The loose connections that comprise our on-line networks may associate us all with Kevin Bacon, but do they help us change the world? Malcolm Gladwell says ‘not so much’ in his intriguing piece on social media and social change in The New Yorker. But Jonah Lehrer of Wired has higher hopes. The debate centers on ‘weak tie’ […]
Tax status, schmax status
The Nonprofit Finance Fund’s Clara Miller offers a productive rant in The Chronicle of Philanthropy against the growing assumptions that tax-exempt organizations are inherently inefficient or ineffective. The call to bring efficiency and effectiveness to nonprofits through business analysis took on steam in the early part of this century — though it had been simmering […]
Describing the healthy community
Today and tomorrow I’m participating in the Gard Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin, which is exploring the role and potential of community arts endeavors in fostering healthy communities (overview available here). The particularly wonderful part of this discussion is that it doesn’t assume we all agree on what a healthy community looks like. Instead, the event […]
On the arts getting lost, and found again
Here’s a great talk by a dear colleague. Diane Ragsdale, formerly of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation before she wandered off to The Netherlands to get a PhD, discusses the current state of the arts, the struggle to define value, and the art of getting lost in the wilderness. Well worth a watch. Diane Ragsdale […]
The power network, visualized
We all know that successful people and successful organizations are fueled by their networks. The people and organizations they are connected with, and the way those connections intertwine are often a mystery, or the stuff of formerly-smoky back rooms (thanks to state smoking bans). The NNDB Mapper tries to remove the mystery and replace it […]
Redefining service
Mark Stryker in the Detroit Free Press highlights a rather unique proposition buried in the proposed new musician contract with the Detroit Symphony. While much of the attention has been on the significant proposed pay cuts to musicians — in the neighborhood of 30 percent — Stryker notes another radical departure from the norm: Look […]
Creative Placemaking
The National Endowment for the Arts offered a web-streamed panel discussion yesterday that’s now available as an online archive. The topic was ‘creative placemaking,’ connecting artists and the arts to efforts to make cities and communities more vibrant and engaging. Participants included Richard Florida, Author, The Great Reset and The Rise of the Creative Class; […]
The tensions of change
Lucy Bernholz identifies some of the key tensions facing philanthropy in her Philanthropy 2173 blog. She suggests that each is formed and informed by a ferociously complex environment, and framed by the relative position of the person or organization observing them. Each has obvious relevance to arts and culture organizations. Says Lucy: Technological advances are […]
Of bonds and stadiums (and cultural facilities)
Public radio’s “Marketplace” offers a short discussion of how and why communities use public debt (bonds) to build private assets such as football stadiums (and, er, cultural facilities). According to their guest, policy researcher Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute, it’s a bit of a shell game where the shells all end up empty. He […]
What’s an organization for?
So many of our current discussions about new business models and funding structures for arts and culture take it as a given that the organization is the appropriate frame of reference. How can we make arts organizations more vital, more responsive, more sustainable? As if the organization is some universal unit of measure, and always […]
