Tough love for arts organizations

Nonprofit arts face the music - THE ARTS - Los Angeles Times - calendarlive.com: "Russell Willis Taylor, president of National Arts Strategies, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit devoted to strengthening the management and finances of arts organizations, said she is leery of calls for making them 'more entrepreneurial.'

"'When you say you want these organizations to be run more like a business, I say, 'Which one? Enron?' she quipped.

"The be-more-businesslike message is nothing new, Taylor says. She sees it as an irony-laden gambit by arts funders trying to avoid facing a cold reality of the marketplace: that when too many competitors crowd into a single business -- arts sectors included — some inevitably will struggle or fold.

"Because California is a magnet for creative people, Taylor says, it generates more than its share of nonprofit arts start-ups, and not all can make it. Because arts donors are passionate and devoted to the programs and groups they support, she added, they tend to want to prop up flagging organizations when it no longer makes economic sense, turning to ideas such as mergers and bigger gift shops to stave off the inevitable. 'In any other field, the market takes over and brutally puts people out of business,' Taylor said."

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