Mission Paradox says something I wish I'd said: it's all about The Whales

All the questions we ask about many arts organizations:

Why don't they diversify their organizations more?

Why don't they do more interesting programming?

What don't they change their connection to the consumer?

All of them have the same answer.

It's because of the whales.

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Stay with me on this.

Let's imagine a fictional arts organization that has a budget of say, $7 million dollars a year. Let's say that 50% of that money from ticket sales. That means they have to raise 3.5 million from other sources.

3.5 million is a LOT of money to get via fundraising.

I know it may not seem like much, but really it is a LOT. Particularly when you need that 3.5 million EVERY YEAR.

Where are you going to get that sort of cash from?

Corporate funding/sponsorship? Not anymore.

Your endowment? That will be good for some of it, but not nearly enough.

Foundations? Please. Sure, they may give that big arts organization 50,000 a year, but that's a drop in the bucket.

Where is the money coming from?

The whales.

Or at least that's where they hope the money is coming from.

So the arts organization go whale hunting.

Most of their major decisions, the programming, who the Artistic Director is, etc. are all seen through this prism:

What will make the whales happy?

Read the full post here at Mission Paradox.