The easiest explanations tend to be the right ones.
I’m surprised that anyone in the nonprofit arts sector has any skin left on their hands with all the wringing that’s been happening in the industry about the loss of audience, money, and favor. Every article on the nonprofit arts seems to be the announcement of a death knell, a merger, slashed budgets, layoffs, resignations and retirements, and the once-in-a-while announcement that a particular nonprofit is doing — and this is a relative term, of course — well.
What are the reasons for these companies’ failures and bankruptcies?
Let’s start with philanthropy. Why do people give money to charity? To be completely clear, the question is not, “Why should people give?” but “Why do people give?”
According to Sara Konrath and Fernida Handy’s study, “The Development and Validation of the Motives to Donate Scale,” published and funded by the University of Indiana (and later, the Stanford Social Innovation Review), there are six basic factors that affect giving. These factors affect amount, frequency, and choice of charity. They are: Trust, Altruism, Social, Tax benefits, Egoism/Narcissism, and Financial Constraints. From the Stanford article:
Nonprofits often appeal to donors’ compassion to inspire giving—from advertising photos of emaciated dogs or sick children to tailoring email campaigns to tug at the emotional heartstrings. In reality, individuals not only give because they care but also for many other reasons that are self-interested and/or socially motivated, such as giving for tax benefits or because donors admire the social entrepreneur leading a particular organization. Others give to enhance social status—achieving immortality through a name on a building, which has become a booming market at hospitals, universities, libraries, and museums.
So why has funding for the nonprofit arts sector sunk like a stone for the last 20 years? Two simple reasons jump to the fore: 1) there are too many nonprofit arts organizations relative to the amount of money available for donation (and the bulk of funds still go to the largest 1% of these organizations); and 2) there is no emaciated dog, sick child, or other emotional heartstring to tug when all that is offered is what appears in every way to be a commercial presentation.
Let’s talk about this poor dog. Because the nonprofit arts industry (at least among the largest of its members) has preferred to set itself up as arbiters of art rather than charities that solve or mitigate problems within their respective communities, how could the public be expected to believe that a new “show” with a well-worn title, (Madama Butterfly, Jersey Boys, Dial M for Murder, the Nutcracker, and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, for example) is anything but a commercial enterprise that only favors the wealthy people who buy tickets? Giving to the ASPCA might save that poor dog you see right there — Sarah McLachlan or no Sarah McLachlan. Giving to an opera company that doesn’t center itself as a charity doesn’t save anything.
So yeah, it’s no wonder the bottom has fallen out of giving for arts organizations. Using the terminology of Konrath and Handy, there is little trust that the organization will help the community and there is no feeling of altruism in giving so that wealthy people can benefit. That pulls two key arrows out of the quiver. Certainly there is a social aspect in the “let’s have a party” sense (but not in the social betterment sense). That leaves Egoism/Narcissim (getting those names on buildings and plaques or getting private rooms named after you and only for your use in a public building) and financial constraints (If someone only has so much money to give, will they give to a program designed to entertain them or a program designed to help them?).
The largest companies with the advantage of time, wealth, and (in olden times) status continue to vacuum up all the financial resources of their region by virtue of tributes to egoism and narcissism. They do so with no conscience, no deference to community, and no shame whatsoever. They have been completely self-serving up to now; why would they change? For you? For a poor person? Ha.
The easiest explanation for ticket sales not being able to save the nonprofit arts sector is brutal, but true. The sale of a ticket has nothing whatsoever to do with the value of the company as a charitable institution. It is a for-profit metric in a nonprofit world. Other nonprofits have earned income, certainly, especially schools (tuition and books). However, the purpose of their existence is not the fabulousness of the dorm room and the books, but the quality of the education and what it can provide to a consumer — and the community in which that consumer lives.
Not so with the sale of a ticket. That is a simple contract between ticket-buyer and company, just like a commercial production.
Spit spot.
There is nothing even remotely charitable about revenue from ticket sales. Stop looking for answers from the for-profit bag of tricks. Imagine what your programs and activities would be if you chose never to sell a ticket. Never frame donated income as a supplement to a balanced budget (e.g., “Only 60% of our revenues come from ticket sales.”). Donated income goes to the work of the whole company. Ticket income (even subscription income) goes to a show.
Finally, there are those artistic leaders who consider nothing but their own artistic sensibilities (aka “artistic vision”) as important to success, without consideration whatsoever for their community, except as potential ticket-buyers. Easy explanation for why that doesn’t work in 2025: those days are long over. You don’t matter as much as the community who needs you to help them.
In fact, you don’t matter at all.
It’s not about you. It’s about those in your community who need a hand.
Because of quasi-commercial behaviors, the nonprofit arts in America have become luxuries. Luxuries, by definition, are nice, unnecessary, often expensive things. People don’t tend to donate to nice, unnecessary, often expensive things. And if a nice, unnecessary, expensive thing were to go away, the most you’d hear from the general public is, “Aww.”
Don’t overthink this. This “easiest conclusion is probably correct” razor is pretty damned sharp.
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