Nonprofit Arts Organizations: You’ve Missed the Point. Once Again.

Yes, you’re a nonprofit. Big deal. Like tennis, if you don’t serve well, it’s your fault.

The book has been released into the wild.

My new book, Scene Change: Why Today's Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact is now on the shelves, be they internet shelves or real ones, in the UK and the US. If your bookstore isn't carrying it (yet), please let them know that you want a copy and that they should stock up for the thousands more behind you. Okay, hundreds. Okay, dozens. Just give them this ISBN: 978–1–80 341–446–1. If it's still not listed, contact me directly at [email protected].

If you teach an arts management program, work at an arts school, or want to buy a bulk purchase (25 or more) for your board of directors and staff, contact me directly at [email protected].

And if you'd like an autographed copy, just send me an email to the same address. Or, if you're in the Seattle region, come to the Barnes & Noble in Totem Lake Village on Saturday, February 24 at 1:00pm! Stop by and say hello.

In case you missed it, I was interviewed recently for a “Between the Pages” segment on The Sound on Stage. Here it is:

And now…this week's column.

Congratulations. You're a nonprofit arts organization. How did you become an arts organization without actually fulfilling the criteria in IRS Code 501(C)(3)?

It doesn't matter. You've done it.

I am always stupefied when I see people, especially those of whom I have some regard, intentionally misunderstand why nonprofit arts organizations are continuing to go belly-up. They believe that the idea that they need to be more charitable in the community?-?to measure their impact in tangible ways?-?is a nuisance. After all, they've never done it before?-?instead, resting on the idea that the production of art is a community asset.

Your production of art is no more a community asset than the art performed by buskers on the corner. In fact, you're in the same business as they are, only they're a little more efficient (if not as wealthy).

I've read paragraph upon paragraph of defense of the current system. Declarations that "the arts are essential" without data to prove it. No data, no proof. No proof, no truth.

You can't prove worth on a feeling. Or on "nourishing the soul." The public knows that and still, these organizations persist in pouring gallons of water into a sinking ship.

I receive tons of comments from those that believe that the power of the arts supersedes the impact of the nonprofit status of arts organizations. I can't help that they're misguided, don't see the forest for the trees, are brainwashed, or just wrong. Here's one from December:

"There are many organizations, including several criticized by name by Harrison, that had community-facing efforts to solve practical social problems, educational and otherwise, and were nevertheless forced to close in recent years. While Harrison exhorts nonprofit arts leaders to pivot into social justice work or be ruined, the fiscal environment seems to be worsening for everyone. It's not clear that anyone will be protected by such pivots, and it's not demonstrated that donors will reward them. The organizations may in fact waste resources they need to survive by investing them in social projects for which the organizations are neither qualified, nor equipped to measure impact."?-?Franklin

You're right, Franklin. Some of the recently-shuttered companies did have community-facing efforts, educational and otherwise. It wasn't their mission, of course. It didn't speak to the core of their purpose. In some cases, I daresay that the point of the educational programs you reference was to make them more financially attractive to foundations and other donors. And while they may have measured attendance (which is a metric of popularity, not impact) with little to no follow-up on the actual education, these programs were clearly just appendages to an arts-first point of view. They were not the point. In fact, these organizations, as the photo at the top of this article insinuates, missed the point entirely. And even in your own words, "the fiscal environment seems to be worsening for everyone," but you clearly don't accept that current practices have contributed to the continuing loss of revenues for nonprofit arts organizations. They did, they do, and they are.

But perhaps the most pernicious and revealing statement about the kinds of arts organizations that refuse to show their indispensability while crying out for more funding is revealed in the latter part of the paragraph. Franklin, the idea that you view resources spent on social projects to be "wasted" due to the idea that arts organizations are "neither qualified, nor equipped to measure impact" speaks more about the faulty nonprofit arts organization, not society or the idea that charities are meant to be charitable.

I know, I know. That's not what you wrote or meant. You just think that it's a waste for nonprofit arts organizations to concentrate on these things, along with DEI issues, because they're not good at it, unqualified to take part, or because others do it better. And you're not wrong, at least the back half of that?-?they're not good at it, they are unqualified to take part, and others do do it better. You've also described why they're not getting funding, except through extraordinary measures like sales tax raises on everyone?-?rich or poor?-?in King County, Washington. Or a year of higher city, county, state, or federal government subsidies in advance of a 2024 election cycle?-?the equivalent of the old "free turkey on election day" grift.

Bluntly speaking (and I am often blunt), you missed the whole point. But you are not the only one, just one with the courage to write. And for that, I am thankful. You speak for a lot of misguided folks in the current rut.

Bankruptcies will continue to happen to nonprofit arts organizations unless something changes quickly. That something is tied to indispensability within the community. We can no longer present the arts as a luxury item to be funded by and presented for the elites in our communities. That attitude and practice has nullified most of the good that arts organizations have the ability to do.

But the industry won't thrive (not just "come back"?… thrive) until their production of art is the means toward a charitable end, not the end result itself. Arts organizations are not evil or elitist on purpose; it's that they currently have no intention of helping their community except through the simple production of art they want to produce. Just like those guys playing a string trio on the corner.

No other charity works that way, and thank goodness they don't. When you ask artistic leaders of nonprofit arts organizations about who they serve, they often say, "we serve the art." When you ask almost every other charity in America about who they serve, they'll say some version of "we serve people." Granted, some say, "we serve the animals." Heritage organizations save a building to teach legacy or the ideals of the people for whom that building was key. But until nonprofit arts organizations stop ignoring the positive impact of their own community, they'll continue to be irrelevant to anyone except that night's audience.

But yes, they're allowed to be a nonprofit corporation. So is the NRA.