A week and a half ago, Americans for the Arts staff were in trains, planes, and loaded down automobiles, headed for Charm City, aka Baltimore, MD, for our Half-Century Summit. Since I work directly with Americans for the Arts’ Emerging Leaders network and our leadership development programs, I spent time participating in Goucher College’s Leadership Symposium, and many of the leadership themed sessions at the Summit.

At the Summit, a recurring conversation in our sessions centered on how we as individuals and organizations could make professional development for our field a larger priority. And by priority, we don’t mean a larger piece of our dwindling budgets. The majority of arts organizations are struggling to figure out how to do more with less, and we need to develop ways to continue making professional development a priority during this tough economy.

In the results from the 2009 Survey to the field of Emerging Arts Leaders, I was shocked to discover that while 70 percent of our current emerging leaders consider arts administration their long term career, only 28.5 percent either strongly agree or agree that there is room for career advancement within their organization.

How will the remaining 41.5 percent of those who want to stay in the field realistically do so when they don’t feel they can grow?

Ian David Moss

On Friday afternoon, I sat in on one of the AFTA Summit's Visionary Panels, "New and Emerging Business Models."  Moderated by Adrian Ellis of Jazz at Lincoln Center and AEA Consulting, the high-powered panel also featured Adam Huttler of Fractured Atlas (aka my boss), Clara Miller of Nonprofit Finance Fund, and Terence McFarland of LA Stage Alliance. (Ben Cameron and Shay Wafer were originally scheduled to appear, but could not make it; McFarland sat in for them instead.)

The panelists each brought a somewhat different perspective to the concept of “new models.” Ellis emphasized a separation between means and ends, defining a new model as an alternative way to accomplish one’s core mission (which presumably remains the same). Nonprofit Finance Fund’s Miller cited high fixed costs as the bane of many nonprofits’ existence and drew a laugh from the audience when she defined a new business model – the only one, in fact – as “reliable revenue that is greater than expenses. Any questions?” Huttler quoted the University of Wisconsin’s Andrew Taylor in describing Fractured Atlas’s model as “mission-oriented around sunk costs, profit-oriented around marginal costs.” Put another way, Fractured Atlas will seek grant funds and other contributed revenue to help pay for one-time expenses such as start-up capital, but always with the expectation that any new program or activity will eventually be able to sustain itself through earned income. McFarland described his organization’s historical reliance on earned income, noting that when he took the leadership reins the proportion of revenue that fell into that category was an astonishing 95%. While that percentage has since fallen somewhat, LA Stage Alliance still employs novel strategies such as marketing its connections with member theaters to interested parties in the private sector (such as newspapers). Despite the economy, LA Stage ended last year with a six-figure surplus.

Sparks began to fly a bit during the next exchange, when Huttler pointed to the contributed-income model (in which the people using the product or service – the customers – are not the same as the people paying for the product or service – the donors) as being inherently problematic. In his view, though the sector is likely stuck with it to some extent, this arrangement can distort programming because those holding the financial cards have a disproportionate amount of power to direct outcomes. Ellis responded that this is in fact what distinguishes the nonprofit sector from the private sector -- why would we change our mission in response to the market instead of changing how we accomplish our mission?

by Emily Spruill and Stephanie Evans

As the Americans for the Arts’ Emerging Leaders Council started to develop our focus for the coming years, we kept asking ourselves, who is our audience?  What do they need?  So before we start assuming how we can help emerging leaders, we decided to ask you.  The Emerging Leaders Council spent 2009 drafting the questions for an Emerging Leaders Network Field Survey.  By January 2010, 554 of you had let us know about yourself and what’s on your mind.

The survey confirmed a lot of what we thought to be true:  Most of you are very active in seeking out professional development – either within your community or at national convenings.  The majority of you (over 75%) are also very involved with advocating for the arts at the local and/or national level.

While the survey results indicate that emerging arts leaders want and need professional development, only 31% of you indicated that there is a budget line for professional development in your organization’s budget. It is clear that organizational support for employee’s professional development has been reduced or eliminated entirely in 2009/2010 budgets.