Nonprofit arts organizations are experiencing declines not unlike those experienced by other nonprofits twenty years ago. At that time, key leadership in strategic planning reversed trends of decline. This research explores stakeholder perceptions of authentic leadership in strategic planning in nonprofit arts organizations in metropolitan Detroit. Eight arts organizations were represented in the study. Findings suggest that there is an insufficient application of authentic leadership traits, such as trust and empathy, in the strategic planning process of the sample organizations. Further, findings suggest that an imbalance between arts-based mission and commerce-based business in the strategic planning process hinders effective planning, leading to ineffective outcomes.

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This chapter presents how the notion of experience is most appropriately suited to the arts. It describes the social nature of art, and the way socialization through the arts is a distinct attribute not found in most for-profit products and services. It explores both Dewey’s work as well as Pine and Gilmore’s notion of The Experience Economy and combines Pine and Gilmore’s distinct arguments to further differentiate nonprofit arts from other products and services. These differences are found in aesthetic issues, audience interaction, and experience required. The chapter also includes the case of Sally Taylor’s Consenses, an arts project that centered on an exploration of perception, culminating in audience experience.

This chapter explains why traditional promotion is a poor fit for the nonprofit arts. It uses examples of McCarthy’s promotion to show why the concept of promotion is an imperfect fit for nonprofit arts organizations. In addition to the standard methods of promotion being ill-suited to the arts, the purpose of promotion is to persuade consumers to purchase a product. The chapter argues that this approach is improper for the nonprofit arts since nonprofit organizations exist to serve communities rather than to persuade consumers. It includes a case about a dance company and their struggle with using traditional promotion to maintain and build audiences.