As austerity programs have been adopted by many nations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, leaders in many fields have asked whether our definitions of economic performance shouldn’t be broader than measures that are only financial (e.g., GDP). This includes cultural leaders, many (but not all) of who have a more expansive view of ‘success’ and ‘wellbeing’ than can be captured by financial metrics alone, whether for themselves or their organizations. This is unsurprising given they have chosen to work in a sector where it is the exception rather than the rule to define success only in financial terms.

In our preparatory conference calls and at Sundance, there was considerable agreement that a more expansive definition of what constitutes a successful economy is warranted; there was rather more divergent thought on whether effecting this sort of change is realistic given their resources and competing priorities. From dozens of possible answers to this question, a few emerged as particularly galvanizing for those present, including me. It took different forms, but each related to the notion that the wider economy and arts & culture would mutually benefit from closer connections. We imagined leaders, creative entrepreneurs of all kinds (regardless of tax status), working with an increased awareness of the social, governmental and economic contexts in which they work. I found this particularly exciting because it stands in stark opposition to one of the more frustrating dynamics often seen in our field: a failure to more fully engage with all sectors of our communities unless an ‘arts issue’ is at stake and a too frequent tendency to subdivide our field into smaller and smaller groups, at times muting our voices and impact when they are most needed. Hearing these discussions at Sundance, my hopes for the field – and a better definition of a new economy – were buoyed. I am reminded of Theaster Gates’ words at an event in Chicago earlier this year: ‘Art can no longer afford to be concerned only with itself.’

CC by SA audreywatters

In late April, NAS attended the Open Education Global Conference 2015 in Banff, Canada. We were fully prepared to “wonk” out – and weren’t disappointed. If you’re wondering “what is open education?” – you’re not alone! The Open Education Consortium (a conference organizer) offers a definition:

Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.

Put another way, open education is the application of open source principles that may be more familiar to you from the software and technology worlds.

We travelled to Banff seeking to learn more about the newest thinking in pedagogy and technology driving online learning. We did, but were also quickly initiated into a new world of “open:” open education (OE), OE resources (OER), “Z degrees” (zero textbooks), the role of Creative Commons, building sustainable open business models and critically, the difference between “open” and “free.”

The conference drew a primarily academic audience, and an astonishingly diverse one, from global south and north. Particularly interesting were sessions on licensing/sublicensing MOOC (Massively Open Online Courses) content, frameworks for analyzing how organizations add value in creating MOOCs within the open context and new research findings on how to boost engagement in this new medium – a perennial challenge if you’ve taken or taught a MOOC.

We were fascinated at the similarities and contrasts between our work as a mission-based organization and the “open” ethos. At first, they seem highly aligned in sharing a goal of reducing barriers to access. When one begins to peel layers away, one sees the difference: free (or nearly free) isn’t the same as open. Early in the conference, after learning about our online library of video and other leadership tools, a new colleague assumed we made these available under a Creative Commons license. We realized they were not – and had the first personal inkling of the space between free and open.

As mission-based institutions, almost every arts and culture organization strives to make at least some of their programming, outreach and educational offerings available in a way that minimizes or removes price as a barrier. Many also work to remove cultural and geographic barriers. In Banff, we learned about the more expansive conception that is “open:” a desire to remove cost entirely; to reduce or eliminate corporate, private and governmental control of key resources (internet, intellectual property, technology protocols); to make intellectual property freely available for others to build on and recombine with other work. There is no single definition of open education. It is a “big tent.” We listened, met and talked with educators, technologists, a revolutionary or two, entrepreneurs, orthodox NGO leaders from wealthy nations, anarchists and academics. Unsurprisingly, there are divergent thoughts on how much purity is required to be truly open.

All organizations require resources, an economic logic that allows them to create value. There were rich and spirited conversations about what building a sustainable model in an open context means – for an organization and for the field. We left Banff with heads full after a very thought-provoking three days, considering what place “open” may have in our work and for the arts and culture field. How might we navigate the whitewater between open principles and our field’s values and practice? There is tension between our field’s embrace of inclusion and access and way of working that is often highly proprietary for creative and economic reasons. Could our online education programming be both free and open? If so, how open? What effect might this have on partnerships – and our economic logic? Stay tuned!

How do you define open? What might a more open version of your organization look like? Are you already there?

OE Global 2015 presentations (links to conference presentations, papers)

The next OE Global will be held in Kracow, Poland, from April 13-15, 2016.

The Audit Committee will see you now.

What is a board matrix? A board matrix (composition grid, etc.) for the governing board of a nonprofit organization is a tool that methodically attempts to first inventory the needs of an organization at board level, then the alignment between these needs and both current and potential board members. These needs can include skills & competencies, intrinsic qualities (race/ethnicity, gender, age, residence, sexual orientation), resources, networks or anything the organization values. Matrices range wildly in complexity, from simple to detailed. Neither approach is inherently superior or more sophisticated: a board matrix should be scaled to the qualities of the organization and its board: size, complexity and resources.

When is it time to use a board matrix? A good time is when you are evaluating your serving board, analyzing your board’s alignment with your current strategy (or a new one) or recruiting new board members. And yes, you should always be doing all of these.

Do I even need a board matrix? Jan Masaoka, publisher of Blue Avocado and CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits, argues “No” (worth reading in its entirety) and makes some excellent points in doing so:

This is a critical distinction. It also encourages the board to rigorously consider what the organization’s needs actually are – and that they shift over time. They are unique to each organization; there is no universal list appropriate for all organizations. Unfortunately, the rate of change in the organization’s needs and the rate of change in board composition are unlikely to be neatly aligned.

Other points are less convincing:

This is a good point, as far as it goes. While important to focus on actions needed, your board also needs to reflect the community it seeks to serve – a job that many boards can do better. This is an intrinsic good, although one with complex effects on a board’s ability to make decisions. There are many categories of diversity and the ones aren’t readily seen are just as important as those that are.

Categories and Types of Diversity

Social-category differences

• Race
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Age
• Religion
• Sexual orientation
• Physical abilities

Differences in knowledge or skills

• Education
• Functional knowledge
• Information or expertise
• Training
• Experience
• Abilities

Differences in values or beliefs

• Cultural background
• Ideological beliefs
• Personality differences
• Cognitive style
• Affective disposition
• Motivational factors

Organizational- or community-status differences

• Tenure or length of service
• Title
• Differences in social and network ties
• Work-related ties
• Friendship ties
• Community ties
• In-group memberships

You don’t suffer from illusory superiority, do you? You can keep these dimensions in mind when considering your organization’s needs, your board and potential new members without a crutch like a board matrix. Right? The question of whether you need a board matrix is better seen as a rhetorical one. It is a valuable tool, used deliberately.

How do you build the right board matrix for your organization?
Now we are in the thick of it without a one-handed economist. Your time as a board member or CEO is your most precious asset, and it’s finite. Ergo, it is critical to match the complexity (in the using and the building) with that of your board – and your organization. Who are your users? Your board? CEO? Nominating committee? External stakeholders? What problem does the matrix solve for them? Look at a variety of matrices so you have a good sense of their scope. The value of a well-constructed board matrix is at least twofold: agreeing to and “owning” what is most important for the organization and building a tool that will help you better achieve these objectives. Now, go to work!

[1] Elizabeth Mannix and Margaret A. Neale, “What Differences Make a Difference? The Promise and Reality of Diverse Teams in Organizations,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Vol. 6, No. 2, October 2005, 31-55.

As a 14-year old boy at school in Alexandria, Virginia, I had an embarrassment of riches: the chance to see as much theater as I wished by merely signing my name on a piece of paper at school. For a short time, I decided to ignore this in favor of more important pursuits like buying a fake ID (success) and not embarrassing myself playing football (fail). The first play I remember ignoring was Zorba the Greek with Anthony Quinn. I had no idea who Zorba was, but knew Anthony Quinn was a Big Deal. Theater excursions to Manhattan as a younger child to see Big Deals (Richard Burton, Camelot, Big Deal; Sarah Jessica Parker, Annie, later a Big Deal) mostly left me thinking, well, big deal. But being a teenager, it was my inner monologue that carried the day (Is this a cool thing to do? Indeterminate information. Wait this one out.) Cue 40 classmates raving the next day about the play and Anthony Quinn (Now sufficient data. Don’t be an idiot. Go to everything.). And so I did. And so it began. There were trips to Arena Stage, the Folger, the Kennedy Center. I learned much, like why smart girls don’t take German (‘It isn’t at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson.’ Cecily, The Importance of Being Earnest, somewhere in Act II, Arena) and the verities of father-daughter relationships (Lear, Folger). But in a story older than Nell Gwyn, it took an actress to hit me hard between the eyes and forever hook me on theater. Sinéad Cusack and Derek Jacobi, very much in that order in my mind, came to Washington in RSC productions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Much Ado about Nothing. I saw both back to back and the hook was set. I thought I was enamored with Sinéad Cusack, but I was beginning be enamored with theater. A year of theater took me to places I hadn’t imagined. In college, living in London, I had another year of theater. Every week Time Out would arrive and merely reading the culture listings, plotting the week, was dizzying. Again, I learned things: at the Royal Court, the Almeida and the National. There are thousands of reasons why culture and the arts are essential. There are almost an equal number of tired tropes claiming the same in service of another master that often do more harm than good. For me, it is simple. Theater showed me what humans can be, for good or ill: what they can do, why they stumble, why they kill, why they laugh, why they scheme and why they love. Theater helped me figure out a little more about what human I was and wanted to be. Many peak experiences in my life have been exiting a theater, mind ablaze or in stunned silence, but rarely feeling more human. I can’t think of anything more essential than that.

Image: puroticorico via Flickr

“How many times have
You heard someone say
If I had his money
I could do things my way”

– Johnny Cash, “A Satisfied Mind”
(Written by Jack Rhodes, Red Hayes)

Though I lack hooves, I have a burr under my saddle. In years of working with nonprofits, I have long since lost count of the number of times I’ve heard colleagues whose work and opinions I think highly of refer to our under-resourced sector. In conference panels and on blogs, in keynotes and cocktail conversations, we are witness to (and to be fair, participate in) references to this sectoral deficit. It often takes on the shape of an a priori assumption: self-evident and rarely challenged. What do we truly mean when we say – as individual organizations or as a field – that we are ‘under-resourced?’  Does repeating this statement help us solve the problem? Or handicap us?

I wonder if we all have the same thing in mind when we say under-resourced: that we don’t have as much as money as we need? We have to ask too much of our small staff? We have insufficient capital to invest in R&D or new work? We can’t afford to own our own space? To be sure, the there is a fundamental distinction between the nonprofit and commercial sectors. Over a decade after I first read them, the words of Adrian Ellis’ reminder stick in my mind (emphasis mine):

“All dynamic, mission-driven nonprofits live in the force field created by the tension between money and mission…the reason they are nonprofit organizations is not just because they are mission driven. It’s not just because their mission is valued by society. It’s also because the pursuit of mission is an axiomatically unprofitable activity.“

This is compounded by structural issues and historical funding patterns in the sector. While some of these have seen improvement, significant issues remain: insufficient funding for operating support, inadequate capital markets, convergence of sectoral low barriers to entry and high barriers to exit and disincentives for mergers (including but not limited to mission imperatives).

One often hears the assumption that as a field (and you may slice that moniker any way you like), we are under-resourced relative to the commercial sector: on the whole or specifically in relation to commercial organizations whose work is similar to or directly competes with ours. The commercial sector undoubtedly enjoys the advantages of deep and liquid capital markets and, perhaps less appreciated, sometimes a more direct feedback loop with those they aim to serve. Scale is also an issue: it can be difficult to adapt lessons on creativity, innovation and design thinking in your own work as a $1M organization when studying Apple (2013 revenues of $170.87 billion). Nevertheless, it is perhaps too easy for some to dismiss what may be possible because of differences in scale in resources: unlike Athena, neither Apple nor the Metropolitan Museum of Art sprang in their present form from the heads of Steve Jobs or John Taylor Johnston (and friends).

As leaders of mission-driven cultural organizations, we naturally want more:  to offer more, to serve more, to reach more, to break more new ground, to win more hearts and minds, to advocate more, to provoke more. This usually requires resources which are often in scarcer supply than vision, ambition and entrepreneurial drive.

But being under-resourced isn’t an absolute. It is a function of – and therefore only has meaning in relation to – the scale and scope of one’s aspirations for programming (and less poetically, fixed costs). If as a field we are quick to agree we are perpetually under-resourced, I wonder what message this conviction has for those we seek to engage in our work and ultimately, our missions. Does this let us off the hook at any level? When is this, well, false? Is this always a financial issue? When the issue is scarcity, is it easier to talk about our resources than our relevance?

Does this resonate with your experience, or fail to recognize the true nature of the situation? Are there ways to improve the quality of this conversation? Let us know what you think.

image via blogs.hbr.org

This post appears as a the first of an occasional series of tricks and tips you may find useful in tackling your daily challenges.

Does your team ever get stuck in a creativity rut? Do you think you need a license to be creative, especially if this isn’t part of your job title or job description? Do you need a shockabuku? Even the best teams get stuck once in a while, but you don’t have to be on the artistic side of the organization to be creative. What you do need to do is practice. In this HBR blog post, brothers Tom and David Kelley of deservedly legendary design and innovation shop IDEO offer three creativity challenges to help you or your whole team. With as little as 15 minutes and materials you likely already have at hand, you can use these exercises to incite riotous creativity in yourself and your team.

Tip: If this sort of activity is new for you, try a solo exercise first (see #1). Then pull in your team.

In the post, Wood states:

“…not enough funders are investing in strengthening the leadership of their grantees. And second, many of those who do may not be providing the kind of support that nonprofit leaders want and need… In stark contrast to the corporate sector, most grantmakers do not view leadership development as an essential investment that pays off over the long run. They see such support as a “nice-to-have,” even a luxury.”

I am always pleased to see funders supporting professional development: generally advocating for it, funding it directly for their grantees or funding organizations that provide it for the field (as a provider of leadership development for the arts and culture sector, National Arts Strategies falls in this final category). I also hear arts and culture leaders articulate the value of professional development opportunities, for themselves and their teams: 77% of NAS Business of Arts and Culture alumni found the content in our leadership development programs highly relevant to their work.

Just as we are well served when we rely on the judgment of those leading the organizations we invest in regarding resource allocation generally (by funding general operating support as much as possible), I couldn’t agree more that leaders must be free to develop their own courses of professional development.

My experience has been somewhat different than the author’s in that I haven’t seen the majority of funders view leadership development for nonprofit executives as a luxury good, either in the arts and culture field or the nonprofit sector more broadly. Witness the efforts of organizations such as Independent Sector and the emergence of organizations such as The Center for Effective Philanthropy and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.

It is a challenge to point to definitive causal linkages between investment in leadership development and organizational performance gains given the universe of other factors that affect organizational performance. However, Wood points out, there is considerable evidence supporting the gains on such investment, not least from the very leaders funders are investing in. She points to evaluation data of the Haas, Jr. Fund’s Flexible Leadership Awards (FLA) grantees who have demonstrated tangible gains in many areas, including leadership capacity. An analysis of NAS evaluation data on arts and culture executives revealed similar experiences: 97% of organizations took action following participation in our leadership development programs and 88% experienced organizational change.

There is another kind of disconnect related to leadership development. I hear executives identify leadership development as critical to personal and organizational success as well as talent recruitment and retention, firsthand from nonprofit leaders NAS has worked with over the last ten years and in research such as the 2011 Daring to Lead study. However, leadership development budgets (where they exist) are among the first items to be cut in a downturn: precisely when, it can be argued, this investment is most critical.

I applaud Linda Wood for posing the question of what barriers exist to a greater appreciation by grantmakers of the impact professional development has on the performance of nonprofit leaders and their organizations and what more funders can do to support their grantees’ professional development needs without being prescriptive. There is of course a responsibility for nonprofit leaders who value professional development to advocate for it, ensuring funders and other stakeholders are aware it is a lever for increasing organizational performance and therefore, mission achievement. Finally, those of us who work to provide effective and relevant professional development opportunities must strive to continue to improve the evaluation of our programs’ impact, giving both leaders and funders common language and data to judge the return on this critical investment.

Photo: Will Sherman

Steve Blank wrote an interesting article in the May Harvard Business Review on “Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything.” The lean start-up refers to a methodology (more on that shortly) rather than an organization of a specific structure or size. While its roots are in the technology field, the methodology has interesting implications for arts and culture organizations.

This approach focuses on three key things. Rather than crafting an elaborate business plan, entrepreneurs use a conceptual framework known as the business model canvas, a way to capture nine critical elements of the organization and the hypotheses that underlie their business model (summarizing hypotheses). The second pillar is a keen focus on customer development: getting in front of as many potential customers and partners possible to test their hypotheses. Speed and nimbleness are valued over complete information or perfection. The goal is to create a “minimum viable product” which is put in front of potential customers for further feedback and improvement (testing hypotheses). The third leg of the stool is “agile development.” The product is incrementally and iteratively developed on a continual basis.

There are both commonalities and disjunctions (perhaps more of the latter) between the lean start-up methodology and the preponderance of management practices in the arts and culture field. Certainly, few cultural organizations – regardless of their life cycle – were founded with detailed business plans in mind, if one at all. A bias towards experimentation rather than elaborate planning will be familiar to many organizations, if more common on the artistic side than the administrative. The notion of a “minimum viable product” will be understandably antithetical to most mission-driven cultural organizations.

What do you think? Do we have something to learn from the “lean start-up” approach? Are there aspects of this approach that are already central to the way your organization runs?

In the 21^st century, leaders seeking to transform their organizations and (more importantly) the field will need to be more nimble and less risk-averse. To succeed, this will require at least as much of a change in organizational culture as in organizational design and financial resources. We are right to trumpet the arts and culture field as a wellspring of innovation (R&D for the larger creative sector, inter alia) but must acknowledge that these virtues are hampered by our risk aversion (1, 2), a most powerful foil for innovation. At our best, we reach new heights of excellence, agitate for change and create and concoct amazing objects and experiences. Would that this extended to the systems and structures we’ve erected over the past fifty years or more! New models suggest possible alternatives, if not easy answers. Leaders and organizations that will be able to truly effect transformative change are those that have made themselves relevant, even indispensable, to their communities.

So, how do we identify talent best suited to meeting these challenges? How do we attract and retain them? How do we design organizations up to these challenges?

Big data [are] high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective,
innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making.

Good! Three very important dimensions, but we’re not quite there. SAS boils it down a bit:

Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth, availability and use of information, both structured and unstructured.

The big data “conversation” reaches into all aspects of contemporary society: from commerce to open government to philanthropy and yes, nonprofits. Many writing about big data understandably begin with quantifying the ever-accelerating mass of information (petabytes! Trillions upon trillions of bytes!) that can easily overwhelm any manager, especially those in a sector where many organizations find it difficult to invest sufficiently in information technology. Yet, the siren call of learning more about our audiences, donors, employees and other stakeholders remains. What opportunities are there to surface new information that might help us run better organizations and achieve our missions?

In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, Jacob Harold (President & CEO, Guidestar) suggests nonprofit leaders master “medium data” before tackling big data. There, he acknowledges both the possibility (there are 371 platforms for gathering data about the nonprofit world) and the limitations of big data for nonprofits. He offers three suggestions:

1. Don’t freak out.
2. Focus on what nonprofits have in common.
3. Default to openness.

This is a helpful filter for analyzing the potential impact of big data for your organization and worth a read.

Nonprofits: Master “Medium Data” Before Tackling Big Data »

Additional Reading and Resources

• Harold’s post appeared as part of a series “How Can Big Data Have a Social Impact?” produced by the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship and the HBR-The Bridgespan Group Insight Center on Scaling Social Impact.
• The 2013 Skoll World Forum will host a session (“Big Data. Big Deal?”) on how big data might create value for those in nonprofit and social entrepreneurship.
• “The Hidden Biases in Big Data,” HBR: article, video.
• “Sure, Big Data Is Great. But So Is Intuition,” The New York Times
• Planning for Big Data, McKinsey Quarterly
• DataKind brings together leading data scientists with high impact social organizations through a comprehensive, collaborative approach that leads to shared insights, greater understanding, and positive action through data in the service of humanity.