Step 2. Nonprofit Arts Boards: Fire Your Artistic Director
Artistic directors who act as the face of arts companies, an awkward relic from long ago, keep your organization from succeeding as a charity — there is a better way
If you run an arts organization that happens to be a nonprofit just so that you can reap donations, you’re going to hate this.
If you serve on the board of a nonprofit organization that uses art as a tool to make quantifiable positive changes to members of the community who require it, you’re going to be relieved.
And if you’re an artistic director of an arts organization, whether you’ve been there for a week or 30 years, there is a great “pivot” in your future, to use the hackneyed Covid-era business word.
If arts organizations are to succeed, they must prove worth. Not artistically — that’s a given. Not with a ridiculous word such as “excellence,” because that’s subjective and worthless. The person best positioned to prove worth to a community is neither an artistic nor a managing director.
It is a single executive director, to whom the artistic officer (and marketing officer, finance/operations officer, development officer and production officer, etc.) reports.
Visions cannot change willy-nilly every time a new artistic leader comes aboard. If they do, they negate the entirety of the past of the organization as being just another fluffball, a vanity company.
For-profit? Do whatever you want that makes money or satisfies your artistic itch. The producer will rein you in when necessary.
But nonprofit? You never hear about artistic directors of food banks deciding which foods will feed their people by some sort of academic vision of cauliflower and pork rinds. C’mon. How are you choosing which people you serve, anyway? How much they donate, regardless of their reputations?
Boards: it’s time to fire your artistic director, no matter how much you like them.
Wish them well. Strategize the severance so that the other artists in the community are not surprised or inclined to revolt. Resist the temptation to merely demote — it’s a cancer waiting to happen.
Instead, hire a new artist to an officer-level position. Commit the “sin” of pay transparency and pay all of your officers the same salary. This is the next normal that everyone’s been talking about. And make sure that your staff not only represents the people in your community, but highlights the cultural differences among you.
Then let the executive director work with the board to do activities that help your community rise.
This is the second of a series. Please click here to read the first article.
Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at alan@501c3.guru. Alan would be delighted to engage with your board or staff.
Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity™.
And hey, if you’re feeling generous, feel free to click on the photo and buy Alan a cup of coffee. Not mandatory at all, but gosh, it’d be nice.
