Monday, March 31, 2008

Here Comes Everybody

The business section of today's Times has an article by David Carr about new patterns of media consumption by teenagers and younger consumers. In short, the kids want to choose, and they want the choice immediately, and they want their choices networked with their friends choices. This is the premise of a book Carr discusses in the article, entitled Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. It's written by an NYU professor named Clay Shirky.

There's a lot of matter in here for cultural organizations.... Carr's description (inspired by the book) of how different generations shop in a Virgin Superstore has a lot to say to museums and historic sites in particular.

Fans of James Joyce' s Finnegans Wake, however, will also recognize the title as the "name" of the book's main "character," also known as Humphrey Chimpenden Earwicker, also known as Tim Finnegan, etc. etc. HCE is an eternal archetype of mankind, men and fathers especially. an eternal father who stands for all humans conceived everywhere.

In my past life as a Joyce scholar, I often said that the world was not yet ready for Finnegans Wake , that it was still too far ahead of us to be considered avant garde. The networked, international, multi-lingual, anti-authoritarian, eclectic, referential, eternally linked generation that's bringing us Web 2.0 may be exactly the people who will be ready for it. The book title (which is not a deliberate Joycean reference) suggests so. Joyce would have loved it... but he wouldn't have called it a coincidence.

New Arts Leaders in Philadelphia

My suspicions that the Inquirer is improving its coverage of the arts scene in Philadelphia (tho' maybe not its actual reviews) was boosted this weekend by this story about a new wave of arts leaders. Look for comments by our own Martin Cohen at the end!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Business Models

An email from the Harvard Business Journal this morning about Business Models. Open question: how does the concept of a business model work for non-profits, which are mission-driven? Does a total focus on mission threaten to hide from view the ways in which a nonprofit thinks about its business. Jim Collins, in Good to Great, talks about the "Hedgehog Concept," which involves burrowing into your organization's data and culture and history, rigorously searching for a convergence between three areas: what you (and your organization) are passionate about, what the organization can be the best in the world in, and what drives the "economic engine" that part of your business that you do best and that makes economic sense.

In the 2005 supplement, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Collins tries to translate the core concepts of Good to Great into a non-profit context. One place where the translation is difficult is with the "hedgehog concept," especially with the construction of the "economic engine," which I see as having some analogy to a business model. How does the financial engine of an organization generate enough money to make programs possible? In the social sectors monograph, Collins says that the "third circle" of the Hedgehog trinity, the "economic engine" circle, makes more sense as a "resource engine." By talking about resources beyond (but including) money, you can bring in sources of energy like volunteerism, political influence, etc. that drive the organization forward... or something like that.

I've often thought that what was strange about nonprofits was that they tend to have at least two businesses--the business that serves the public (the "real" business, the front of the shop), and the donor business--the back of the shop. A museum appears to be in the business of bringing visitors in the door, but they're also in the business of attracting donors--which is, in most cases, where the real support comes from. A university is in the business of educating students, but they're also in the business of... attracting and cultivating donors, which is, for most big schools, where the real money is. Universities are perhaps also an example of what happens when the donor business begins to become disproportionate to the "real" business... but that's for another time.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Fightin' Philanthropists

It's been too long since last I posted, and as a result there's too much to download into the blog... same problem I had two weeks ago. But here's the best quote I've come across in the last two weeks:

"'Giving is not about a calculation of what you are buying [...] It is about participation in a fight.'"

This comes from the New York Times Magazine of March 9, specifically the article "What Makes People Give," which is a profile of two economists, John List and Dean Karlan, and their work on the psychological basis of giving. The quotation is Karlan's. David Leonhardt, the article's author, goes on to say, "[Your gift] is about you as much as it [is] about the effect of your gift."

This all ties together with the various memes we've been tracking about the importance of storytelling in fundraising, the importance of understanding your nonprofit's mission as a kind of crusade. And still, this is more easily done for those fighting hunger and homelessness than those making art. After all, what are artists fighting? Complacency? The numbness brought on by relentless commerce and work and daily life? It's a tougher sell...

William Wordsworth laid out the disease and the cure two hundred years ago:

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. [ 1806. ]

...and now I go back to work, before I start firing Gerard Manley Hopkins at you.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

More on Nonprofit Capital Markets

--A recent column in the Financial Times by Sean Stannard-Stockton, led me to
--his website , and from there to
--a blog called xchangexchange.com, and from there to
--something called B Corporations

...I'm still at the stage of being largely uneducated, but intrigrued, by these ideas--would love to hear more from someone who knows more.

Mission Statements

A new article from the Nonprofit Quarterly encourages you to think about your mission statement as a haiku.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, the literary magazine McSweeney's decides that they will be accepting *only* senryu (a form of haiku) and pantoums for their next issue.

City States

A few fragments from recent news. First, in the Inky, a new study of traffic in center city, occasioned by the increase in people living here and using the city at all hours of the day. The study may recommend, among other things, reducing the number of bus stops, which yr humble author supports, as it addresses a minor but sharp annoyance. Philly buses really don't need to stop on every block, and would be much more efficient if they didn't. But, alas, this is not a transportation blog.

Earlier this week, the ArtJournal enewsletter led me to a related story in the LA Times Magazine about Mayor Villaraigosa, and the struggle to keep Los Angeles on the list of world class cities. The writer name-checks a futurist named Paul Saffo, who apparently has in his quiver of theories one about the demise of the United States and concurrent rise of the American City-State.

I couldn't help but get excited at the notion of the rise of the city-state, perhaps because the savory whiff of Italian romance that comes along with it (Firenze! Siena! Lucca! Venezia!). Still another kind of blog needed for that kind of detour, but also because the arts & culture sector seems to play a more... visible, or prominent, role in the life of cities. [I won't say 'more essential,' because that would slight the importance of the arts in suburbia, exurbia, ruralia and beyond--and I just don't know that that's the case...] The financial "ecosystems" that support our arts organizations tend to be city-based...

And while we're at it, there's today's NYT article about Dumbo & the tactical use of artists to "force" gentrification. It's everywhere.

Cities. Art. Renaissance. A familiar and congenial formula, but not law of nature. discuss.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Another Perspective on the Leadership Crisis

This morning, the Chronicle of Philanthropy posted an article on its website about some new research that's being done on the predicted 'Leadership Crisis' in the nonprofit sector. It's one of the first pieces I've read that resonates with my perception of the issues, and looks beyond the framework of a "replacement theory," where new leaders fill the holes that retiring leaders leave behind, but instead looks at what kinds of organizations rising leaders want to run, and how their management styles (and different sense of achieving work/life balance) will change what it means to run a nonprofit in the future...

Here's a link to the Compasspoint study that the article references.

Next week we're going to the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations conference in San Francisco, where this is sure to be a hot topic. We'll let you know what we learn!