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Boards of Directors And The Arts Today: Have Times Changed?

By Claudia Chouinard 

Last year, the arts world gasped when the Oakland, California Symphony Orchestra abruptly filed for bankruptcy after a decade of apparent growth and prosperity. What went wrong? Sources close to the Orchestra point to a lack of leadership on the part of the Board of Directors as the single greatest factor in the Orchestra’s failure, while also noting that the efforts of the professional staff were unequal to the task of averting disaster.

In another example, Marian Godfrey reported in Theatre Times a case where five out of six founding trustees of a small theater quit when the management presented a four-year growth plan, flatly refusing to accept any responsibility for the hard work of building a thriving institution from a small success story.

As little as ten years ago, the common conception of the arts management structure was of a Board of business types leading a naïve arts staff towards solvency. Yet the cases above suggest that our expectations of a Board’s role and responsibilities need revision.

Who’s Leading Whom?

Let’s take a closer look at these two examples and the situations they illustrate. In the case of Oakland orchestra, the sources cite lack of commitment and turnover as contributing to the Symphony’s crisis. Board members sought cachet and business contacts from their positions, while lacking real affinity or involvement, while paid staff passed through a revolving door of rapid turnover, lending a short-term focus to plans and management. With so low a vested interest in the Orchestra’s future among so many, it’s no wonder the tough questions rarely made it to the top of the agenda.

In the contrasting case of small theater, three managing directors took an active approach to the growth needs of the institution, only to find the Board opposed to the kind of long-term planning essential to sound management. The directors recruited six new Board members who accepted the growth plan challenge and worked with the staff to implement it successfully. Clearly, the staff in this instance is the leader, with the Board following its agenda and relying on its management expertise. Though a reversal of generally perceived roles, my informal interviews that colleagues in the arts suggest that today it’s often the rule rather than the exception.

Board and Staff: Today’s Picture

Board members once gave substantial time, expertise, and money to arts organizations offering prestige, visibility, and civic rewards. Today’s typical trustee may have few of these commodities to give and little of for your art, yet may seek much in return.

Veteran arts Board members often appreciate art forms, yet can be nostalgic for the “old days” of less deadline pressure and more socializing when their advice was accepted without question. Younger Board members may be educated in business but nearly ignorant of the arts, yet be impatient for prestigious and visible assignments which will server as resume material in their own careers, avoiding crucial but less glamorous work. Theatre Times’ Marian Godfrey has also observed that middle managers from large corporations are eager to join arts Boards not only to flex their policy-making muscles, but also to gain a sense of family markedly absent from their upwardly-mobile professional lives.

It is crucial to identify talents and temperament in assigning Board tasks. A Board member who does not know Picasso from Puccini has no business setting policy and will be effective only with strong staff. Others who know more about your art may prove dangerous with a balance sheet, unable or willing to learn the business side of the arts. The wrong responsibilities in either hands can prove fatal.

Not only is the complexion of the Board different, but today an arts staffer is just as likely to be an MBA as a Board member. University programs granting arts management degrees abound, as do staffers trained by experience and study to leadership roles in arts organizations. Yet the arts are still catching up to this new professionalism: raising salaries to attract career managers with families, providing more realistic clerical support and in rare cases signing long-term contracts to reward long-term thinking.

The days of the over-the-hill performer taking on the books are gone, yet many arts staffers still complain they are treated as if non-profit means non-professional. The problem is compounded when professional staff looks to their Boards for a level of leadership and expertise equal to their own and often come away disappointed.

The Working Board – A New Ideal

Many arts organizations shave formed or inherited advisory Boards. Yet, professional staffers facing do-or-die goals often demand that such daunting responsibilities be rightfully shared with the trustees who in truth own the corporation. Thus arises the expectation, but often not the fact, of a working Board of Directors.

It’s easy to forget that Board member are volunteers: busy, preoccupied, untrained volunteers. An arts organization that cannot hone its trustees into a skilled strategic and fund-raising team may enjoy nothing more than the luxury of an advisory Board. It takes three people to meet the letter of the law, but considerably more than that to build a multi-million dollar business. These are the realities that many arts organizations are facing, and they need to choose their Boards accordingly.

Today’s Facts: Intelligent

The fact is that arts staffers are today’s leaders in their industry, a happy fact produced by a decade of intensive attention to management and training. Conversely, today’s Board trustees are busier and more preoccupied than ever, with demanding careers and families.

Museum News likens trusteeship to marriage: entered voluntarily and conferring binding but seldom defined obligations. Perhaps it’s time to redefine a relationship between Board and staff that works for today, with greater equality of roles and a more pressing need for each “marriage” to set rules based on the needs of the parties involved. One way is to review these basic questions:

1. Who works for whom, who is the leader? A Board with a visionary founder-member needs checks and balances, while a civic institution may need leaders. Assess who works for whom and apply that chain of command to decisions on how a lack of consensus is to be resolved. Will the staff or the Board provide a leader? How will that leader share both the power and responsibility for long-term decisions? Remember that you are a small business – formalize your working relationships and create effective teams.
2. Who is responsible for the money? Every member of the team should understand and agree with both sides of the budget, incoming and outgoing. If consensus can’t be reached, agree on a lower budget with a contingency to spend more if interim goals are reached. A working Board accepts defined responsibility for earning income, taking a share of this responsibility from an active staff. Board development then involves the drafting of new fund-raisers to help meet the Board portion of this shared task.
3. Who represents the constituency server? The Board should represent the most articulate and willing of the presumed multitudes who fervently believe your organization serves a vital need and does so with distinction. Volunteers without such a commitment are poor workers and poorer fundraisers whose private agendas often get in the way of the work to be done.
4. How can all the tasks best get done? Working Board volunteers need job descriptions and defined goals just as staffers do, and creating these requires defining both artistic and fiscal success for your institution. Match talents with tasks, make goals achievable, and balance dream jobs with nightmares.
5. What are the rewards? Both underpaid nonprofit staffers and unpaid Board volunteers need reasons for giving an organization extra effort and support beyond their desire to see it succeed. Behind each task should be the behind-the-scenes mystique, publicity, introductions, visibility. Understand what makes each team member tick and reward those who earn attention.
6. How can our meetings be more productive? Staffers complain that Board members arrive unprepared and leave early. Board members complain that staffers present unclear and ill-prepared materials and speak in riddles. Was no one’s time. Type each agenda and deliver complex materials with one-page summaries in advance, defining the questions for discussion as clearly as possible. Policies, precedents, spending priorities, and income prospects should be prime topics. Stick to the big picture and let special topics teams do all the other work.
7. How can I alone possibly make a difference here? Once each organization has formed a team out of the Board and staff, it is up to each person to act fully and responsibly. Care deeply about every detail. Don’t leave your brains and ability in your briefcase at the door. Speak out. Ask questions. Get involved. Rock the boat. Don’t sign it unless you’ve read it, understand it, and agree with it. If you wonder about something, other likely do too but are reluctant to say so. If necessary, push the panic button. It is your responsibility. If you don’t want it, resign.

It matters less today whether a hired hand or a volunteer provides the leadership, the skills, and the vision to push each arts organization forward. But it matters more than ever that a strong team of committed individuals works together to survive, compete, and prosper.

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