Motivations Matter: Findings and Practical Implications of a National Survey of Cultural Participation

Presents findings from a national survey of 1,231 Americans. Examines the motivations and expectations of those who attend plays, musical performances, and other arts events. Looks at practical implications for audience participation building

Boards of Midsize Nonprofits: Their Needs and Challenges

Based on a survey of midsize nonprofits CEOs, examines boards' level of engagement, performance of various responsibilities, and recruitment and composition of members, as well as contributing factors. Includes implications and recommendations

Partnerships Between Large and Small Cultural Organizations: A Strategy for Building Arts Participation

Evaluates the Wallace Foundation's Community Partnerships for Cultural Participation initiative. Includes the difficulties that arise, achievement of participation-enhancing goals, and strategies for initiating, designing, and managing partnerships

Boards as an Accountability Mechanism

Boards are central to the system of nonprofit accountability, but their adequacy has been increasingly questioned by policymakers, media, researchers and others. There is good reason to be concerned about board performance, but to date but no preferable alternative mechanism has been proposed. Thus, understanding how boards function and identifying strategies for strengthening them remains key to enhancing nonprofit accountability. This paper examines board functioning in relation to both legal and broader conceptions of accountability, and empirical evidence from over 5,100 nonprofits in the Urban Institute National Survey of Nonprofit Governance. After discussing areas of board weakness, the paper considers various approaches to improving boards, including regulation, self-regulation, policy-oriented, and management-oriented strategies. The paper argues that as important as legal regulation and oversight may be, broader accountability and performance expectations must be addressed at the level of practice, within boards and organizations, and take nonprofit heterogeneity into account.LBJ School of Public Affair

Diversity on Cultural Boards: Implications for Organizational Value and Impact

What is the racial and ethnic composition of arts boards? What factors are associated with variations in board diversity? The study addresses these questions through an analysis of over 400 arts organizations, using data from the 2005 Urban Institute National Survey of Nonprofit Governance. While our primary focus is on the racial and ethnic composition of arts boards, attention is also given to gender, occupation, and age, as well as to comparisons between the arts and other fields of activity. The study extends current lines of research on arts participation to encompass membership on boards, offers conclusions about the current state of diversity (or lack of it) on boards, identifies implications for enhancing diversity, and offers suggestions for future research.LBJ School of Public Affair

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A Historical Fiction Detailing the Trauma of Mental Institutions in the mid 1940’s

Out of Sight, Out of Mind is a historical fiction that details the trauma of one character, Francie, when she is admitted to a mental institution against her will in mid-1940’s America. Francie suffers from severe bipolar depression, which was poorly understood and had little treatments during this time. Different characters take turns narrating this piece, demonstrating how different perspectives can provide insight into the same circumstance. Francie’s family must cope with complicated family relationships and mental illness throughout this narrative, which serves as the first segment of a future novel

Limited Life Foundations: Motivations, Experiences, and Strategies

Compares characteristics of foundations established in perpetuity and foundations set to terminate by a specific date. Explores both personal and strategic reasons for "sunsetting" and positive and negative effects of limited life on the foundation

Foundation Sunset: A Decision-Making Guide

This research-based guide represents a distillation of the author's observations from studying sunset foundations. In an earlier study the author analyzed survey data on over 800 foundations, including 70 limited life foundation and interviewed trustees, donors and staff of 29 foundations planning or considering limited life. That research sought to chart the typical and representative aspects of sunsetting, and found that many sunsetting foundations do not link their longevity to a philanthropic strategy. In more recent research, the author conducted case studies of four foundations that took a deliberate and planned approach to sunsetting. These foundations therefore are well-suited to understanding how sunsetting can function as a philanthropic strategy

Why Is It Important That We Continue? Some Nonprofit Arts Organizations Rethink Their Value in Challenging Times

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many nonprofit arts organizations were facing challenges, including declining or stagnant audiences across multiple art forms, causing many to question the very value of their existence. This was certainly true for the 25 organizations in Wallace's Building Audiences for Sustainability (BAS) initiative, which ran from 2016 through 2019.This brief from arts researcher Francie Ostrower and her team at the University of Texas in Austin, who studied the BAS initiative, captures thoughts from leaders of the 25 organizations on sustainability and how they might fit into a changing arts landscape. Not surprisingly, all of the organizations felt it was important that their organizations continue. Interestingly, however, even before the pandemic and movement for a deeper reckoning with racial justice struck across the country, leaders from a majority of the organizations expressed how essential it was for them to develop and/or maintain strong bonds with their community. Since then, the need for such change has only increased