What if you knew when your nonprofit arts organization was going to?close?

How would your charitable activities change? Or would?they?

A completely true story.

In a recent consult with a community theatre organization, we asked the staff to produce, off the cuff, a headstone statement. Explaining that as humans, if we are fortunate enough to do so, we can create our own epitaphs. In this case, however, the staff — including its artistic leaders — was asked to write an epitaph for the company to be placed on its headstone 30 years after its demise.

This seemed to stump the group.

We persisted and even though we prefer open-ended conversations and debate, we gave them a rope to hold.

“After you’ve been gone for 30 years, what do you want people to remember about this theatre?”

Silence. 45 seconds’ worth (by my watch).

Another prompt: “If this theatre were to close down, is there something people would talk about when they remember it?”

After a few more minutes of uneasy, awkward silence, the production manager spoke, facing the floor the entire time.

“Gosh,” he said, “new carpeting would be nice.”

Recently, the Seattle Times reported that a new transit station set for the Seattle Center grounds might endanger the existence of several of the nonprofit institutions situated there.

The 74-acre Seattle Center, which draws over 12 million visitors per year, is a large public expanse that houses a number of the city’s most well-known and popular attractions. Climate Pledge Arena, home of the Seattle Kraken NHL club, the Seattle Storm WNBA club, and a major concert arena venue (Billie Eilish and Paul McCartney are among those who have booked the arena), is the latest tenant on the grounds. But there are many more: larger organizations such as Seattle Repertory Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle Opera, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Children’s Museum (not affiliated with the theatre), and the Pacific Science Center, which houses a planetarium and a few IMAX screens along with a series of permanent and touring exhibitions. Also onsite are the Frank Gehry-designed Museum of Pop Culture, the Chihuly Garden, KCTS (the PBS station for the city of Seattle), Memorial Stadium where high school football teams meet regularly, Seattle Shakespeare, Book-It Repertory, Pottery Northwest, KEXP (a widely listened-to public radio station), the Vera Project, and the Seattle Monorail (which has a second stop downtown and is primarily a tourist attraction). Cornish College of the Arts runs a theatre space there as well.

Oh, and something called the Space Needle.

For comparison purposes, you might think of it as Seattle’s Hyde Park, Boston Commons, Central Park, or Golden Gate Park. It was built to house the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962.

So, while the long-awaited train station is scheduled to arrive in 2037, the digging for said station will take 5 years to complete. The station’s construction — and, it would appear, its general use — would not only disrupt a slew of the current Seattle Center tenants, but might put their buildings out of business (and their organizations as well).

If construction starts in earnest in 2032 (ten years from now) and deals an existential threat to Seattle Rep, the Vera Project, and KEXP, what are the next steps for those organizations?

You can discuss the relative merits of introducing a badly-needed transit system and the detritus its construction leaves. You might even bring up older, nearly forgotten construction atrocities such as the eviction of thousands of Latino residents of Chavez Ravine to build Dodger Stadium; the displacement of 7,000 lower-class families to build Lincoln Center; and the decision to split and displace 75% of the people (mostly Black) in the Overtown neighborhood in Miami to complete the Interstate.

And you can discuss the relative merits of Manifest Destiny, breaking treaties, killing thousands — if not millions — of Indigenous/Native/First Nations peoples, and other atrocities.

This is not about that.

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Instead, let’s discuss death, shall we?

If you were guaranteed that in 10 years your nonprofit arts organization would be closed for good, how would that affect your activities?

DO NOT CONFUSE THE ANSWER BY ANTHROPOMORPHIZING THE ISSUE. The question at hand is not what YOU would do if you knew that YOU would die in 10 years. This is about your nonprofit arts organization.

These answers are not your own. Nor do they belong to your board or your city/county/state/national leaders. These answers must emanate from all the stakeholders of your organization, including board, staff, audience, community members, and anyone whose life is impacted by your work.

The question, you see, is equivalent to the question of why your nonprofit succeeds in the first place. Or does it succeed? How would you know?

When your staff is so self-focused, so self-obsessed, or so artistically oriented (at the expense of quantifiable impact for the community), you might equate success with a new carpet. It is not merely a statement of scarcity (a devil to any nonprofit), it is a statement of impact hopelessness.

This reality may well be coming for those Seattle Center nonprofits. What will they do? Will they concentrate fully on making sure that their impact — if it is measured — continues? Or, if they have no evidence of impact, will they just cease and become part of a nice memory for old white people?

While it is hard to predict, two questions must be answered by these nonprofit arts organizations:

• If our organization is measurably making lives better for those that cannot make it better for themselves — the center of nonprofit worth — how will that continue after the organization is gone?
• Is it more important that the measurable impact is real or that our organization is the one doing it?

On the second, more important question, substitute with a social service organization to make the meaning clear. Is it more important that 100,000 people get fed this year, or that our food bank is the one doing it?

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Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, the arts, strategy, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at [email protected]. And hey, if you're feeling generous, click on the coffee cup in the photo.

Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity?.