Boards

Getting Away From Treating People According To Their Donor Level

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Vu Le made a thought provoking post with suggestions to make fundraising events more community-centric. The subtext of his thoughts is essentially to avoid valorizing donors and literally marginalizing the presence of volunteers and clients during these sort of events.  It occurred to me that the environment at these events may be reinforcing the sentiment that non-profits need to run themselves like a business by positioning non-profits as hapless and helpless without the assistance of donors.

Many of his suggestions focus on making fundraising events more inclusive financially, physically and socially for all members of the community being served. He lists 14 in total, but here are a few highlights:

Mix up your seating arrangement: seats are usually reserved for major donors and sponsors, with the top tiers going towards those who contributed the most financially. This just reinforces the message that the more money you have, the more special and important you are. That’s silly. Mix up your attendees. Seat clients at the front. Or randomize it.

Treat volunteers thoughtfully: While donors of money are worshipped, donors of time are treated like an afterthought. “After you finish setting up all the centerpieces, feel free to scavenge through the dumpster for your dinner, since we reserve the gourmet food for guests.” OK, I exaggerate a bit, and volunteer food (usually pizza) is not bad. But if we’re going to be community-centered, then volunteers are an essential part of the community, and should be treated accordingly.

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Skip the tiered sponsorship levels: Yet one more way we perpetuate the idea that people and corporations should be treated based on how much they contribute financially. The sponsors at the “higher” levels get more marketing, better seats, more recognition, etc. Let’s move away from this. Here’s a great article on this topic from our colleague Phuong Pham.

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Be considerate how you use clients’ testimonies: There’s been the trope of having a client, often a person of color, go on stage and tell their painful story, often to a room of mostly white donors. Fortunately, I’ve been noticing a trend of this happening less frequently as nonprofits become more thoughtful. Ethical Storytelling is a good resource, along with articles like this one by Nel Taylor on the CCF website.

Not all his thoughts are applicable to events that arts and cultural organizations may host, but many are. Some of what he says dovetails closely with the sort of changes arts and cultural entities have been encouraged to make as part of their regular business activities such as pricing, dress code, engagement of diverse participants and suppliers of goods and services.

Near the end of his list, he encourages people to clearly and specifically discuss the intentional changes you have made.

Be transparent and direct about the changes you’re making: Before, during, and after the event, talk about why you’re doing some things differently. It’ll help guests think about things they may not have considered before. “Last year, while it was nice to see everyone dressed up in waist coats and monocles, we realized that it excluded many people from our community. This year, please dress in whatever makes you feel comfortable, within reason.”

Leaders I/S/O Organizations Who Know Things Have Changed

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I had a post appear on ArtsHacker today about hiring executive leadership in the context of the social changes which have occurred since the start of the Covid pandemic. My post primarily focuses on a piece Seema Sueko wrote for American Theatre, which I would highly encourage people to read.

Sueko was serving as a field advisor for a search firm specializing in executive searches in the arts and culture field. She discusses how she initially assumed that search firm would work with their clients to identify all the social, political and economic changes that occurred since their last hire, determine how the organization would need to change, and then what qualities the new leadership would need to possess to move the organization in that direction.

Finding out that was not the case, she surveyed 4-5 other search firms that also worked with arts and culture organizations and found they operated in much the same way.

She lays out some great ideas about how organizations can do a better job with leadership hiring. Many of the suggestions would probably please candidates to no end such as the hiring committee going through mock interviews and receiving feedback on how to do a better job.

As I write in my ArtsHacker post, I thought her best idea was one about creating an introductory video of a facilitated conversation about the job:

I recommend that the search firm record a Zoom meeting with the search committee where each committee member introduces themselves, followed by a facilitated conversation about the job opportunity. This video could be shared with all the candidates to level the playing field and capture some of the culture which can’t be conveyed through a written document. Such a video would also have the added benefit of demystifying and humanizing the search committee, which, I propose, will lead to more substantial interviews with candidates.

I am not sure about the current status of hiring for executive roles in arts and culture is at the moment. Readers may know that I changed jobs in November 2022. Around February-March 2023, the very first place I interviewed for when I started my search a year earlier contacted me to say the search had failed, board membership had changed and would I like to interview again.

While this certainly not indicative of the whole industry, I suspect it might not be far off the general environment. A lot of people have chosen to leave the field and hiring committees might be finding it difficult to identify good candidates because they are looking to hire for an environment that no longer exists and candidates are looking to join an organization that has acknowledged the work and change that needs to occur.

N.B. – regarding the post title. With all the social media abbreviations, has the old print classified “in search of -/i/s/o” entirely fallen out of use or do folks use it on dating apps?

NPR Series May Help Expand Conversation About Theatre in US

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Keep your radio tuned and your ears open to your local NPR station for the next month or so, especially if you are a theatre professional. The network is doing a series over the next five weeks about the 75th anniversary of the regional theatre movement. In a piece that aired this morning, they provide a little bit of a preview of the topics they are going to hit on from the impact of Covid, to economic concerns, regional theatres as a feeder to Broadway and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The short piece mentions many of the conversations and activities which have unfolded over the last few years, from the mass resignations at Victory Gardens Theatre; the “We See You White American Theater” statement; the viability of subscription model and questions about the utility of the non-profit governance structure:

Theaters also started rethinking subscription plans that prioritize well-off people who can purchase a season’s worth of prime seats in advance, while leaving everyone else scrambling for leftovers. And they began reconsidering the current, frustrating governance model at most non-profits, where theater artists must answer to a volunteer board of directors, often with little theater expertise, which has all of the authority and none of the accountability.

It may be useful to have these topics discussed by an outlet outside of the usual theatre channels. Being able to point to NPR stories may end up being like the consultant effect where an outside “expert” repeats everything internal staff has been saying resulting in decisions to mobilize to achieve important goals.

Most board members and patrons don’t read American Theatre and related information sources, but many do listen to NPR and find it a credible information source. The NPR series can provide an entree for conversation or simply raise awareness among the greater community involved with arts and cultural entities around the country.

How Will Non-Profit Law Change To Meet Shifting Expectations?

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Gene Tagaki raises some interesting thoughts over on the Non-Profit Law blog on the question of how legal concepts and structures may need to adjust to reflect changing values in the non-profit sphere.  He lays out some thoughts in regard to Charitability, Philanthropy, Governance, Technology, Fundraising, Advocacy, and Employment.

I provide this list with the intention of sparking enough interest in folks to read more deeply because I am only going to touch on a few ideas that popped for me.

One question he raised was whether the IRS would need to adjust its definition of 501(c)(3) entities:

“Would relief of historically discriminated groups of individuals without regard to poverty or distress now qualify as charitable? Would the sale of alternative energy sources for personal use be charitable even if at market rates?”

Tagaki also points out that there is a growing shift in how fundraising is accomplished and how the work of social good is being framed. He notes that crowdfunding focused on supporting a specific project or individual versus organizations which help many. He also cites corporate efforts to “charity-wash” their activities by positioning themselves as reducing social problems.

“Fundraising trends also raise other legal concerns as nonprofit fundraisers face competitive pressure from those raising money from crowdfunding platforms to help specific individuals rather than charities, businesses proclaiming to do more social good than nonprofits, and entrepreneurs looking to both help charitable causes while creating for themselves an opportunity to earn substantial amounts of money.”

Finally, Takagi observes there is a trend not only toward remote work, but also shared leadership of organizations. This approach is likely to exist in tension, if not complete conflict with a hierarchical board governance model legally required of nonprofits in the US.

“Many organizations are struggling with this movement as there are clear and proven benefits with traditional hierarchies and the law is built on boards having ultimate responsibility and authority over the activities and affairs of their corporations. But there are shifts in power that are possible, and laws or regulatory guidance that confirm the appropriateness of certain delegations of authority may be helpful. What are some of the distributed leadership systems that would be helpful if recognized by sector leaders as good practice and by lawmakers and regulators as acceptable?”

As always, many things to think about for the future.