Anatomy of a Leader
NAS President and CEO, Russell Willis Taylor, interviewed Peter Gelb for the Fall 2007 issue of Grantmakers in the Arts Reader. Gelb, the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, discussed his approach to leadership and his ambitions for the Met. Along the way, Taylor, former managing director of the English National Opera in London, offers an inspiring glimpse into methods for changing an organization so it may thrive in the decades ahead.
Read the article, "Peter Gelb: Anatomy of a Leader"
The Grasshopper or the ant: a Review of endowment giving policy options for the doris duke charitable foundation arts program
Written by NAS President and CEO, Russell Willis Taylor, in 2006 for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, this paper discusses the tradition, benefits, and necessity of endowment funds in the arts. Russell Willis Taylor provides a point of view about alternatives to endowment funding, and poses questions about how endowments help achieve mission.
What is the impact of continued endowment giving?
Read the paper to find out.
NAS and the Getty Leadership Institute: Cultural Organizations and Changing Leisure Trends
In May 2007, the Getty Leadership Institute and National Arts Strategies brought together leaders from the nonprofit arts, for-profit sector, and the media to discuss new models for reaching, engaging, and keeping audiences and customers in the face of new leisure trends. The discussion explored the effects of trends such as the segmentation of free time into shorter chunks throughout the day, the layering of activities as people multi-task in leisure time too, and the living of what were once private aspects of life in public via the internet.
What did we discover? Read the report NAS and the Getty Leadership
Institute commissioned.
View Report
Take part in the discussions generated by this convening on the Leisure Trends blog.
The Cultural Dynamics Working Group
The Cultural Dynamics Working Group is a collaborative project of the
Bolz Center for Arts Administration, National Arts Strategies, and Cultural
Initiatives Silicon Valley. Begun in 2003, this project has undertaken
to map the cultural ecosystem to provide insight and provoke conversation
among arts leaders. For a look at the latest version of the cultural
map in Adobe pdf format, please click here.
For the report on Phase I of the Cultural Dynamics Project in Adobe
pdf format, please click here.
The full description of the project, the cultural map, and more information
about this work can be found at www.culturaldynamicsgroup.org.
Financial Management Practices
We investigated financial management at leading arts organizations to understand how their practices could be used across the arts sector. With funding from The James Irvine Foundation, we developed a framework and publication that you can use to assess your own approach. Our report, written by NAS Vice President Jim Rosenberg, is now available online.
NAS and the Getty Leadership Institute: Managing Creativity in the Nonprofit and For-Profit Sectors
In June 2004, the Getty Leadership Institute and National Arts Strategies brought together twenty-three leaders from the nonprofit arts and the for-profit creative sectors to discuss the similarities, differences, and potential intersections between the sectors. The discussion was guided by the fundamental question, "Are there truly two separate creative sectors in the United States - a nonprofit arts sector and a for-profit entertainment sector - or is it more useful to consider one, national creative sector?" This is an especially compelling question to consider today, as both for-profit and nonprofit creative organizations search for ways to create the "elbow room" needed to take creative risks that renew both profits and artistic quality.
We are pleased to share two papers regarding the convening. The first
is by Adrian Ellis and Sonali Mishra of AEA, which specializes in strategic,
operational, and facilities planning for the cultural sector. This paper
served as a background paper for the convening.
View Paper
Secondly, NAS Vice President Jim Rosenberg offers a synopsis and key
findings from the convening.
View Paper
