Linda Wood, Senior Director of the Haas Leadership Initiative at the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, recently wrote an interesting post on The CEP Blog of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, "The Leadership Development Disconnect." Working both in the field of leadership development and on program evaluation, I was encouraged to see these important issues highlighted. Much of my experience is consistent with the author’s. In the post, Wood states: "…not enough funders are investing in strengthening the leadership of their grantees. And … [Read more...]
Getting Unstuck: Developing Skills to Climb the Leadership Ladder
Many great thinkers in our field have discussed the complexity of talent development and succession planning in the cultural sector. Marc Vogl, who works with arts and culture organizations in his role as Principal of Vogl Consulting, aptly describes the problem as a clogged and leaky pipeline. Basically, there are a small number of leadership positions at the top, often held for many years by the same people (that’s the clogged part) and therefore more junior employees are stuck at their current level, growing increasingly tired of waiting … [Read more...]
Media Logic
I’ve been doing some extra reading on social media, online marketing, and online experiences as we prepare for our first presentation of Digital Strategies in Denver in October. One of the readings we are using, “Can You Measure the ROI of your Social Media Marketing?” got me thinking. The authors surface the classic problem in marketing: how do you demonstrate that specific communications tactics generate the sales, visitors, new audiences, new donors, and other business results you want? What got me thinking was the shape this problem takes … [Read more...]
Cleaning Out Our Closets
Recently I was cleaning my closet and came across several items that no longer fit well or had long since gone out of style – yes, I am either “that old” or styles change rapidly, take your pick. I wondered why I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of those clothes. I am an organized and reasoned person so what was holding me back? And then I began to wonder if programs are like clothes in our closets, which was a great distraction because it kept me from dealing with the problem at hand. But think about it: we buy things that reflect who … [Read more...]
The Possibilities of a Children’s Art Museum
Last weekend my daughter and I spent the morning at the National Zoo. She turns three later this summer and this was our fifth trip to the zoo since the weather turned nice this spring. Every visit is so different from the last one, even when our path is the same. I never know where she will decide to spend her time. This weekend it was the Amazonian House (a fortuitous side trip that started on the hunt for a potty). Kira was enthralled by the blue frogs, snakes, river fish and stingrays. And I loved discovering how few things she naturally … [Read more...]
Saying What We Mean
Last January, at NAS’ Chief Executive Program convening The New Nature of Relevance, I listened as participants discussed the language we use to communicate about the nonprofit cultural field. Some felt that our current language can intimidate and confuse those who are not familiar with the sector. “Charity” can make us sound needy and helpless, and “nonprofit” makes us sound frivolous and trivial. When I tell people I work in the nonprofit sector, I have often been asked if I earn a salary. These experiences have me thinking about whether we … [Read more...]
Three Strategic Planning Challenges
I’ve been part of a group helping the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE) review their guidelines for graduate-level education in strategic planning. I’ve found myself thinking about three challenges in strategic planning that we see in our work, and I wanted to release these thoughts into the wild and see what happens. On the one hand, I hope raising these questions sparks your thinking about your strategic planning challenges. On the other, I (and I have no doubt our entire community) would love to hear stories about how you … [Read more...]
Raising the Tide of Value
Editor’s note: Over the next two weeks, we’ll feature posts around the final convening of our Chief Executive Program, The Summit at Sundance. We invite you to participate in an online discussion of four major issues facing the cultural field. In this post, Dallas Shelby introduces the last of the problem statements. Why do the arts matter? Why does creativity matter? Why do you matter? What value do we create? We should all be able to answer these questions, and the easier it we can make it to do so the better off we will be. We may be … [Read more...]
Developing Transformative Employees and Systems
Editor’s note: Over the next two weeks, we’ll feature posts around the final convening of our Chief Executive Program, The Summit at Sundance. We invite you to participate in an online discussion of four major issues facing the cultural field. In this post, Fielding Grasty introduces the first of the problem statements. Problem to solve: Develop employees and organizational systems that will transform our organizations and the field. The global financial crisis has passed for much of the world, but an era of uncertainty has … [Read more...]
Mapping the Issues
How do you incorporate feedback from audiences, donors and other stakeholders to design a season, exhibit or service? This is a common question among cultural organizations striving to become more relevant and inclusive, and NAS is right there with them. Throughout The Chief Executive Program, we heard from leaders that they desired the time work together to find solutions to their toughest challenges. We knew that we wanted The Summit at Sundance to be the place for participants to do just that. Our task was to figure out the “how” – How do … [Read more...]
Collaboration is key in D.C.
This post appears as part of the ARTSblog Emerging Leaders Blog Salon, in which emerging leaders from around the country were asked, “What would make where you live a better place or bring it to the next level?” I moved to Washington D.C. four years ago, after living in a village of 600, and I absolutely love where I live. I enjoy trying new restaurants, seeing world premiere plays, watching drummers and acro-yogis perform in my favorite public park and the proximity of it all. Although I cannot deny the benefits of living near national … [Read more...]
Defining Our Value
The recent flurry of articles around the “failure” of the creative class to save our cities—as Richard Florida’s writings have been characterized as promising—and the challenges of measuring the value of “creative placemaking” has me wondering if we are nearing the end of the road for all of the instrumental arguments we have been making for the nonprofit arts over the past 30 years. Or perhaps we ran out of road a while back but just didn’t notice. One of our most beloved arguments for support of the arts has been the idea that they … [Read more...]
Board Membership: Finding the Right Fit
As an emerging leader, it can be difficult finding a nonprofit board to join. I am full of passion, curiosity, hunger and drive, but figuring out the right organization in which to invest this energy can be challenging. Having taken the board and governance elective during my graduate school program, I am now interested in turning theoretical knowledge into practical experience. With an ultimate goal of becoming an executive director, I hope to start gaining governance experience as soon as possible. How do you begin to search for nonprofit … [Read more...]
Avoiding Brain Freeze: Wellness in the Workplace
Working in the arts can be extremely stressful. Coordinating exhibits, performances and openings takes much work, organization and cooperation. Personally, I love controlled chaos of starting a new run, but I know how mentally taxing it can be. As an emerging leader, I have not yet encountered mental burn out from working in the arts. I also manage to maintain a pretty good work/life balance. However, I have participated in and overheard conversations with many senior leaders about the challenges of maintaining balance while holding high-demand … [Read more...]
A Single Customer Promise?
There is a question we get all the time in our Strategic Marketing seminar: should an organization be able to create a single positioning statement for the entire organization to summarize its value promise, or should it have a collection of positioning statements for different programs and target audiences? This always leads to interesting discussion but I've never felt we had a galvanizing way to answer the question. Earlier this week, Gail Crider and I were working on the design for a program in cultural entrepreneurship for a potential … [Read more...]