In other countries such organizations are traditionally owned and funded by the government. In US, on the contrary, performing artists (dancers, actors, musicians) and their managers are left to fate and favor of donors and foundations. Unlike other educational nonprofit organizations (Teach for America) performing arts companies do not try to expand their volume but to maximize their impact by employing better artists and creating thoughtful performances. The performing arts companies do not try to advocate for policies and do not have a global agreement on the ways to run business most effectively. It must be mentioned, that performing arts nonprofits take the model of operations from training programs in educational institutions and care them into the world of business. Therefore, the flexibility and adaptivity of many performing arts nonprofits are quite limited to the standard set of practices.
Without the governmental support the business of performing arts became accessible only to elite members of the society. The training of artists takes many years and involve some serious finances which cover costly tuition and acquiring the instruments for musicians. The additional expense lays on the parents of students beside the cost of the mandatory education. For example, given that professors in Juilliard School of Music (NYC) charge for a single private lesson as much as $1000, there appears a certain discrimination against students from low and middle classes backgrounds. The leverage of such work is vastly disproportional to the financial outcome.
Yet, once completely trained, performing artists get temporarily employed by nonprofits and deliver their work either for free (volunteering) or for a very small wage. Managers and executives of such nonprofits very rarely get a descent wage which would put them into the middle class. The work which performing arts nonprofits do is no less or even more stressful and messy than the work done by philanthropist nonprofit companies.
The foundations which support performing arts nonprofits contribute to the further selectivity and discrimination against aspiring and retiring artists by limiting the financial resources and raising the competition for scholarships and jobs to the extremes. As much as these nonprofit companies wish to invest in human resources, their possibilities to do are fairly limited. It is unheard until today that performing arts implement measuring practice within a single organization. Yet there are measuring companies and independent critics who compare works and achievements of various artists and companies nationally and internationally.
The overall process of making an impact by performing arts nonprofits is messy and is cut from the common educational practices. In fact, the world of arts is a world in itself which is inflexible and does not align with the demands and mores of time. Last of all things performing arts nonprofit organizations do business.
Stasie Gonikberg Blog 