Starting a new business or significantly modifying an existing one can be daunting.  Researching, planning, funding, building, marketing -- there is so much to do!

If we break the problem down we can better understand the tasks. Whether your goal is to open your own studio, school or company, or if you have already made that jump and are striving to make it all work, there are 12 areas to address to ensure you achieve your goals:

1. Your reason for establishing your Arts Organization
2. Your group or association’s identity, and how it is perceived by the community you serve
3. Your goals, exactly what you realistically expect to achieve, broken into 1,3, and 5 year increments
4. Your support group: a Board of Directors, a Board of Trustees, or an Advisory Board
5. Your community’s need and its history of support for performing arts organizations
6. Your community’s requirements: license, permits, building codes
7. Marketing Plan to get the word out
8. Fiscal Responsibility including securing annual funding for your programming.
9. Education and Development of an audience base
10. Development of a stimulating repertoire that nudges and educates an audience
11. Attracting sufficient quality personnel (administrative and artistic) to build a living organization
12. Your Business Plan, which conveniently consists of the eleven preceding points

It looks scary, but remember we are going to 'break it down,' movement by movement. The task is 90% preparation, 10% execution -- the math is my own. I admit I am just too lazy, or too old, to do a task twice. I’ve found that adequate preparation ensures the job is done the first time, besides I really like that ratio.

Over the next few months I’ll help you review each of these areas. But I need to caution you for there is not room on this web site to thoroughly review all the elements of each topic. There are literally thousands of books (well, hundreds anyway) on these subjects. Some of these volumes are actually readable and of those there are a few that won’t push you over the edge into into hibernation. That is the reason for this series of articles, there is so much data, and so much to learn but it always seems to be treated in the driest fashion. One would think that the topic could be a lively presentation. Perhaps an Aria at the Met? Well, perhaps that is going a bit too far. But you get the idea.

By now you should have asked the all important question: just who is this guy and what are his qualifications? These are excellent questions, sometimes we artists do not question enough, but more on that later. As for me, it sometimes seems as if I’ve worked with Non-Profit Arts Organizations for a lifetime. Actually, it has been just these past ten years. Before then, I held a variety of positions up and down the East Coast with (mostly) international, fashion, furniture companies. I am sure that, to the uninitiated, these two chapters in my life appear to have little in common. Yet it is the melding together of business and arts precepts that is essential to develop arts programs with the potential for successful community and regional initiatives.

The first seventeen years of my career provided the last ten with purpose. Early on I learned the heralded, essential maxims of the capitalistic system of trades and balances:

Survival was (and is) predicated on the application of solid business techniques while embracing a measurable level of personal initiative.

Resourcefulness provides the tools or products required for the organization’s success at new levels of exchange.

I owe a large debt to a few great employers who taught me that "..although it is the sum of a groups efforts that make the ultimate difference, it is the contribution of the individual that ensures the initial success of the product…"

They taught me:

Good businesses survive, indispensable businesses may flourish.

To recognize good concepts and how to move them from the theory to practical application.

 

After years spent working for others I elected to strike out as an independent artist. I realized that to succeed I’d have to develop the precepts I had been taught. I realized that I could succeed in the arts if the Arts could succeed as a Business. I chose to embrace the notion that Art is Good Business! This series will succeed if I am able to, albeit briefly, outline the needs and focus necessary for an Arts Association.

If yours is an emerging group:

I will outline the process for you from the very beginning.

If yours is an established institution within your community:

Accept my congratulations, you know how hard you have worked for what you have achieved!

This information is for you also, it is measurably beneficial to ‘revisit’ the initial premise that served as the catalyst that created your School, or Company. And if you have a suggestion to offer, send it along.

Art is a business, and a generous one to the population served. In the Southeast United States alone, every funding dollar spent on the Arts returns $13-$15 to the community (stage, tech, & artistic staff, venue staff, artists, restaurants, taxis, etc). The US Government does recognize this and they have provided (yes even the IRS can be less inhuman sometimes) a category you may have heard about. Suffice it to say that though most people complain about the process and paperwork to secure non-profit status everyone covets the distinction – those that have it will jealously guard it.

In a later column we may go over the benefits of non-profit status and the process but for now just a highlight, since I did bring it up after all. In the United States there exists an Internal Revenue Service designation for service organizations and foundations, that has as many sub-classifications as you’d expect from a government agency, but all tend to be grouped together under a colloquial label simply referred to as not-for-profits, or non-profits. Now here’s the first challenge. The term non-profit does not mean that you have signed away any chance at making a living for yourself with your craft, nor that your company or school cannot be self-sufficient.

In fact, the final awarding of one of the many different numerical designations is a multi-year process. The performance of your organization is evaluated against your initial projections over a 3 – 5 year period. Even the IRS understands an average citizen’s need to buy groceries! The much sought after 501 (c) (3) status that we will be discussing in this series of articles, can only be maintained if the organization is viable.

The designation is meant to stipulate that those investing in your organization will not profit financially from the services the organization provides to and for the community. Therefore their support of your organization is tax deductible, an indicator highly regarded within the ever-decreasing pool of funders, but that is the topic of another discussion, and I’d best not get ahead of myself.

NEXT: Surviving Your Community's Needs