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Not-for-Profits Incentives?
I’m currently working on a project that involves examination of what organizational and governance structure best provides incentives for success. What I’m finding is painful, as the 2008 Great Recession has drained so much of the altruistic resource of our noble NFP workers. They are being expected to do the work of many others, and…
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Administrative, Organizational and Sector Design
As I investigate and come to understand various administrative designs, and how they can be best applied for accomplishment of identified ends, I begin to see a bigger picture. I spent a lot of time over the previous year studying and analyzing organizational models (designs) in the arts and culture sector. After living intensely with the…
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Learning about Administrative Design
So in order to learn more about administrative design and its impact on output (artistic in this case), I’ve had to jump into literature from the business world. The closest I can come to study examples is in the health care field, which share our mostly not-for-profit status. What I have learned is that the…
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Detroit Symphony Lamentation
I cannot help but comment on the recent developments in Detroit, as they so painfully illustrate the enormous challenges that symphony orchestras face now, and into the future. Let me begin by saying that these musicians, as well as their colleagues across the country are performing optimally in their jobs, “as they were trained to…
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Hmm, Are There Really Too Many 501c3’s?
I’ve been operating under an assumption that there are too many 501c3’s. I’ve been building a case to support this (popular) notion, and then to suggest alternative organizational models. And while I still strongly believe that a healthy arts and culture landscape includes a variety of organizational models, I am questioning my initiating assumption. Last…
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Organizational Design Meets an Entrepreneur
The following article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy was shared with me by a good friend and colleague, Julie Hawkins, Executive Vice President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. I found it particularly interesting because it tells of an arts entrepreneur who, after a struggle in the not-for-profit world, chooses to cross over into the…
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An Organization of Organizations?
There’s a need to envision a multi-faceted organizational topography of arts and culture not-for-profits in our communities. As I’ve written in the past about there being too many 501c3, not-for-profits, and I’ve offered up alternative organizational possibilities, now it’s time to think about how a landscape of different organizational designs might ideally work. To quickly…
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Entrepreneurship — Isolating the Transformational Moment
Newsweek magazine recently published an article that reported on a longitudinal study designed to measure creativity in the U.S (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html). Using the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking as their rubric they reported a steady drop in creativity from 1990 forward. For 30 years prior the index showed an increase. In the late 1970’s, when I was…
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Arts Entrepreneurship — Idea Development Processes
My last blog entry described 4 types of idea development. This rubric is helpful to me (and perhaps to others) who are working with students on the idea formation process. However, it doesn’t get to the essential pedagogical challenge, that of what projects and activities to construct that will ignite students’ imaginations and constructive processes.…
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Arts Entrepreneurship — Four Stages of Idea Development
I’m still working hard here on an idea formation rubric for students in the arts to consider. As I said in an earlier entry, the whole concept of invention and creation of new enterprises have been anathemas within collegiate arts curricula. Finding a bridge between these two worlds is of critical importance. Here I present a…