Arts Funding & Accountability

As a general rule, the CEOs who run America's symphony orchestras tend to be regarded by orchestra musicians with a wariness that borders on outright suspicion. This mistrust (though it is often unnecessary and misplaced) is born from decades of hurtful experience at the bargaining table, and from the sad fact that, in an industry which pays its managers a fraction of what they could earn in the for-profit industry, there are far too many people running symphony orchestras who shouldn't be. (Caveat: I am in no way speaking about the Minnesota Orchestra's management team.)

That having been said, there are a select few CEOs who seem to have achieved the impossible - running their own organization competently and with a fiscally responsible hand, while simultaneously garnering the deep respect of the industry's workers (which is to say, the musicians.) At the top of this list is Michael Kaiser, the outspoken leader of Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, which operates the National Symphony Orchestra. For years, Kaiser has espoused ideas that some of his colleagues would consider heretical, while calmly guiding one of the steadiest ships in the industry as an example of how to run a non-profit without constantly skating on the edge of the abyss. He is considered so supportive of the interests of musicians that he was once invited to be the keynote speaker at a national conference of the musicians' union, a nearly unheard-of honor for an executive.

Kaiser also makes a habit of regularly issuing pronouncements and analysis of the national arts scene, and backs up his opinions with initiatives designed to invite non-profits from around the US to tap into his knowledge and experience. This week, he's writing in the Huffington Post about the need for a federal arts policy. This is an issue that I've always considered a bit of a red herring, and suspected was based largely on the almost obsessive need of certain East Coast types to achieve token recognition from the Powers That Be in Washington, but I'm willing to give Kaiser a chance to change my mind...

"Most people do not know that no fewer than nine government agencies provide support to arts in this nation. That is not a typo... [T]here is literally no coordination between these agencies on their arts spending, nor is there any central governing philosophy or policy... What is needed is a coordinated approach to arts grants to ensure that the arts programming supported by federal funds truly serves our national interest."

Now, that's an interesting way to look at it, I think. Saying that arts organizations need to be run "more like businesses" is an old, old saw in the orchestra business, and coming from many executives, it tends to mean "we need to bust the union so we can start laying people off and slashing salaries." But here is Kaiser, actually identifying a pro-business approach that could benefit the arts: implementing a streamlined system of grantmaking that would have the ability to hold recipients accountable for what they do with federal moneys. And he also thinks we can do it with less bureaucracy, not more. Dare I say, it's an arts funding approach that a Republican could almost love...