For a long time now pursuit of a low overhead ratio has been viewed as a benchmark of good governance in the non-profit sector. There have been arguments against that view, but the perceptio…
Last month I mentioned NPR was doing a series on theatre in the US. In fact, there is an installment in that series airing today. However, today I wanted to point out a entry in the series f…
Yesterday Daniel Pink made the following Twitter post about OKRs " Objectives & Key Results (because apparently KPIs " Key Performance Indicators, needed to be replaced with another equa…
Over the last few months, Non-Profit Quarterly has run a series of pieces on the topic of capacity building. In particular, the authors have challenged the notion that current capacity build…
I haven't really been paying close attention to all the recent stories about the re-opening of the renovated Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, but a New Yorker article about how the acoustics h…
Jeremy Reynolds recently wrote a great piece about the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's (PSO) European tour. The article isn't so much about what happened during the tour as it is about why o…
For decades now there has been a belief that the lower the ratio of non-profit's overhead expenses to program expense, the better run the non-profit is. As a result, a low overhead ratio…
Given that today is Indigenous People's Day, I wanted to mention some recent positive developments related to the arts and an increased presence and role of the Muscogee (Creek) people who o…
Countries around the world are eyeing the success of South Korea's K-Pop, and Japan's earlier J-Pop, and are developing national music strategies of their own according to a recent Forbes ar…
Last week Vox had a provocatively titled article saying "Why fewer Americans are donating to charity." Rising to that provocation, I read the fairly lengthy piece that essentially said that …
Last week Barry Hessenius sent me a link to a Buzzfeed article listing answers to job interview questions, suggesting it might make a good blog post. This suggestion was well-timed because D…
If you have read Ve Le's Non-Profit AF blog, you know that he often frames serious topics with a bit of humor, often extolling vegan cuisine and his obsession with the Oxford comma. Frequent…
A couple weeks ago Aubrey Bergauer hosted a LinkedIn conversation with Karen Freeman from Advisory Board for the Arts (ABA) to discuss what mattered most to arts professionals as they sought…
A couple weeks ago I caught an NPR story about a group of strippers at a bar in LA who were working to unionize under the auspices of Actors' Equity Association. The dancers had been dis…
Keep your radio tuned and your ears open to your local NPR station for the next month or so, especially if you are a theatre professional. The network is doing a series over the next five we…
Since there is a bit of a cross-readership, many of you may have already seen that Drew McManus announced yesterday that he was going to cease posting regularly on the Adaptistration blog. D…
By some fortuitous coincidence, I was digging into my news feed backlog and read Seema Rao's Museum 2.0 post on guidelines for museum Tiktok accounts on the same day Ceci Dadisman put out an…
Perhaps it is just the availability of social media feeds and news aggregators to bring information to my attention, but it seems that art projects have been effective in bringing about soci…
So it appears that podcasts have turned into public radio's competitive advantage. According to a recent study, nearly 4 in 10 public radio listeners also listen to a podcast weekly with tho…
Last week I received an email from Arts Midwest noting that September 9-18 is Welcoming Week, an international effort to provide a welcoming experience at all levels. This includes governmen…
Last week Hyperallergic ran a piece asking why the New York Department of Sanitation (DSNY) with a budget of $1.9 billion was asking artists to submit proposals to decorate their trucks for …
Always happy to draw attention to the good work of arts organizations, I was pleased to get a comment on yesterday's post about creating contests and engagement events which expect artists t…
I have been a firm believer in the idea that everyone has the capacity to be creative so I read a piece on The Conversation discussing how creativity doesn't occur in a vacuum with great int…
Occasionally there has been discussion about how the standing ovation has become the default response at the end of a performance. Not long ago, Seth Godin made a short post about expectatio…
Gene Tagaki raises some interesting thoughts over on the Non-Profit Law blog on the question of how legal concepts and structures may need to adjust to reflect changing values in the non-pro…