It Is Broke, We Should Probably Fix It: The Nonprofit Model and the Arts

It can be a subtle thing — the way in which an organization or collective comprised of ambitious and purposeful people working toward a clear set of goals starts to slip into something a bit murkier; something that seems to be more about self-perpetuation and outsiders’ goals than about that original impetus to come together. Oftentimes growth is the reason for change. Our society applauds and encourages growth at every level — personal, familial, organizational, economic and political — despite the increased time and resources that growth demands. And many people in the US take the corporate structures of most businesses and nonprofits for granted, without questioning the ways that hierarchical models concentrate power among small groups of people and can easily get in the way of achieving goals and benefits for society.

The book that’s got me thinking about all this is The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. Edited by members of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, a social justice organization working against sexism, racism, and violence, the book was published in 2007 and follows up on a 2004 conference of the same name organized by INCITE!. The essays are organized into three sections, one that discusses the rise of the nonprofit model, another focused on the ways that nonprofit structures and funding influence and affect those who seek to make change in the US, and a third that puts forth ideas and examples of how to work with or around nonprofits in order to maintain a radical agenda.