20 20 hindsight

..whenever I hear that an arts organization has had recurring deficits (often leading to the accumulation of excessively high debt), my first question is: does this organization’s trustees know how to read an audited financial statement and a cash flow statement?

..who are the winners and who are the losers when  a nonprofit organization files for bankruptcy?

is it concerning to anyone else that we have evolved our major cultural institutions to a point where they are so highly inflexible that in order to ‘downsize’ or ‘transform’ they must run themselves into the ground and then declare bankruptcy?  Or cancel their seasons and lay off their staffs?

Some tough talking for arts organisations from Diane Ragsdale over at Jumper.  Tough but incredibly important.  Diane is challenging complacency about finance and organisation.  How many of the closures or lay offs were forseeable? and what are we not willing to look at, right now, in front of our faces that will impact on sustainability in the long term? Diane’s questions are important for every organisation to ask both those who are operating solvently and new organisations about to come into existence.