Nonprofit Infrastructure & Creativity

This is a thoughtful article about arts nonprofits but applicable to any nonprofit struggling with issues of developing infrastructure and still remaining creatively engaged in mission fulfillment, from the Nonprofit Quarterly.

An excerpt.

“For some time, we’ve sung the “How do we stabilize the arts community?” blues. For at least 20 years now, we’ve been rewriting that song’s lyrics. But now, maybe it’s time to change the music.

“In 1990, I became an arts administrator, and in 1992, I became the associate director of ARTS Inc., Los Angeles’s only service provider that focused on small and medium-size organizations in all artistic disciplines. During that time, I cut my consulting teeth on the National Endowment for the Arts Challenge and Advancement program as an organizational assessor and, later, as a consultant.

“After moving up the ranks to executive director and then leaving the organization in 1997, I launched my own consulting practice to work with arts organizations with operating budgets of less than $1 million. Working in this part of the arts community often feels like living on the wrong side of the consulting tracks. Most of my colleagues—who have gone on to work with high-profile clients: funders, institutions, policy makers, and even for-profit corporations—now find little in common with me.

“Despite intolerably scarce resources (especially for organizational consultants), I stay in this artistic neighborhood because artists maintain a close relationship with the artistic product. They are not afraid of creative challenges; there’s no shortage of energy, commitment, and leadership; their ability to problem-solve is humbling; and my services and skills are desperately needed. As a consultant, I am a part and an observer of this community; which continues to produce work and remains relatively consistent despite political and social upheaval, public and private philanthropic cutbacks, artistic red alerts, and corporate change. This community is fearless, resilient, and inspirational almost daily.

“Still, these groups struggle with a conundrum that often saps their creativity: if they are mired in operational problems created by traditional mandates to build infrastructure and engage in strategic planning for the future, how can they maintain the spontaneity that fuels their craft?”