Or is it like “climate change?” Is it too late to repair it?
Oy.
The next generation of arts leaders deserve better than what we’re giving them. I have been lecturing (really, just talking) to college classes of arts administrators of late, many of whose professors have put the Scene Change trilogy on their curriculum list. I find that decision hilarious because I wrote them to be non-textbook, easy, breezy, funny, brick through the window of the nonprofit arts industry, not a staid, thick tome.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how these kids are going to make it in 2026 or any other year, as long as the rules continue not to change.
This might be a case of following nationwide arts leaders who believe that everything they do is right and everything the community does (when they do not support their precious work) is wrong. Something like, “If I have been wrong about this business for all these years, then the business deserves to fail, not me. Ask my board of my organization. They’ll back me up on that. Après moi, le déluge.”
Let’s look at this not from the obvious answers, which have to do with creating quantifiable, impactful worth from your nonprofit arts organization in order to justify asking for donations. That’s the path many have taken already, but almost none of the larger organizations have signed on to the idea, leaving the field in several tidal waves’ worth of detritus.
Let’s look past the stupidity of depending on ticket sales (a for-profit metric) to justify community value (a nonprofit metric). And let’s look past the obsolete notion that “art can’t be measured or quantified,” because no one is asking you to measure or quantify your art. They’re asking you to measure or quantify your charitable impact. These are mutually exclusive items when your art is a tool and not a product.
Let’s look beyond the tattered argument that the nonprofit arts sector is exempt from having to act as charities. That’s a losing proposition, as evidenced by the continual reduction in funding. People (including governments and foundations) don’t give to charities that are not proving worth by charitable impact. Just because an arts organization technically doesn’t have to be charitable in order to qualify for tax-exempt status doesn’t mean it deserves a nickel of support. We’ve been seeing the results of that kind of arrogant self-indulgence in multiple years of declining support.
Now that it’s 2026, the public expects its charities to be charitable — including your theater, opera, ballet, museum, and symphony. There is too much bad faith going on in this country already. A nonprofit arts organization cannot expect to hornswoggle its community when it’s giving nothing except its own self-aggrandizement and an unhealthy affinity toward fame and fortune.
Instead, let’s look at “climate change,” which is a euphemism for “killing life on this planet.” Climate scientists unanimously believe is the single most urgent problem in the world today. That part is not in question. What is in question is this: is it too late?
It might be.
At least one of the global tipping points of destruction has already occurred. It may mean nothing to you, but 80% of the world’s coral reefs are bleached, dead, or dying. That won’t get better.
Parts of the Amazon rainforest are now the Amazon savannas with grasslands and asphalt replacing millions of trees. That tipping point will be next, according to scientists, where the rainforest can no longer recover from industrialization.
Too late. Because it’s all about the money, not life. And money causes people to “drill, baby, drill” like a frat party of drunken capitalists giving the rank and file the roofies of gas-guzzling cars, cheap products, and the collective knowledge of the entire world in their pockets (which they use to take pictures of their lunch), all while raping their futures until everybody’s dead and everything is all gone. “Après moi, le déluge.”
That’s not my opinion. That’s what’s happening. It’s not something one can poll. Four key climate change indicators — greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat, and ocean acidification — set new records in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and are projected to have done so again in 2025.
So, is it too late?
Is it too late to save the nonprofit arts sector from its own worst, vainglorious impulses?
It might be.
In a system of patronage developed by this administration, money and favors come when Little Donny Dingdong gives his blessing. The absence of his blessing, however, is not neutral. Instead, like a movie version of a Mafia don — not a well-acted one like Pacino or Brando; more like Travolta in Gotti or the real-life Vito Genovese — he punishes those who do not kneel at his feet and tell him he’s pretty.
In a system of patronage developed by the larger members of the nonprofit arts sector, money and favors come when the biggest donors give their blessing. The absence of their blessing, however, is not neutral. Instead, like a movie version of heiresses or of royalty — not a well-acted one like Maggie Smith or Judi Dench; more like Liz Taylor as Cleopatra or Neve Campbell in Churchill: The Hollywood Years — they punish organizations that do not kneel and tell them they’re pretty.
Here in 2026, the genuflection machine that insures that positive impact happens only to those who donate the big bucks (or worse, pay hundreds/thousands for tickets and access) and not to those in the community who actually could use a little help has created a monster. The monster has rendered nonprofit arts organizations — even those that do the right thing and act charitably — into a country club of elitism and cronyism. It may not even be true, but the damage has already been done. The public now believes that arts organizations are not necessary to the health of a community. They’ve been shown that they are luxuries for the wealthiest citizens.
Most artistic directors don’t believe that has become the case. And yet, ask them to take all of their work, free of charge, exclusively to those who need help, and they’ll look at you with crossed eyes. “That’s not what we do,” they’ll say; and they’ll be right. That’s not what they do. And that’s the problem.
Is it too late, now that the public’s perception of the nonprofit arts sector has to be changed rather than merely persuaded? Is it too late, now that even the newest artistic directors of these large organizations continue to seek to make their organizations (and by extension, themselves) more famous, rather than choosing to do right by their communities of need?
Is it too late to change a system in the nonprofit arts sector where only the wealthy White folk matter? That’s completely up to you.
Happy 2026. Oy, indeed.
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