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Effectively Merging Non-Profits

May 12, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

I apologize for missing my postings on Monday and Tuesday, I was away at a retreat to examine and discuss how to effectively merge the booking consortium to which I belong with the consortium that it spun off from. The meetings occurred in another part of the state and I didn’t have ready access to a computer and the time to write entries.

I use the phrase “effectively merge,” the same words we used throughout most of our discussions, because the truth is that an actual merger of two non-profits is a lengthy, involved and expensive process. What will happen in reality is that the one organization will be dissolved and its assets and members will be transferred to the other as is allowed by its founding documents. But in effect, it is a merger.

A good portion of the first day seemed to be spent composing the correct syntax for the required motions that would be made the next day at the annual meetings of both organizations to start this process. Since we already intended to rewrite our bylaws per the suggestions of an attorney we consulted, we were resolved to dedicate the next year to working on the rewrite. We also were determined to examine the organization and what we wanted it to be. As a consequence, both groups will remain in existence as separate entities for another year laboring jointly to define the bylaws and purpose of the combined organization.

Even though it is likely to be the most dry and boring, I joined the Governance and Membership Committee just for the experience of redefining the nuts and bolts of the organization. I figured it would make good material for blog posts if nothing else.

I also joined the Artistic Selection Committee. The other committees are Marketing/Sponsorship/Grants and Education. Among the things the committees are going to explore are what does it mean to be a member? What are the benefits of participation? Should membership be tiered to both allow casual partnerships with non-member groups and provide greater benefits to those who are more extensively involved.

We are going to examine how we go about selecting artists to present in the context of many different factors. Since we would like to pursue gaining sponsorships as a group and offer companies the opportunity to have exposure across the state, we will have to decide how the program is designed and the sponsored show is chosen. There is also the big issue of whether such arrangements will endanger relationships individual members had with these companies previously. Why sponsor shows at a single venue when you can do so across the entire state? On the other hand, perhaps your brand is diminished by having your name associated with theatres that serve a less elite clientele and you don’t want your ads appearing in their programs.

There are similar questions for the education area. A recent partnership resulted in an experience between schools, audiences and artists that could have yielded a more extensive interaction had the time and resources been available to exploit the situation. If these are the opportunities we want to pursue, where do the staff hours and other resources come from?

That brings us back to the work of the other committees exploring what it means to be a member and what sort of investment in the organization is needed to benefit from its efforts, including any packages put together to offer potential sponsors.

One of the desires stated this week was to expand the membership to include other arts organizations around the state. By redesigning the purpose of the organization a little, we hope to increase our relevance to other groups. They may only do a show once or twice a year, but they can find the process greatly facilitated by our expertise. I think there could be a reciprocal benefit. Perhaps connections the new groups have open up more churches and schools to chamber concerts and outreaches. (Or local artists and churches/schools became more aware of each other.)

So my question here at the end of the entry is this—has anyone had any experiences similar to this? I have to help generate bylaws and policies to guide this organization and it would be nice not to reinvent the wheel. Are you a member of a consortium or partnership between different arts organizations which works together to achieve certain goals?

I am looking more for an arrangement where all decisions and initiatives are generated and executed by the members rather than a situation like an arts council where the council works to advance the interests of the members. We operate as a board organization rather than a membership organization. Though I would be interested in learning about any multi-organizational partnership arrangement that diverges from everyone else does.

Boards, Leadership, New Initiatives

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Board Stories (Plus Board Development Scholarship Info)

May 5, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

I don’t often see blog entries on someone’s practical experience solving board related problems so I was pleased to follow a link on a Non Profit Law blog Tweets of the Week Entry to BoardSource’s Board Life Matters blog. There Melissa Sines talks about her experience on a board experiencing Battered Board Syndrome in the wake of the Executive Director’s unexpected departure.

She relates some very common problems her board faced:

“The relationship between board and staff had always been a rocky one in our organization. It was hard to ignore the finger-pointing taking place on both sides of the table. It was a classic case of management saying, “The board doesn’t fundraise enough, what good are they?” and the board saying, “The staff doesn’t listen to anything we say, anyway, what use are we?”

She credits a grant that allowed her board to engage in a year long training process covering myriad issues with saving the organization.

I haven’t had the opportunity to read the rest of the blog to see how useful it might be, but I couldn’t help but notice the most recent entry offering 20 scholarships to allow “emerging nonprofit leaders to participate in the annual BoardSource Leadership Forum to deepen their governance knowledge.”

This is the first scholarship I have heard with the aim of improving board governance so it bears attention. The criteria are:

* Are either
o nonprofit board members with less than three years of experience serving on a nonprofit board
o nonprofit executives or staff members with less than three years of experience working with a nonprofit board
* Have demonstrated leadership ability and potential for their organization and the nonprofit community
* Are affiliated with a nonprofit organization that has an annual budget less than $5 million
* Will enrich the diversity of the sector. Diversity includes but is not limited to age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability.
* Would not otherwise be able to attend the BoardSource Leadership Forum and have not attended a previous Forum

Boards

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Info You Can Use: DON’T FORFEIT YOUR NON-PROFIT STATUS!

May 4, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

I can’t believe I forgot to post this since the booking consortium I belong to had a brief heart attack until we realized we were in compliance.

According to the NY Times, about 1/4 of Non-profits will automatically lose their non-profit tax status as of May 15. Not for profit organizations that made less than $25,000 a year didn’t used to have to file. A law passed in 2006 said any non-profit that doesn’t file for three consecutive years will lose their status. Since that covers calendar years 2006-2009, that means the end is nigh for a lot of small organizations. Groups this small may not have kept their contact information up to date and didn’t receive the warning letters the IRS sent out in 2007.

This may not impact the large arts organization you work for, but the smaller charities, trade associations and membership groups (maybe your block association?) to which you belong might be at risk.

The good news is that all you need to do to comply is send back a postcard form informing the IRS that you are still exempt from having to file the full 990.

Even better news–you can file this postcard, the 990-N electronically online at the IRS website.

General Musings, Info You Can Use, State of the Arts

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No Ketchup Arts Outreaches!

May 3, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

I have been thinking about how my theatre can serve our constituencies. Since the assistant theatre manager has been involved in developing curriculum for studies of Filipino history in the state, I thought he might be dealing with the state fine arts content standards and could advise me a little bit about them. He isn’t really, but that is okay because the standards are pretty readily available.

My main thought was to help some of the schools we have relationships with by providing them with a list of the content standards our outreach performances might fulfill. I have seen arts organizations and artists provide this sort of information in study packets for events. I figure it will be easier for the busy teacher to say yes if we provide information to show how the artist can benefit them.

I looked at the state standards today and began to wonder how an assembly program could ever suffice to fulfill the standards. All the requirements involve a fair bit of action by the students. For example, one of the 6-8 grade general music benchmarks (non-orchestra or choral, which have their own standards) is “Improvise a short pattern or melody to be performed with a rhythmic and/or melodic accompaniment.” The sample performance assessment they offer is “The student: Completes the last phrase of a given melody or improvises a short melody to be performed with a selected rhythmic accompaniment.” The most general benchmark I found that might be applied to an assembly program would be to “Evaluate the effectiveness of a musical performance or composition.”

We mostly offer more one on one experiences to schools, master classes and small group programs, so there is an opportunity to provide information to a teacher in advance so he/she can instruct the students to pay attention to certain aspects in preparation for an assignment that will extend the concepts of the activity they will be involved in. It made me wonder if that was why we often had people turn down services we could provide for free in their classroom spaces. In schools where there are so many other testable standards to strive for, it can be difficult to find the time to prepare and implement an additional lesson for an outside activity. We aren’t just taking an hour out of the class. If the teacher wants to exploit the opportunity to meet a standard, the students need to be prepared in advance and then time needs to be taken later to produce some measurable result connected to the outreach experience. In some cases, if the student are up demonstrating what they have learned by the end of the outreach, then perhaps additional time to evaluate won’t be necessary.

Really, while there is a double-edged sword element to having a standard that requires so much work to meet, this is the way we want it. We don’t want a standard that is easily ticked off a list by sitting quietly in a dark room for an hour while something happens. We actually had this conversation today and referenced the fact that at one time ketchup was considered a vegetable when determining if a school lunch provided balanced nutrition. (Though I am afraid it still might be.) We don’t want an arts standard to be met with a ketchup experience!

Many artists have good study guides that provide suggested activities, explanations of technical words, instruments and equipment that will be used in the outreach. The problem is, many artists don’t reinforce what is in the study guide, nor are they often asked to touch on specific subjects that may be pertinent to the activities the teacher has planned. There are a few artists that are sending out study guides created for them by places like the Kennedy Center and Michigan’s University Musical Society. They are nicely put together, but the school performances the artists present often don’t connect back to them in a way that facilitates the student learning. In part it might be due to not having been involved in the study guide’s creation, which admittedly can be a tough thing to coordinate.

The study guides will tell you to “watch for…” but the artists often don’t follow up by referencing those elements in what they are about to play or just played. This is not to say we want artists to look at their study guides and deliver a rote performance that corresponds to the material therein. Looking at the standards, it made me realize that a little more communication can go a long way. Either passing on what the artist has decide to cover to the schools so they can prepare or asking the artists to touch upon topics that are related to what students are learning in school.

Many of the artists we work with seem to be open to that sort of thing and ask if there is anything we want covered. It occurs to me that we haven’t been doing a good job of asking the schools we are working with if there is anything it would be helpful to cover.

Art(ist) Education

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