I have written about stakeholder revolts where people in the community force non-profit boards to reconstitute themselves, usually in reaction to a planned closing of the organization. In other places, board are revising their membership in order to better embrace their governance role and diversifying to better reflect community demographics.
It isn’t often that you hear the staff of an organization demand that the board resign and reform. Howard Sherman related the contentious and confusing situation at Theatre Puget Sound in a recent post on the Arts Integrity Initiative. The theatre staff made an “either you go, or we do” ultimatum in a no-confidence letter to the board.
Unfortunately, this drama is playing out in a very public way according to Sherman because the executive director,
….sent the request for the board’s resignation to a wide cross section of the Seattle community, including the media, leaders of other arts organizations, community philanthropists and more, and even included a pair of internal e-mails by the board.
I second Sherman’s suggestion that the situation isn’t well served by rehashing all the gory details.
…The Stranger is on the case for those who want more information, and for future study by arts management educators and students. However, the bird’s eye view of the contretemps should serve as a reminder for boards and executive and senior leadership of arts organizations to examine their practices and policies, because while the situation is rare, it demonstrates how a rapid cascade of events can put an arts organization at risk.
Given the context of recent stakeholder revolts and other actions, this situation does bear watching for glimpses of larger trends that may be emerging in the non-profit world that may impact the arts.
The very question of who owns a non-profit organization is clear in theory, but muddied by practice. Especially when the founder is closely involved and identified with the organization. (which, to be clear, is not the case here.)
This episode could prove to be a challenge to the concept of organizational ownership depending on how it develops. Many of the deadlines the involved parties set expire at the end of this week, May 5-7, if you want to monitor things as they occur.
Though given the heated passions involved, it may be better to wait and revisit things later, allowing time to provide some insulation.