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IRS Gonna Getcha

October 19, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

Apropos of my bonus ponder yesterday, I commented on Artful Manager that a flexible view of non-profit status might not be well received by the IRS.

Lo and behold, the Chronicle of Philanthrophy has an article about how the IRS is scrutinizing non-profits more closely these days. The unit handling non-profits is still fairly small, but it is getting more personnel. They are conducting more audits than before. They have started a new program of preliminary investigations and partial audits to help clarify matters. (Check out the charts at the bottom to see how these activities grown in recent years.)

To balance the scary spectre of an audit, they have also started offering training for charities as well to help them keep their books in good shape and their activities in compliance.

State of the Arts

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300 Million Reasons to Ponder

October 18, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

Just something quick to think about. The US population reaching 300 million has had a lot of press of late. I don’t know if you noticed though that the US fertility rate is only 2.1 children per woman and has been for awhile now. At that rate, the US population will hold static. We would have never reached 300 million from birth rate alone.

The population growth has been and will be, due to immigrants. So the question to ponder is, what is your organizations long range plan for serving your community in recognition of this fact?

If you have the brain power to ponder many things at once, try this for a bonus- Andrew Taylor links to an article suggesting a hybrid corporate status for non-profits. Or rather, hybrid status for corporations performing non-profit like activities.

On the whole, I think Andrew is right about needing a more flexible approaching with the tools we got. It is absolutely worth reading the long version of the article though if you feel the need for change.

General Musings

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There’s A Rat In The Audience (And It’s Not the Critic)

October 17, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (subscription required) may have implications for arts organizations if some lawsuits and other efforts are successful.

Colleges across the country are being faced with students demanding that they be allowed to bring cats, dogs, snakes, rats, ferrets and tarantulas into dorm rooms and classrooms with the idea that they are service animals. Rather than claiming a physical disability, they are saying the animals provide “psychiatric service.” (I wonder though if claiming an animal that causes anxeity in everyone around you can be considered a comfort aide.)

A few students who have had their requests denied have filed suits under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA “defines a service animal as ‘any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.'”

Some animals are trained to provide comfort and direction to people with agoraphobia and schizophrenia by their very nature and presence. As such, they serve a passive role so it can be argued that the ADA encompasses animals that don’t do specific tasks. Some groups are doing just that asking the Department of Justice to revise regulations to include such activities.

For the most part, courts have ruled with the idea that an animal must provide active service. There is at least one court that has ruled that a person could keep a comfort animal despite the no-pets clause in a rental lease.

The idea of needing animals to help one cope with all situations is spreading. Apparently people have tried to board airplanes claiming goldfish as service animals. (At least they didn’t want to bring snakes on a plane!)

The instances of people needing comfort animals is not isolated either. Rutgers University “received five requests to accommodate a psychiatric-service animal in a single year – three cats, one dog, and a snake.”

This is just something of which to be aware. People may start to appear at your box office wanting to attend a show with an animal that helps them cope with being out in public or even the subject matter of the performance. And it may not be accompanied by a dog in a service cape.

Audience Relations

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Themed Seasons

October 16, 2006

by:

Joe Patti

I was at a meeting a couple weeks ago to learn how the tourism authority was going to promote the arts over the next year. Someone suggested that the arts organization program along a unified theme and use that as something of a hook. The same thing had been suggested at the same meeting last year. Remembering some of the problems with that idea, I was going to speak up but someone effectively removed the idea from the table.

One of the travel writers in attendance told us that the publications that commissioned stories weren’t really interested in stories about themed seasons. She mentioned a number of other ways to pique interest, but said that wasn’t one of them.

If that is true for travel journals, I wonder if it is true for local publications as well. Early on in the planning of our current season, we noticed that a theme of revolving around storytelling ran through it. We started promoting the season with a “What’s Your Story” theme and invited people to submit anecdotes on the website. We got plenty of orders but nothing submitted. (Not terribly surprising or worrisome) But we also got no acknowledgment from any media.

Granted there isn’t a real big compelling hook in the theme. I was wondering if anyone had any recent success with getting recognition for themed seasons. I wouldn’t mind terribly if the media doesn’t care for them. It’s less effort and brainpower on my part if I don’t have to come up with a common thread to bind my season to get attention.

That said, about seven years ago when I was working in Orlando, FL, my theatre was part of a cooperative effort on the part of many arts organizations to present works based around Oscar Wilde. If you put any effort in to it, you can easily arrive at our slogan- Go Wilde! The local papers did cover the effort with a feature story and mentioned the theme whenever a show that was part of the theme was being performed.

I don’t know if it is a matter of different time, different place that is dictating the lack of interest in mentioning the theme. The papers in Orlando might not have been as interested in writing something up if it weren’t for the fact people could get a discount by grabbing a free punchcard and going around to visit the different events.

A theme is one thing, but a theme that motivates people to buy the paper to find out where and when the next discounted performance in the series might be provides a newspaper with a good reason to report on it.

Anyone else out there have any successes or failures at promoting a themed season or series of events in cooperation with others?
Email me or comment below..

Marketing/PR

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