So, yesterday the number of visitors to Createquity shot up by about 500% over previous day averages for the past month. My recent post on compensation for support employees in the nonprofit sector got linked on the Philanthropy News Digest blog, and it looks like some people posted it on Facebook and emailed it around to their friends as well. It definitely seems like the subject has hit a nerve, so you’ve inspired me to write a guide to motivating Generation Y in the nonprofit workplace, which will be on its way hopefully this week. In the meantime, here’s another segment of my weekly (or so) round-up of blog posts and news stories that interest me:
- Not surprising, but still worrisome: Nonprofit Finance Fund says America’s nonprofits are in trouble. More than half of respondents expect the current situation to have a long-term (2+ years) or permanent economic impairment to their organizations.
- NFF (whose Renee Jacob, a Yale SOM grad, gave an excellent presentation here over the weekend covering some of these topics) is also quoted in this NY Times story indicating that many arts organizations with fancy new spaces are now having trouble paying the bills.
- Easy to pay the bills when they’re free, though! smArts & Culture alerts Philly artists to a great opportunity for free space on South Street. (Incidentally, I lived half a block away on Rodman for about nine months right after college.)
- Future of Music Coalition just published some principles for compensation of musicians in new business models.
- Nate Silver takes on unimaginative neoclassical economist thinking like a pro. It amazes me that there are well-respected social “scientists” out there that continue to insist on this kind of ex-post-facto, non-empirically-based logical reasoning.
- Hey, why am I not on this list? In all seriousness, it’s unfortunate that all of the “art” blogs are actually about visual arts and not other kinds of art, but two of the sites on the Createquity blogroll are represented (Tactical Philanthropy and the GiveWell Blog), along with Give & Take (the Chronicle of Philanthropy‘s blog) and soon-to-be-added Seth’s Blog.
- Great post from Lucy Bernholz celebrating how far the conversation about shared metrics and platforms has moved forward and giving specific examples of projects of note.
- The IRS is supposedly going to rule on the L3C before the year is out. (thanks @tactphil)
- Say what you want about Bloomberg, but he gets nonprofits (and the arts). Behold his thorough prescription for helping NYC nonprofit organizations get through the recession.
- Check out these new “buzz maps” from researchers at UCLA and Columbia University. It looks like they’ve kind of backed into creating an interesting cultural asset map, though the accompanying article jumps to some conclusions that aren’t warranted (just because activity at high-profile cultural and entertainment institutions is more visible doesn’t make it hipper). Not to mention that using photographs from Getty Images as your primary data source is likely to introduce certain biases in that direction.
- Really fine quality piece here from David Brewster dissecting Seattle’s arts scene and its current budget troubles. He goes at it from an ecosystem perspective and doesn’t shy away from the numbers or the politics. More fodder for my New Haven analysis to come at the end of the semester.