With an empowered anti-arts, anti-education, and anti-culture base running the country, this is the time to commit to your community, not fall into the trap of cancelling them. It’s all gone topsy-turvy. We live in New America now. Ironically, the group that wanted to “Make America Great Again” has moved the country in a completely different direction than ever. We … [Read more...] about Nonprofit Arts Organizations: If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Join ’Em? Really?
Leadership
The Case for Support: Voices of Our City Choir Uses Art to Succeed Where Other Arts Organizations Fear to Tread
In San Diego, one nonprofit arts organization has taken it upon itself to provide paths to success for a community whose lives exist below the sightline of typical arts audiences: the unhoused. There is a lazy maxim about unhoused people in San Diego, California. It is the idea that if people were to choose to be homeless, they might as well be homeless in San … [Read more...] about The Case for Support: Voices of Our City Choir Uses Art to Succeed Where Other Arts Organizations Fear to Tread
Measuring the Arts is Impossible – Which Is Why Funders Should Measure Charitable Impact Instead
Imagine what would happen if foundations and corporate donors funded not by grantee promises or relationships, but by their deeds and impact instead. Ah well, a man can dream, can’t he? Imagine a world in which nonprofit arts organizations are given every tool they need to succeed. Or, in lieu of that, enough money to care for their communities, provide needed services, … [Read more...] about Measuring the Arts is Impossible – Which Is Why Funders Should Measure Charitable Impact Instead
Giving Tuesday Is Here Once Again, As Is This Popular Little Article - Just Another Gimmick?
(Originally posted October 2022.) I know. The latest data shows that Giving Tuesday is responsible for about .056% of your donations this year. And while that doesn’t sound like much, if it were multiplied by 365, you find that it is 20 times the daily rate necessary to reach your contributed revenue goals. But let’s take another look at that data. Your organization … [Read more...] about Giving Tuesday Is Here Once Again, As Is This Popular Little Article - Just Another Gimmick?
The Case for Support: Arts Capacity Walks the Walk Among Nonprofit Arts Organizations
First, they define the community. Then ask what they need, not what they want. Finally, they don’t confuse it with some irrelevant “artistic vision.” Why isn’t yours doing that? One of the great bugaboos of the nonprofit arts industry is that, while it must be responsive and responsible to the communities in which each individual charity operates, the definition of … [Read more...] about The Case for Support: Arts Capacity Walks the Walk Among Nonprofit Arts Organizations