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Scene Change

Arts are essential. Your nonprofit is not.

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Nonprofit Arts Organizations: If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Join ’Em? Really?

January 14, 2025 by Alan Harrison 1 Comment

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?

The Case for Support: Voices of Our City Choir Uses Art to Succeed Where Other Arts Organizations Fear to Tread

January 7, 2025 by Alan Harrison Leave a Comment

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

The Case for Support: Arts Capacity Walks the Walk Among Nonprofit Arts Organizations

November 19, 2024 by Alan Harrison Leave a Comment

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

Talking To or Talking At? Or Even Talking at All?

October 29, 2024 by Alan Harrison Leave a Comment

Nonprofit Arts Leaders: Don't tell them about your mission, show them how you are fulfilling it. Don't just present, discuss. Do you talk about what’s happening to other folks in your community? Or are you “too busy?” This is an exchange that happened during a recent “Town Hall” with Vice President Kamala Harris taking questions from “undecided” voters in Pennsylvania, … [Read more...] about Talking To or Talking At? Or Even Talking at All?

Breaking Free of Your Longtime Role Is Hard. But It’s the Key to Progress.

October 22, 2024 by Alan Harrison Leave a Comment

Just look at the US presidential election... and US nonprofit arts organizations. We have established roles for ourselves. We can’t help it. “In human life, social roles are ubiquitous. Historically, social and personality psychologists sought to understand the relation between social roles and psychological functioning. Contemporary social and personality … [Read more...] about Breaking Free of Your Longtime Role Is Hard. But It’s the Key to Progress.

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About Scene Change

As a brilliant follow-up to SCENE CHANGE, the book that rocked the nonprofit arts industry in America, Alan Harrison takes you deeper into how board members can zealously advocate for their organizations, while at the same time putting checks on all the factors that get in the way of greatness. … [MORE] about About Scene Change

About Alan Harrison

Alan Harrison is a writer, father, performer, consultant, recovering artist, and the author of the industry best-seller "Scene Change: Why Today's Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact" and “Scene Change 2: The Five REAL Responsibilities of Nonprofit Arts … [MORE] about About Alan Harrison

Recent Posts

  • No. Just No.
  • I’m Not Angry. I’m Batman.
  • What Was That? Your Arts Organization Needs Funding? Get In Line.
  • A Guy Walks Into a Room.
  • “Hope for the Best. Expect the Worst.”

Recent Comments

  1. Alan Harrison on Nonprofit Arts Success in a Changing Environment, Tip 6 — Don’t Talk About It; Do It.
  2. Joyce Linehan on Nonprofit Arts Success in a Changing Environment, Tip 6 — Don’t Talk About It; Do It.
  3. Trevor O’Donnell on “Duck and Cover” — Is That Your Motto for the Next 46 Months?
  4. Alan Harrison on “Duck and Cover” — Is That Your Motto for the Next 46 Months?
  5. Bob on “Duck and Cover” — Is That Your Motto for the Next 46 Months?

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