What Price Culture?

An OpEd article in this past weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal by Douglas McLennan, editor of artsjournal.com questions whether the current financial model of arts organizations, increasingly focusing on "business-like" activities such as charging admissions fees, courting underwriters, and running retail shops is artistically appropriate and fiscally sustainable. He contends that the current system is "broken" and a new "model" must be invented.

It's clear that many arts and cultural institutions are stuggling. In my hometown, an institution as world renowned as the Pittsburgh Symphony continues to stuggle even after earning a majority of its operating budget through earned income and garnering salary concessions from its musicians.

However, what Mr. McLennan doesn't do in his article is suggest what a new model for arts and cultural organizations should look like, contending that we're "stretching traditional nonprofit status to the point of breaking". Although I'm not sure that there's is an obvious "answer", I do know that going back to the way the arts were "funded" a generation ago is not a viable solution. For example, patrons in the past had fewer choices on which to spend their entertainment dollars and the exodus out of many urban areas (including my own) over the years has reduced the size of the customer base. The bottom line is that arts and cultural institutions are exposed to market forces like never before and have no choice but to respond in ways that more closely resemble businesses.

Earned income activities not tied to the core mission of the organization, like a coffee shop run by a museum, is not likely to ever generate significant profits. They are mostly stopgap measures. However, social enterprise initiatives intimately linked to mission and run with the intent to make money (like all businesses, there is no guarantee) can not only effectively compete and grow but can also build organizational capacity, supplement other objectives of the organization (e.g., grow membership), and open up new revenue-generating opportunties.

One of the ventures in the Accelerator's portfolio is the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, PA. Like the organizations described by Mr. McLennan, the WMAA struggles to maintain a preeminent status among regional museums in the U.S. while ensuring its financial sustainability.
Its earned income initiatives, fully supporting the museum's mission to educate people about the art and history of their country, have not only generated increasing financial returns but has resulted in a variety of exciting (and potentially profit-making) partnerships.

For example, the Westmoreland was the premier show in the Visionaries eleventh season of profiling socially innovative individuals and organizations around the world for PBS and the Wisdom Channel. Entitled American Art-Alive and Well the episode is described as:

Bonded by an extraordinary personal event, a small group of people transform a stodgy old museum into a vibrant place pulsating with the energy of young people discovering art, history and music for the first time. The music of the NewLanders a group of Pittsburgh area musicians and songwriters who have researched and rediscovered songs written by, and about, the people of southwestern Pennsylvania is part of that story.

The business model for arts and cultural institutions may have outlived its usefulness but I would contend that the future still looks a lot like the present, with more of the very best and most relevant practices of the private, public, and citizen sector injecting life into a critical aspect of society.