The Art Of Trusteeship

The well-being of any nonprofit organization rests first with itsvolunteer board of directors. This book offers board members theguidance they need to successfully govern their organizations--nomatter what type or size of nonprofit they may lead. Written by Candace Widmer and Susan Houchin, The Art ofTrusteeship shows you how to fulfill ten key trusteeresponsibilities and includes much-needed detail on definingmission, strategic planning, executive selection and evaluation,fundraising, financial oversight, and board self-assessment. Thishands-on guide is filled with illustrative case studies andreal-life examples that clearly show how a variety of creativeboards have tackled challenges and strengthened theirorganizations. "At last, a book that doesn't take a one-size-fits-all approach!The authors recognize that the huge diversity among nonprofitscalls for multiple ways of fulfilling basic board responsibilities.The book allows a board member to dive in at any point and find aconcise, clear set of options for handling the challenges oftrusteeship. It will help even first-time board members find firmfooting on the path to effective governance." --Sara L. Engelhardt, president, The Foundation Center

“Thoughtful essays on the morality, obligations, practice, and virtues of trusteeship.” —ARNOVA News In Entrusted, David H. Smith offers some ideas and raises some issues that may put trusteeship into perspective. The main idea presented in these pages is that trustees should be reflective, that the board should be a community of inquiry, more precisely, a community of interpretation. And, because the trustee’s historically and currently important role has been little studied by moralists, philosophers, or theologians, moral issues associated with nonprofit governance have fallen into the cracks. This book serves to suggest the need for academically sophisticated discussions of the moral parameters of trusteeship, studies that will go beyond and improve on this attempt. “Entrusted provides a much-needed contribution to the literature on ethics in the healthcare arena.” —Health Progress “A splendid and invaluable book, one every trustee with an active conscience would want to read and one every trustee with a dormant conscience ought to read.” —Richard Chait, Center for Higher Education Governance and Leadership “[Smith’s] contribution breaks some new and difficult ground by helping us to think beyond the routine and mundane dimensions of trusteeship.” —Academe “Essential reading for trustees.” —Ethics “Entrusted should be required reading for trustees of any not-for-profit.” —Advancing Philanthropy

. . . a useful handbook for trustees and a fascinating survey of the role of trustees in the management of nonprofit organizations. Baughman ably examines the juridical status of trustees of charitable institutions in light of their obligation to administer trusts for the public's benefit and enjoyment. . . . The appendix includes a three-page guide prepared by Neil F. Hartigan, the attorney-general for Illinois, on how board members of nonprofit organizations can best fulfill their responsibilities. . . . Baughman presents a very readable account of trustees and of the litigation battles that result when trustees fail to act on behalf of the public good. Business History Review

Cultural trusteeship is a subject that fascinates those who wonder about the relationship between power and culture. What compels the wealthy to serve on the boards of fine arts institutions? How do they exercise their influence as trustees, and how does this affect the way arts institutions operate? To find out, Francie Ostrower conducted candid personal interviews with 76 trustees drawn from two opera companies and two art museums in the United States. Her new study demonstrates that members of elite arts boards walk a fine line between maintaining their status and serving the needs of the large-scale organizations they oversee. As class members whose status depends in part on the prestige of the boards on which they serve, trustees seek to perpetuate arts boards as exclusive elite enclaves. But in response to pressures to increase and diversify the audiences for arts institutions, elite board members act in a surprisingly open manner in terms of organizational accessibility and operations. Written with clarity and grace, Trustees of Culture will contribute significantly to our understanding of organizational governance; the politics of fundraising; elite arts participation and philanthropy; as well as the consequences of wider social policies that continue to emphasize private financial support. Ostrower's study will prove to be indispensable reading for not just sociologists of culture, but anyone interested in how the arts are financially and institutionally supported.

Discover a classic adventure from the author of A Town Like Alice and On the Beach. Keith Stewart is an ordinary man. However, one day he is called upon to undertake an extraordinary task. When his sister's boat is wrecked in the Pacific, he becomes trustee for his little niece. In order to save her from destitution he has to embark on a 2,000 mile voyage in a small yacht in inhospitable waters. His adventures and the colourful characters he meets on his journey make this book a marvellous tale of courage and friendship. 'Something about this author's calm, deliberate style creates unexpected excitement... we are warmed by the justice and sheer pleasure of it' Independent

Both institutional critique and reference work, documenting the intersection of politics (in the form of political donations) and art museums. 2016 in Museums, Money, and Politics examines the intersection of electoral politics and private-nonprofit art institutions in the United States at a pivotal historical moment. In a massive volume that is both institutional critique and reference work, the artist Andrea Fraser documents the reported political contributions made by trustees of more than 125 art museums, representing every state in the nation, in the 2016 election cycle. With campaigning that featured attacks on vulnerable populations, the vilification of the media and “cultural elites,” and calls to curtail civil rights and liberties, the 2016 election cycle and its aftermath transformed national politics. It was also the most expensive election in American history, with over $6.4 billion raised for presidential and congressional races combined. More than half of this money came from just a few hundred people—many of whom also support cultural institutions and serve on their boards. 2016 is organized like a telephone book. Contribution data is laid out alphabetically by name of donor. With this and other data filling more than 900 pages, the book offers a material representation of scale of the interface between cultural philanthropy and campaign finance in America. It also provides an unparalleled resource for exploring the politics of the museum world. 2016 includes an afterword by Jamie Stevens, the former curator and head of programs at CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, who traces the book's development; an introduction by Andrea Fraser elaborating on the links connecting cultural philanthropy, campaign finance, and plutocracy; a section on each museum represented; and a section including data summaries and additional data. The book presents a powerful argument that supporting the arts must involve more than giving donations to museums; it must also include defending the values, social structures, and political institutions of an open, tolerant, just, and equitable society. Copublished by Westreich Wagner Publications, the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and the MIT Press

The Art of Governance is an essential guide for trustees in the performing arts and for the artists, managers, and community leaders who work with them. This book provides the larger context in which trustees govern—the art, artists, history, institutions, and national policies of the performing arts—and also explores more practical issues, such as board development, planning, finance, and fundraising. A wide range of distinguished artists, trustees, managers, and consultants have contributed articles, covering everything from “The Art of Theater” to “Understanding Financial Statements.” An invaluable tool for building an enlightened and inspired board, this resource above all recognizes the need of trustees in the performing arts to find a balance between the uncertainty of artistic creativity and the need for fiscal stability. Editors Nancy Roche and Jaan Whitehead have served on the boards and staff of numerous theater organizations. Nancy Roche has been a trustee of CENTER-STAGE in Baltimore since 1987, serving as president of the board for seven years and as interim managing director for one year. She has been a consultant on governance for the National Arts Stabilization (now National Arts Strategies), a councilor of the Maryland State Arts Commission from 1992-1999, and has twice served as lay panelist for the NEA. In the summer of 2000, she participated as a theater trustee in the National Critics’ Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, returning in the following summer as a founding member of their week-long Trustees Program. She is a founding member of the National Council for the American Theatre and serves as a trustee and treasurer of the board of Theatre Communications Group. In addition, she serves on the boards of the Roland Park Country School, the Institute for Christian-Jewish Studies, and the Baltimore School for the Arts. She is a graduate of Dominican University and received an MA in teaching and an LLA, both from The Johns Hopkins University. Jaan Whitehead currently chairs the board of the SITI Company, an ensemble theater in New York led by Anne Bogart. She has served on the boards of The Acting Company, Arena Stage, Living Stage, and The Whole Theatre Company, where her particular interests have been board development and institutional change. She has also been a trustee of Theatre Communications Group and the National Cultural Alliance, an arts advocacy group in Washington, and is a founding member of the National Council for the American Theatre. In addition to her work as a trustee, she has been executive director of Theatre for a New Audience in New York and Development Director of CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore. Ms. Whitehead graduated from Wellesley College, holds and MA in economics from the University of Michigan, and, early in her career, works as an economist for private industry and the Federal Reserve Board. She received her PhD in political theory fro Princeton in 1988. She taught at Georgetown University for several years but, as her involvement in theater deepened, she made the arts her main work while retaining her interests in economic and political theory. Drawing on this background, she has recently been writing a series of essays on the challenges facing the arts in a commercial society.