May 8, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Arts groups don’t stand a chance of recruiting the best and brightest workers because many organizations and their board members believe that spending money on programs is legitimate but spending it on salaries is not, writes an anonymous blogger from Asheville, N.C. on her Web site, Bookgirl.
“Corporate society assumes that good products and programs are the result of smart people who envision, plan, execute, and manage them effectively,” writes the blogger, who identifies herself as a book artist and marketing professional. “It recognizes that if its best people are not compensated appropriately they will leave or become disaffected (and thus less effective) or both,” she writes. “Why should these assumptions be different in a nonprofit environment?”
The author criticizes the notion that employees of arts groups should do their work for the love of their organizations and not a high salary.
“Board members should fight for budgets that pay the arts organization’s best managers fairly,” she writes. Or else talented people will bypass jobs in arts groups and “the loss will be ours.”
Do you think nonprofit arts groups need to rethink how they compensate workers? Click on the comment link just below this posting to share your thoughts.
