What is happening now is that organizations are trying to figure out in this new environment, no longer relying on central funding, how they can best support what they re doing and really plan what they are going to do. What s fascinating to me is that in an attempt to save the institutions we re selling out not to the wrong people but to the wrong ideas. I think that marketing NEA as an economic development agency is not a good long-term strategy. I seem to be more or less alone in thinking that. But the challenge is clear.
Organizations have to decide what their true mission really is.
If the mission is not only to stay alive but to keep growing, then they ll do whatever they must, and other considerations won t be so important. If their mission is to provide a certain kind of art or to serve a certain kind of audience, then they re going to have a much harder time. That s much harder to do. Some organization won t be able to do it. But, it seems to me that that s the fundamental challenge in the current funding atmosphere.