Rebecca Thomas

In the fall of 2019, SMU DataArts — in partnership with Theatre Communications Group (TCG) — released a paper examining the financial health of nonprofit theaters in the years leading up to, during, and following the Great Recession. With data pointing to an economic slowdown, the researchers explored the financial preparedness of US theaters to weather the coming period of uncertainty and turbulence.

In 2008, ten performing arts organizations embarked on an experiment in capitalization. As participants in Nonprofit Finance Fund’s Leading for the Future (LFF) Initiative, the first program to introduce change capital on a national scale, they set out to develop new program models and operating structures that would respond to shifts in the artistic environment and serve as instructive examples to the field.

Download:

   Critical Steps Toward Capital Health in the Cultural Sector (61 Kb)

Download:

   Critical Steps Toward Capital Health in the Cultural Sector (61 Kb)

In 2010, Grantmakers in the Arts put capitalization on the national arts agenda by starting a conversation about what funders can do differently to address the chronic financial weakness undermining the vitality of the sector.

20 pages, 2012. Nonprofit Finance Fund, 70 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018, (212) 868-6710, www.nonprofitfinancefund.org.

Download:

   Change Capital in Action (9 Mb)

In June 2011, Nonprofit Finance Fund published a new series on the need for and uses of capital in the arts.