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Monday, January 12, 2009

Chronicle of Philanthropy on the CSO

Posted by John Stoehr on Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 9:32 AM

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an overview of the CSO's financial crisis. The article appears in the journal's Jan. 15 issue. It doesn't offer much that's new if you've been tracking developments at City Paper and The Post and Courier. But it does offer a coherent synopsis of how the orchestra got into this situation, why, and how it plans to get out of it. Of note is this nut-graph, summing up something I've learned over the years — the reason American arts organizations struggle financially is more likely the result of bad internal decisions (or non-decisions) than some kind of out-of-one's-control malaise in the greater culture. In other words, it's fixable.

... its leaders say that the way the organization was managed while times were good left it vulnerable to a decelerating economy: The orchestra had operating losses in five of the last six years, signed a five-year contract with musicians that locked in high fixed costs, conducted periodic "save the orchestra" campaigns that alienated donors, and spent meager sums on marketing and fund raising while undertaking an ambitious artistic program.

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But the writer is either ignorant of, or unwilling to admit, the missing ngredient here: the community's lack of support for the orchestra stretching back over decades. If Charleston had really valued the ensemble and felt that it was an integral, important part of the community, the folks who ran the city, those who held the power to make things happen, would have done several things: they would have attended concerts by the orchestra and encouraged others to buy tickets (earned revenue is the magic key that persuades potential funders to get on board to make up the remaining costs on the expense side of the budget; the prevailing attitude in Charleston that someone else should pay for the Charlestonians' pleasures (this is community-wide and not just in the arts) would have been countered, starting back in the 70s when Spoleto Festival became so dependent on funding from out-of-town sources (Italian appliance magnates, New York foundations, threatened NEA funding, etc.)that its very existence is still inextricably linked to non-Charleston funding. The list could go on and on.... Yes, none of the external factors absolves the CSO from its bad decisions. But symphony management is never going to be any better than the resources that are allocated to its quality and improvement -- and the fact of the matter is that the orchestra has never had the resources to engage management of the level needed -- and even if it had, no sensible manager is going to linger when he sees that the community is, when all is said and done, indifferent to the fate of its orchestra.

Posted by Ecuiram LeVar on January 14, 2009 at 1:03 PM | Report this comment
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But the writer is either ignorant of, or unwilling to admit, the missing ngredient here: the community's lack of support for the orchestra stretching back over decades. If Charleston had really valued the ensemble and felt that it was an integral, important part of the community, the folks who ran the city, those who held the power to make things happen, would have done several things: they would have attended concerts by the orchestra and encouraged others to buy tickets (earned revenue is the magic key that persuades potential funders to get on board to make up the remaining costs on the expense side of the budget; the prevailing attitude in Charleston that someone else should pay for the Charlestonians' pleasures (this is community-wide and not just in the arts) would have been countered, starting back in the 70s when Spoleto Festival became so dependent on funding from out-of-town sources (Italian appliance magnates, New York foundations, threatened NEA funding, etc.)that its very existence is still inextricably linked to non-Charleston funding. The list could go on and on.... Yes, none of the external factors absolves the CSO from its bad decisions. But symphony management is never going to be any better than the resources that are allocated to its quality and improvement -- and the fact of the matter is that the orchestra has never had the resources to engage management of the level needed -- and even if it had, no sensible manager is going to linger when he sees that the community is, when all is said and done, indifferent to the fate of its orchestra.

Posted by Ecuiram LeVar on January 14, 2009 at 1:03 PM | Report this comment

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John Stoehr
Arts Editor

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