nonprofit arts sector we have by-and-large witnessed a winnowing<\/em> and a withering <\/em>the past couple years. For all the jabbering about transformation, we\u00c2\u00a0don’t (yet) appear to be\u00c2\u00a0manifesting it.<\/p>\n

I’ve been reading essays by the economist Joseph Schumpeter<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0who identified innovation as a critical dimension of economic change and emphasized the importance of the ‘new firm’ and the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnew entrepreneur’ as the vehicles for innovation. He also popularized the term \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccreative destruction<\/a>‘ in economics \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a term derived from Marxist economic theory, which Schumpeter used to represent the destroying of old economic structures\u00c2\u00a0in order to create new ones.<\/p>\n

In the arts and culture sector we seem to want to reap the benefits of transformation without the process of creative destruction.\u00c2\u00a0We say we want transformation but we refuse to let\u00c2\u00a0underperforming organizations die, or shy away from de-funding what has always been funded in order to fund that which has never been funded,\u00c2\u00a0or desperately try to maintain an overbuilt infrastructure. Such reactionary impulses to preserve the status quo will not\u00c2\u00a0result in a\u00c2\u00a0kinder and\u00c2\u00a0gentler transformation.\u00c2\u00a0To the contrary, they\u00c2\u00a0may result in stagnation of the arts and culture sector. As Light says, we can let the future take its course. I fear, however, that if we do so we may regret what we have become in years to come.<\/p>\n

In 1968, the sociologist Robert K. Merton<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0coined\u00c2\u00a0the term the\u00c2\u00a0Matthew Effect<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(in sociology) to describe the propensity for those who already possess power or capital to leverage those resources to gain more power or capital; the term\u00c2\u00a0comes from the bible passage Matthew 25:29: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0(NRS version)<\/p>\n

Is arbitrary winnowing the future we want? With more being given to those who already have the most?\u00c2\u00a0Survival of (only) the oldest, largest, and best connected, and not necessarily the best performing?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

If not, if we are sincere about wanting transformation, then the gain of progress is unlikely to be accomplished without the pain of losing\u00c2\u00a0or challenging\u00c2\u00a0some longstanding industry structures, beliefs, practices, jobs, conventions, and hierarchies.<\/p>\n

\n

No pain no gain<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0image by Andy Dean Photography\u00c2\u00a0licensed on Shutterstock.com.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2008, Paul Light\u00c2\u00a0(professor of public service at NYU and author of numerous books) wrote an article for the Nonprofit Quarterly in which he speculated on Four Futures\u00c2\u00a0for the nonprofit sector arising out of the recession: (1) Rescue Fantasy: nonprofits saved by significant increases in contributions; (2) Withering Winterland: organizations starve themselves into a\u00c2\u00a0weakened organizational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-supplydemand","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/shutterstock_53149513-no-pain-no-gain-cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p15Pqw-27","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}