Mission, Models, Money – New methods, new models

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fullers quote is radical, but we are living in a time of major permanent structural change in our sector driven by the accelerating change and complexity in our external environment. We need to develop new structures and models to respond to that changing environment.
The current status quo is insufficiently flexible and adaptive in the contemporary operating environment. Charitable status, the legal structure almost unquestionably adopted by most non-profit A&COs, is risk averse and fails to promote the spirit of the entrepreneur as it imposes legal limitations that encourage conservativism. Inevitably this works against the spirit of creativity, artistic risk and dynamism that we need if we are to develop a healthy arts and cultural ecology. The master/servant dynamic, as it is described by some, lies at the heart of the charity model, with Trustees in ultimate authority. This has a tendency to create command and control structures, which are losing ground in an age where flatter, more networked organisational structures are becoming the norm.

Pressure is also being brought to bear on our traditional ways of organising as the boundaries between for profit and not for profit creative industries blur. Low wage scales, coupled with perceptions that the not for profit sector is insufficiently open to new ideas and working styles and lacks technological savvy, mean the sector could become insufficiently attractive to an ever shrinking talent pool. Additionally, major fixed assets such as buildings are becoming increasingly expensive to maintain, let alone programme, at a time when patterns of public and private funding and earned income revenues are changing.

New methods of operating are already appearing, mostly outwith the traditional subsidy framework. With the advent of Community Interest Companies (CICs) in particular there is a possibility for A&COs to operate commercially and on a non-profit distributing basis. Watershed in Bristol, one of MMMs Exemplar projects, has been in the process of setting up a CIC to operate alongside its trading and charity structures. New legal structures such as CICs will be suitable for some organisations only at certain points in their lifecycles; new ways of working, however, involving strategic alliances, shared services and joint procurement activities for example, offer broader potential for organisations delivering complementary activities to work together. Another MMM Exemplar project involved a group of independent museums in Yorkshire working together to raise funding, and there is interest in such alliances extending to front of house activities as well as back office functions, especially in the education and learning programme areas. Looser, more adaptive organisational forms, need to be encouraged now by funders and supported by those agencies responsible for organisational development.

True or False?
I feel that the charity model is restricting my organisations capacity to become more financially sustainable.

Go to http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk to answer this and other questions in the MMM consultation.