Lost amid a string of inside-baseball phrases and ideologies, officials have little idea as to why they would possibly fund institutions that serve themselves first.
Hey guys? You forgot something.
Yes, I know we’re supposed to write, call, and send emails to our congresspeople.
Yes, I know we’re supposed to learn all the economic impact reports.
Yes, I know we’re supposed to learn about all the people employed.
Yes, I know we’re supposed to know how much federal funding is happening.
Yes, I know. We all know.
We also know that if you didn’t already know this post was about categorical destruction of the nonprofit arts sector, that the destruction has been caused by nonprofit arts organizations deciding that their charitable work is not paramount to their respective communities, and because of that, they have not shown evidence of charitable impact, you might think this was a post for Boeing, McDonald’s, or Starbucks.
Or Tesla.
Take a look at this sheet, provided by your friends at Americans for the Arts:
In fact, the top panels of this form conflates the for-profit and nonprofit arts sectors for its data. Why? Because, for the most part, the largest and most “venerable” nonprofit arts organizations in America have not shown any difference between the two sectors.
This gets to the point of the lawsuit that provided for the fact that arts organizations could become nonprofit in the first place. In the pivotal case, Plumstead Theatre Society Inc v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, published September 18, 1980, the decision noted crucial differences between commercial theater organizations and charitable ones. These differences (regardless of their irrelevance to the verbiage in the 501(C)(3) statute describing exempt activities for nonprofits of any kind), held that there was a clear dividing line in purpose. On one side, the commercial; on the other, the nonprofit. Here are the words used in the ruling. (The areas in bold are key to the decision.)
Commercial theatres are operated to make a profit. Thus, they choose plays having the greatest mass audience appeal. Generally, they run the plays so long as they can attract a crowd. They set ticket prices to pay the total costs of production and to return a profit. Since their focus is perennially on the box office, they do not generally organize other activities to educate the public and they do not encourage and instruct relatively unknown playwrights and actors.
Tax-exempt organizations are not operated to make a profit. They fulfill their artistic and community obligations by focusing on the highest possible standards of performance; by serving the community broadly; by developing new and original works; and by providing educational programs and opportunities for new talent. Thus, they keep the great classics of the theatre alive and are willing to experiment with new forms of dramatic writing, acting, and staging. Usually, nonprofit theatrical organizations present a number of plays during a season for a relatively short specified time period. Because of a desired quality in acoustics and intimacy with the audience, many present their performances in halls of limited capacity.
To translate: commercial arts organizations produce popular work in order to sell tickets. That’s why they’re considered commercial. Evidently, they don’t have to be all that good in order for the public to rush out and buy tickets. Kinda like the Seattle Mariners over the past 50 years. They can hire whomever they want and produce whatever they want until people no longer want to attend.
Evidently, nonprofit theater organizations do not do popular works in order to sell tickets. Popular fare such as A Christmas Carol, Jersey Boys, or Waitress could never be produced by nonprofit theatrical organizations. Instead, they focus on the highest possible standards of performance (an indescribable, completely subjective phrase that can be fulfilled merely by someone saying it once), serve the community broadly (whatever that means), develop new and original works (implies more than one per decade), and provide educational programs and opportunities for new talent (instead of hiring whomever they want). And in many cases, their performance halls are small (which is still true for all but those stalwart behemoths).
Hmm. That may have been true 64 years ago (it wasn’t), but not today. Today, there is no worldly difference between the offerings of many large arts organizations and the commercial versions they mimic. It could, in fact, be determined that commercial ventures such as Hamilton do more to fulfill the nonprofit goal than those same nonprofit companies.
So, as we’ve stated numerous times, nonprofit arts organizations are allowed to be nonprofit arts organizations without having to do that nasty charitable work. That fact alone has caused arts advocacy organizations to resort to Cirque du Soleil (a commercial organization) contortions to justify advocacy calls. Sadly, they believe that this particular government, which generally opposes altruistic charity in favor of toxicity, is somehow responsible for the destruction of the funding system for nonprofit arts organizations in the last fifteen years.
Delusional. Delusional that this is the first time that the nonprofit arts sector has not proven worth. But hey, that’s part of the appeal of the arts. You can invent all sorts of things. Plus, you only have to look in the mirror to put on makeup and pretend to be someone else.
Just because a giant arts organization is allowed to be a charity doesn’t mean that it’s a good charity.
To those running smaller organizations with tendrils in the community, bless you. There are more of you than you know. Talk to each other. Team up, if that helps. Your organizations should be receiving all the charitable funding that’s out there.
To the rest of you: c’mon, man. If you run a “flagship” company where donors donate so that donors may attend — and you know who you are — just stop. Stop advocating for yourselves by pretending to advocate for the arts; that’s a tired ruse. Stop hoovering money away from worthy organizations in your community that have the temerity to help the underserved (and prove it by showing results from the impact, not the fact that a program was enacted), educate the populace (and prove it with test scores and impact reports), and provide free art to people where they are (instead of where you are).
Stop with the jargon. Stop with the same advocacy advice, year after year. Stop with the commercial impacts of ticket sales and positive economic impact: they have nothing to do with charity. Stop with the national studies, especially about improved test scores: national data does not prove local worth. Stop with the tourism impact studies: tourism actually takes away from the effort to serve the underserved in your own community; it has negative charitable impact.
And please, stop telling us to donate to the industry advocacy organizations, let alone the industry Goliaths. You’re getting in the way of progress. As for the public, we’d rather advocate for the arts organizations that walk the walk of charitable impact, and they need financial help more than you do.
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