Greetings from the Executive Director: March 2024

Nicole Collier, NACC Executive Director

Nicole Collier, MPSA
Executive Director, NACC
Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy
Bush School of Government and Public Service
Texas A&M University

Well, I have discovered a new form of anxiety…having to follow Angela Logan’s newsletter articles.

I hope you are all having an excellent spring! It’s hard to believe spring classes are almost done here in College Station. My brain still thinks it’s recovering from winter break!

I have been pretty busy the past few months. The Center for Nonprofits & Philanthropy at Texas A&M, where I dedicate the rest of my work time, hosted its first Nonprofit BRIDGE Conference. The conference was dedicated to fostering partnerships between nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions. I saw many familiar faces there, including several NACC members based in Texas. It was a great event and I’m looking forward to future conferences.

Now that I am done with that conference and can take a deep breath, it’s time to return to several NACC projects and initiatives. It’s time to send the updated curricular guidelines to an editor and printer. We need to continue welcoming applicants of Nu Lambda Mu through the rest of the application cycle. Finally, it’s time to start planning our summer 2025 conference! It’s going to be a busy year, but I can’t wait to dig back in.

I’ll keep it short and sweet this month. I look forward to sharing more. Until then, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

All the best,
Nicole

By |2024-03-25T09:04:37-04:00March 25th, 2024|Executive Director's Report|

Fighting for Survival: Analyzing Strategic Trends in Arts Advocacy

Researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington
Trevor Meagher

Trevor Meagher, MPA
PhD Student
College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs
University of Texas at Arlington

Dr. Karabi C. Bezboruah

Karabi C. Bezboruah, PhD
Professor, Public Affairs and Planning
The University of Texas at Arlington

Jiwon Suh, PhD

Jiwon Suh, PhD
Assistant Professor, Public Affairs and Planning
University of Texas at Arlington

Fighting for Survival: Analyzing Strategic Trends in Arts Advocacy

Trevor Meagher, Karabi Bezboruah, Jiwon Suh

Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing, Volume 29, Issue 1, February 2024

American arts organizations are locked in a continuous fight for their survival as a result of their demanding operational contexts. Virtually every arts organization engages in some form of formal or informal advocacy in order to raise public awareness and secure financial support or political goodwill. While there are almost as many different advocacy strategies as there are arts organizations, studies that trace changes in strategic employment over time are rare, as advocates are typically focused on present issues and the immediate future. This research seeks to address this knowledge gap. Through a systematic review of over 260 scholarly sources, editorials, blogs, think pieces, and miscellaneous other pro-arts arguments, this article identifies five main arguments for supporting the arts that have been commonly used by arts advocates since the inception of the National Endowment for the Arts. This article presents a theoretical typology that is useful for understanding these arguments and the thematic connections between them. It concludes with a discussion of general trends towards strategic isomorphism and research sophistication among these strategies, then offers avenues for future research that may assist arts advocates with evaluating strategies’ success so as to improve their future effectiveness.

Trevor Meagher, MPA, is a PhD student in the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington. His research interests explore the role of arts organizations in modern society, the nonprofit sector, the cultural economy, creative placemaking, urban identity, cross-sector collaboration, universities, and organizational strategies for achieving local institutionalization. Trevor regularly presents his research at the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action annual conference, and his work is published in the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing. He holds an undergraduate degree in Music Performance with minors in Arts Management and Arts Administration, as well as a Master of Public Administration with a focus in Urban Nonprofit Management.

Karabi Bezboruah, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Public Affairs and Planning at the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs (CAPPA) at the University of Texas at Arlington.Dr. Bezboruah also serves as the director of the two doctoral programs in CAPPA. These are the Public Administration & Public Policy (PAPP), and Urban Planning and Public Policy (UPPP).

Dr. Bezboruah teaches administration and policy courses in the Department of Public Affairs. She teaches the core courses in the Nonprofit Management specialization track and facilitates the graduate Certificate in Urban Nonprofit Management. She applies service-learning pedagogy in her courses, and has worked with community organizations, nonprofits, and local government agencies.

Dr. Bezboruah’s research includes cross sector collaboration, nonprofit management and leadership, strategic management, community development, cross-sector comparisons, NGOs – organizational role, gender role, leadership role & NGO effectiveness. Her work is in the intersection between public policies and organizational behavior, and she frequently collaborates with other disciplines to conduct research on policy issues surrounding health, housing and the environment.

Jiwon Suh, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Planning at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on organizational behavior, performance and accountability, and communication and marketing in the public and nonprofit sectors. She has published articles in several journals including Public Administration Review, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Nonprofit Management & Leadership, Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, and Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing.

By |2024-03-20T14:50:57-04:00March 20th, 2024|NACC Member Research|

In Search of the Magic Bullet: Results from the Building Audiences for Sustainability Initiative

Francie Ostrower, The University of Texas at Austin
Francie Ostrower

Dr. Francie Ostrower
Professor of Public Affairs and Fine Arts
Director of the Portfolio Program in Arts and
Cultural Management and Entrepreneurship

Senior Fellow

In Search of the Magic Bullet: Results from the Building Audiences for Sustainability Initiative

Francie Ostrower, LBJ School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin

A new report by LBJ School Professor Francie Ostrower sheds light on the artistic and fiscal challenges that 25 performing arts organizations encountered while seeking to build new audiences, yielding insights into approaches that worked, and those that didn’t. Overall, the findings suggest that while expanding audiences is possible, it may not always happen on an organization’s desired terms. Therefore, if organizations want to change how audiences engage with them, they must be open to changing themselves. This research was funded by the Wallace Foundation.

Francie Ostrower is a professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs and College of Fine Arts, Director of the Portfolio Program in Arts and Cultural Management and Entrepreneurship jointly sponsored by the College of Fine Arts and the LBJ School, and a senior fellow in the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service. She is principal investigator of the Building Audiences for Sustainability Initiative: Research and Evaluation, a six-year study of audience-building activities by performing arts organizations commissioned and funded by The Wallace Foundation through a multi-million dollar grant. Prior to joining The University of Texas at Austin in 2008, she was a senior research associate at the Urban Institute and prior to that a sociology faculty member at Harvard University. Dr. Ostrower has been a visiting professor at IAE de Paris/Sorbonne Graduate Business School and is an Urban Institute affiliated scholar. She has authored numerous publications on philanthropy, nonprofit governance, and arts and cultural participation that have received awards from the Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and Independent Sector. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Aspen Institute, among others. Recent professional activities include serving as a board member and president of ARNOVA and on the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly board, and the academic advisory committee of Stanford Social Innovation Review.

By |2024-03-20T15:06:05-04:00March 19th, 2024|NACC Member Research|
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