PARTICIPANT STORIES

"Attending an NAS seminar with six staff members was the key to our success. We emerged with a group of core strategists with a common vocabulary and process, and were able to form the “critical mass” to share the information with the rest of the staff and artists who weren't able to attend."

David P. Saar, Artistic Director, Childsplay

"Attending with a team multiplies the benefits to the nth degree. It expands your vocabulary as an organization and allows you to continue the conversation once you're back in the office. That is incredibly valuable."

Rosemary Walsh, Director of Marketing, Childsplay

"Bringing a team of at least three or four people is so important to the process, it should be a requirement. The experience would be so much less powerful without this dialogue."

Scott Rowitz, Executive Director; Brit Withey, Program Director; and Britta Erickson, Media & Industry Relations Director, Denver Film Society

"The teams that brought their executive, program, and their marketing leadership got it right. The ideas at the seminar and the team exercises affect the entire organization. With everyone involved it's so much easier to turn the ideas into actions when you return home."

Sara Billmann, Director, Marketing / Promotions, University Musical Society

"What sets the NAS experience apart is that you get the staff and trustee leadership in one room, with very smart professional facilitation, addressing the same strategic issues. It hugely improves your direction, focus, and collective thinking, and perhaps most important, forges working and personal bonds in many directions. This was the priceless takeaway for us. It has changed the way the Walters thinks and does business."

Gary Vikan, Director, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

"I thought Managing People was a great experience. I brought three other management staff with me, and we all got so excited about the alignment model that we have followed up with a number of meetings to refine our model for use in our workplan next year."

Kathleen Crowther, Executive Director, Cleveland Restoration Society

"We bring anyone on our staff who wants to go because we can always find value from this time away from the office. The NAS seminars are an amazing opportunity."

Stephanie Small, Executive Director, Free Arts of Arizona

"The opportunity to send a team, comprising both staff and board members, to a series of executive seminars is unique and greatly advantageous to us. The seminars get us out of our daily routine, immerse us in important issues, and are a great tool for orienting new board members and staff to the work of our non-profit."

Bob Taylor, Executive Director, Great Lakes Theater Festival

"The seminars force you to start thinking. You get back to the office with lots of new ideas. How we take all these ideas and apply them could be a session in itself."

Scott Rowitz, Executive Director, Denver Film Society

Even with an MBA from Stanford University, I found the NAS seminar very valuable. The ideas don't all need to be new to you -- the experience forces you and your team to confront issues and opportunities that you know are there but you don't make time to discuss."

Sara Billmann, Director, Marketing / Promotions, University Musical Society

"Honestly, management workshops and training sessions are the kind of events I try to avoid. But the NAS seminars are completely different, and taking part in this seminar series has been great. I'm looking forward to attending the next one."

Brit Withey, Program Director, Denver Film Society

"The process of teaching through case studies and interactive activities was a wonderful combination to encourage learning."

Maureen Kohler, Executive Director, ArtServe

"It gave us a framework to discuss and develop solutions for current staffing and resource allocation problems. It brought us closer together as a management team, and also gave us a chance to meet and learn from our peers."

Tom Kaiden, Chief Operating Officer, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

"Like many other local cultural organizations, we are facing new challenges that offer both opportunity and concern. The material presented in the seminar could not have been more relevant to our current situation."

Ingrid Bogel, Executive Director, Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts

"The NAS seminars gave me tools and techniques, but probably more important, they gave me a vocabulary and a frame of reference that I could share [with staff and trustees]. As a result, we could plan better together."

Sheila Grinell, former President and CEO, Arizona Science Center

"The seminar made us rethink our positioning. The work challenged one of our basic beliefs and at first I recoiled from the result, but by the end of the seminar I realized that we had captured a key new idea about who we are and who we serve. The framework we learned for defining a positioning statement will continue to be a very valuable tool for us."

Edward Walker, Executive Director, Oklahoma City Philharmonic

"The NAS strategic planning seminar was the best training for non-profits that I have ever experienced. On an absolute basis, it was the equivalent of any course that I had as a General Manager/VP in my 25 year career at Hewlett-Packard/Agilent Technologies and probably as good as any other global company would deliver. The teachers were top notch and the material was very relevant to what we do every day. My team used it to tune our plan."

George Sparks, President and CEO, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

"We're one of the largest performing arts presenters in the country, and I found the teaching cases, the discussions, and the exercises extremely relevant to our work. The faculty for the seminar do a great job of bringing out ideas from all the different types of participants at the seminar."

Sara Billmann, Director, Marketing/Promotions, University Musical Society

"[Strategy] fully changed the way we viewed our mission. The enthusiasm and expertise of [the faculty] pushed us to question our reason for being, allowing us to see with fresh eyes the real core of what we do."

Stephanie Small, Executive Director, Free Arts of Arizona

"This was a fantastic presentation/seminar that was detailed and specific. I feel the time I spent with the faculty and my peers will have long reaching influence on the way I direct my organization."

David Ellenstein, Producing Artistic Director, North Coast Repertory Theatre

"By attending the Creative Alliance workshop as a team, we were challenged to think beyond the framework of community relationship building. The NAS faculty was absolutely fantastic! The Creative Alliances workshop was not your typical workshop. The faculty kept us engaged, inspired and energized throughout the two-day workshop."

Janet Barnett, Deputy Director ? Arts, Marketing, Special Services
City of Alexandria - Recreation, Parks & Cultural Activities

"The price is so low for this quality of teaching and facilitation, it is unbelievable. The NAS faculty create a very different experience and attitude in the classroom."

Stephanie Small, Executive Director, Free Arts of Arizona

"The management education provided by National Arts Strategies has been some of the very best staff development I have received."

Roberta Wilhelm, Executive Director, Girls, Inc. of Omaha and former Executive Director, Omaha Theater Company

"It's not very often that you have a chance to think and talk for three days with other nonprofit leaders about ways to make your organization more effective."

Gregory Peckham, Executive Director, Cleveland Public Art

"I've been in this business a long time, and the NAS experience really does open one's mind to new ideas."

Jessica L. Andrews, Managing Director, Arizona Theatre Company

"It seems daunting to attend a seminar the first time. We're overworked, and we have so little time available. But when you get out of an NAS seminar, you come back to the office with a new and really different attitude. It is very beneficial to view your work from a different angle."

Rosemary Walsh, Director of Marketing, Childsplay

"The price is so low for this quality of teaching and facilitation, it is unbelievable. The NAS faculty create a very different experience and attitude in the classroom."

Stephanie Small, Executive Director, Free Arts of Arizona

"I've attended many non-profit management seminars which provided quick tips but failed to address the more complex strategic challenges that overwhelmed my organization. I felt chronically burned out; my organization was dysfunctional and fiscally insolvent. All our energies were consumed in day-to-day triage. I'd almost given up when I found NAS. After using the tools from the NAS seminars, I'm proud to say that we are financially stable, growing at a measured pace and able to devote significant time to long range planning. NAS helped me foster invaluable change in my organization."

Nan Elsasser, Founder and Executive Director, Working Classroom

"I think differently about things now. I have a better toolbox to evaluate what we do and to plan. I am a better executive director and a better thinker now."

Edward Walker, Executive Director
Oklahoma City Philharmonic

"Because of the NAS seminars, I have a new appreciation for professional development, and I also have new standards. A lot of the training available is taught by my peers, who are very smart professionals, but I know what they know. The NAS seminars introduce me to new ideas."

Rosemary Walsh, Director of Marketing, Childsplay

"No matter how much we think we know, we all need time to reflect and people to challenge our assumptions. EPNL-Arts creates that opportunity for learning, alongside other executives of high achievement, in a supportive environment."

Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director for Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art,
Formerly Alice & Harris Weston Director, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

"EPNL-Arts is an exemplary program. The cases we discussed, and the principles I learned have proven invaluable. This was hands-down the greatest post-graduate learning opportunity I have experienced; The program had a profound impact on me professionally and personally. I participated in EPNL when I was running an arts organization, and the program changed the way I looked at the non-profit arts arena, and my role as a leader."

Diane Ragsdale, Program Associate, Performing Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
Formerly, Managing Director, On the Boards, Seattle

"The EPNL-Arts program was an incredible experience. The guest lecturers were inspiring, the campus was the ideal setting, and I wholeheartedly recommend the program for anyone in a leadership position in the non-profit world."

Mikko Nissinen, Artistic Director, Boston Ballet

"The EPNL-Arts program has changed the way I think about my work. The emphasis on developing and implementing a strategic approach to my work was critically important as I set about making change in the organization. The network of colleagues has been great - I send out a message asking about some specific detail and how people handle it and get a dozen replies - all of them frank and honest. That's a rare treat in this day and age."

Ken Foster, Executive Director/Performing Arts Curator
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

"[The faculty's] rigor, the specificity of their thinking, and the expansiveness of their intellectual approach will be an ongoing inspiration to me -- an example that is as valuable as the quality of the information they conveyed."

Ben Cameron, former Executive Director, Theatre Communications Group

"Like many other leaders of cultural institutions, I learned management and finance 'on the job.' EPNL-Arts helped me structure what I know, and to recognize what I don't know. The NAS seminars gave me tools and techniques, but probably more important, they gave me a vocabulary and a frame of reference that I could share with the business leaders who comprise the Board of Trustees. As a result, we could plan better together. I find I also have better conversations with peers who are also trying to maximize the impact of their institutions in challenging times."

Sheila Grinnell, former President and CEO, Arizona Science Center

"I have used the skills learned during the EPNL-Arts training to impact every level of my organization's operations. In fact we have undergone a complete restructuring that was keyed by concepts learned during the training."

Charlie Lawrence, Executive Director, Fine Arts Association

"It was so empowering to have our work in the nonprofit sector given the same level of attention as the for-profit world. It reinforced my belief that what we do is integral to the economy, but also that we play a unique role in creating social value that's not easily measured in stock tables or balance sheets."

Jed Dodds, Artistic Director, Creative Alliance

"It was an experience that has already been life-changing for me as the director of an arts organization, and for me personally. I expect it benefits to keep manifesting in ways that I cannot yet foresee, both for me and my organization."

Mark Carlson, Founder and Artistic Director, Pacific Serenades

"The courses were excellent, the faculty superb, and the lessons both profound and pragmatic. The program demystified the world of for-profit, and demonstrated how closely they really intersect, especially on the path to developing leadership skills and being successful in reaching goals."

John M. Groff, Executive Director, The Wyck Association

"Every element of this program was stellar: the professors, the content, the leadership team of Martenson and Phills, the over 50 arts leaders in attendance, the accommodations, the care and feeding, the campus, the weather, the study groups, and more."

Stephanie Morrison-Hrbek, Executive Director, Near West Theatre