From the Executive Director

Systems and Survival By Ben Cameron

At a recent conference I attended, participants launched into a discussion of the issue of cultural Darwinism. Other businesses rely on a "survival of the fittest" mentality in a way that makes those of us in the arts uncomfortable, the organizers suggested: Should we be more willing to let arts organizations die? Shouldn't arts organizations be merging? Indeed, are there simply too many not-for-profit arts organizations in our nation today?

It's not the first time I've heard this question, of course. Interestingly enough, I never hear audience members ask it; I never hear artists ask it; I certainly never hear educators ask it, especially as they graduate 400,000 MFAs into the larger arts world every year, according to one attendee. Where I do hear the question most is from funders, from managers scrambling for increasingly paltry resources, from overworked officials who find it impossible to stay on top of a burgeoning wealth of activity.

Yes, on the one hand, I think we in the arts are reluctant to let organizations die. Apart from the obvious indicators that call an organization's viability into question—rising deficits, declining audiences and so on—every transition of leadership is an invitation to examine the organization's need to continue. History notwithstanding, what in the present day requires us to move forward? What is the urgent need we address? What is our mandate for survival? Whether the answer is social, educational, artistic or other, the times are too perilous for any organization to continue without a true animating purpose—a purpose that must be pursued in the present day and under the present circumstances.

Merging, another solution frequently bandied about, has its own perils: An article in the New York Times noted that more than half of mergers and acquisitions in all industries fail to produce desired results. Besides the obvious clashes as organizations with different internal cultures try to mesh (not to mention the logistics of meshing two disparate boards, two different artistic visions and more), the track record suggests that combining two struggling businesses rarely produces long-term positive results, a point that undercuts the rationale many throw our way in urging theatres to combine.

Beneath many of the questions, though, I hear real fatigue, even exhaustion. Between the explosive growth of our industry and the increasing pressures from numerous sectors for philanthropic resources, the very system is groaning under this collision between cultural need and philanthropic capacity. Foundation officials—some of the most passionate, deeply supportive partners we have—are increasingly overwhelmed by the annual cycle of project support: Who wouldn't be by this backbreaking load of project-specific grants doled out in one-year increments? Arts executives are more and more exasperated by the endless parade of forms asking for slight variations in budgets, descriptions and detail. What would it take to break this cycle, to move from this endless parade of begging and bestowal, to create a more stable sector and more healthy organizations? Might this be an invitation for both sides to sit down and seriously reevaluate the assumptions that guide our sector?

In a recent conversation with a policymaker who studies grantmaking in the conservative political sector, I learned that the bulk of these grants are large, unrestricted and multiyear (often in excess of three years)—and fund efforts toward creating national communications infrastructure through meetings, conferences and published scholarship. What a difference from our dominant field practice-single-year grants (and often in small increments), usually for restricted purposes. And as head of a national organization, I can attest to the frequency—indeed the dominance in our world-of grant applications that begin, "We do not fund general operating support, meetings or conferences, or groups outside our immediate geographic purview"—principles that undercut our field's ability to create a more vibrant internal communications network and mobilize for collective action.

It's time for this to change.

Why are we so afraid of offering multiyear support to arts organizations and artists? Want a great sports team? Sign the athletes to six- or seven-year contracts. Want a great education? Commit up front to four years of study at an institution. Want to hire a leader to accomplish something real? Give him or her a multiyear contract: Indeed, it's hard for me to envision any foundation president accepting a mandate under the logic of a single-year employment rhythm.

And, yes, not all grants work out; yes, some groups will fold; yes, there can always be a bail-out, even mid-cycle, and the logistics of the impact of rising or falling assets can be tricky—though not impossible—to figure out. But single-year grants are the best guarantee for perpetuating institutional vulnerability. We need only to look to the successes of the Right in the recent election—and to the pattern of grantmaking that made it all possible—to see what a different system can achieve. You get what you pay for. If our sector is increasingly vulnerable, we may be reaping the rewards—or rather, the liabilities—of a system whose time should be past.