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More On Mergers And Alliances

July 8, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

I have had non-profit mergers on the mind of late due to some personal experience so it is no wonder that two entries on the subject from different blogs caught my attention today.

The first was a book review by Gene Takagi at Non-Profit Law blog. He recommends Nonprofit Mergers & Alliances by Thomas A. McLaughlin. Takagi starts out referencing a quote from the book supporting the old truism that it is best to enter a negotiation in a position of strength.

“Indeed, the book had me at “hello” or, rather, its first sentence: ‘The best time to consider a merger or an alliance is before it is necessary, when coming together with another organization will mean combining strength with strength, and when the collective energies and the creativity of the two or more entities can be used proactively instead of being sapped by the demands of crisis management.’ “

This concept is actually central to the commentary made in the second blog post I saw today, Drew McManus talking about Philadelphia Orchestra and Philly Pops decision not to merge. The former would have absorbed the latter. Drew cites the troubles the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera had with their merger. The orchestra and pops adopted a gradual approach to the merger and that revealed some of the potential difficulties they might face as a single entity. Both organizations will work in close partnership, but retain separate governance structures.

As you might imagine from the title of the book he reviews, Takagi notes that there are different stages to both mergers and alliances and lists them out. According to Takagi, the book outlines the pros and cons to both approaches and provides some good advice about very complex undertakings.

The book may be a good resource for the next generation of non-profit leaders. Apparently McLaughlin feels that “nonprofit services are fragmented and how consolidation is part of a nonprofit’s life cycle.” Given all the talk about mergers of late, I believe there is more behind that statement than just an attempt to sell a book about how to accomplish such things.

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As The Brochure Folds

July 6, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

I am in the process of having our season brochure designed for the upcoming year and it seems like the way the brochure is folded is taking great precedence over the actual content of the piece. Because of postal regulations about the way items may be mailed the printing houses are suggesting we change the way we fold the brochure. It will be the same size and shape as we had planned, but will require fewer seals to hold it closed when we mail it. Fewer seals means a savings in the printing and mailing.

Except that the way the brochure opens is very important. More to the point, what people see when they first open the brochure is very important. A few years back, the first thing you saw when you opened the brochure were the compelling eyes of an Indian dancer. People opened the brochure and had a real “wow” experience. Last year we used a different designer and she took another approach to the arrangement of the information. Instead of an image, the first thing you saw was text. It wasn’t as ideal a situation in my mind, but the design positioned information in a better place for those who attached the brochure to refrigerators and bulletin boards as reminders. (We get a lot of ticket orders throughout the year from people who keep our brochure.)

The text people first saw last year when they opened the brochure dealt with our flex subscriptions and volunteering. Both areas saw an increase in participation last year proving that I really need to pay attention to what is on that first panel. I will be getting a full size sample to proof from the designer tomorrow. You can be assured one of the first things I will do is figure out how it folds and open and close it many times to determine what our patrons’ experience is going to be like.

I mention all these factors, of course, by way of pointing out the practical application of the various considerations you might employ when designing brochures.

Audience Relations, Info You Can Use, Marketing/PR

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Info You Can Use: Understanding Financial Statement Basics

July 5, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

If you are new to a position as board member or administrator of an arts organization or if you have simply resolved to become better educated about your business’ financials, Inc magazine offers a series of articles comprising a quick primer on what they all mean. This month’s article is “How to Understand an Income Statement.” This is a good place to start if you don’t know the difference between an income statement and a cash flow statement.

It is especially a good place to start if you don’t know how a company can be extremely profitable, but unable to pay its bills each month. There are also articles on how to identify why you can’t pay your bills each month too.

If you have no idea where to begin and what is important to look at, they have articles on tracking the pertinent numbers and help you with a basic understanding of what they are and why they are important.

Of course, it is good to remember that there are some measures which a non-profit doesn’t adhere to — like profit ratios on ticket sales when it is already known that earned revenue isn’t going to cover experiences.

Info You Can Use, Management Philosophy, Terms and Ideas

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Silly Violinist, You Dance In Train Stations

June 30, 2010

by:

Joe Patti

Toward the end of my work day, I received an email from a patron making a wide flung appeal:

“Opera has long been one of the arts that I don’t care about or support, but watching this video somewhat changed my mind.”

The video he refers to is the one below of the Opera Company of Philadelphia emerging from the crowds at Reading Terminal Market to perform a piece from La Traviata. The patron makes an appeal for someone on his email list to make this sort of thing happen locally and suggests a market as a site.

From my point of view, this is just part of a recent trend. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Washington National Opera did the same song in a Whole Foods. Another opera group also did La Traviata, though a different piece, in Valencia, Spain.

Opera seems to be for markets and musical theatre for train stations. Groups in Wellington, NZ and Antwerp, Belgium chose to give flash mob performances of “Do Re Mi” from the Sound of Music in local train stations. Perhaps Joshua Bell and Tasmin Little were ignored when they played anonymously in train stations because they chose to perform classical music rather than musical theatre and played music rather than danced.

To me it seems like an imaginative promotional stunt that will probably wear itself out pretty quickly given that everyone seems to be doing La Traviata and Sound of Music, regardless of geographical distance. But right now the idea is new, fresh and exciting to my local audience. So the question is–Are flash performances viable and how do you keep it fresh so the audiences don’t get jaded? These sort of performances can break down barriers to attendance by showing how accessible the material is. It will be necessary to make formal performances just as accessible though otherwise people will feel betrayed by a bait and switch.

People might be emboldened to stage similar events themselves, (please not High School Musical, please not High School Musical), and this could mark the start of a new populist form of performance (or a revival/revamping of some of basic staging concepts of the old pageant wagon mystery plays.)

Arts in an Age of Technology, New Initiatives, State of the Arts

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