No, you're not too small

The Kennedy Center's Michael Kaiser is still spreading the word about how small arts organizations needn't despair, despite the Great Recession. 

His Huffington Post article makes several assertions: 
The importance of long-range planning, and of committing your organization to large-scale events
The importance of getting yourself mentioned in local media at least once every three months
The importance of appealing to movers and shakers
The example of world-class art in a small town, like Glimmerglass.

[ photo: Glimmerglass Opera, Cooperstown, New York ]

Kaiser's national tour

See the July 1 post on this blog about Michael Kaiser of the JFK Center.

Bobo heard on NPR this morning that Kaiser is starting a 50-state tour to advise arts organizations on how to survive the recession.
His message: Don't cut your number of performances. (That's just cutting your revenue stream.) Don't dumb-down your programming or make it more "accessible." (That just has the effect of making your offerings less distinctive, which makes obtaining arts funding less likely.) Market aggressively on the Internet (relatively cheap) and not in print advertising (relatively expensive). [So I guess Bobo's not being so self-serving about his employer, after all.]

Nationally, arts philanthropy was down 6 percent last year -- a big cut, but not the end of the world. 

Visit Arts in Crisis for an online application and other info.

Create good productions and tell people about them

Michael Kaiser at HuffPo has a point: Arts orgs don't have an expenditure problem so much as they have a revenue problem.
Theaters aren't overspending; they're just failing to attract as much of an audience as they deserve.
Kaiser suggests the following: Don't cut back on programs. Don't make them "more accessible." Market them aggressively.

(photo: Michael Kaiser is president of the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Wash., D.C.)