A little food for thought regarding SPACE

[Karen Lane]

From the Chronicle of Philanthropy

July 10, 2007
Washington Nonprofit Groups Looking to Buy Office Space Instead of Renting

Large annual increases in rental prices in Washington have spurred area nonprofit groups to purchase office condominiums instead of renting space, reports The Washington Post.

In the past year and a half, about a dozen nonprofit groups have bought or signed contracts to purchase office condos.

“After 30 years of leasing, we would be better off had we bought, dealing with the realities of the Washington, D.C., leases,” said the Rev. Tom Gaunt, executive secretary of the Jesuit Conference, which recently bought a total of 17,000 square feet of office space. “The immediate cost will be more in the initial years. We’re fully expecting savings seven to 10 years out. We’ll be paying less than if we kept renewing our current lease.”

[Roger Tang]

This does require some (gulp) long term thinking and some medium to heavy duty fundraising...

Things, I'm afraid are only going to get worse in this town; wouldn't be surprised to see theatre get priced out of existence in Capitol Hill in the not-too-distant future...

[Brian Giannini Upton]

Having rented and managed a space in Denver, I can only concur with Karen's post. Rent will only grow with time, and will never increase your assets. You have to ask yourself, do I want to own and run a space, or do I want to manage someone Else's. A tough choice? Yes.

Roger, long term? Absolutely...and there is nothing wrong with looking at your company in the long term.

Cheers, and success,

Brian

[Shane Regan!]

I think the problem is most "fringe" (if you will) companies have a hard enough time thinking about their next season, let alone long-term planning.  you need a good mix of artistic and financial managing talent.  and by "a good mix," i mean a lot of both.

[Roger Tang]

I think the problem is most "fringe" (if you will) companies have a hard enough time thinking about their next season, let alone long-term planning.  you need a good mix of artistic and financial managing talent.  and by "a good mix," i mean a lot of both.

Oh, tell me about it. I can barely get some of my people to think to the next rehearsal, let alone for the next two years...

[Brian Giannini Upton]

This thread illustrates something that I think is desperately lacking in "Arts" education (and as we all know, I am far from an academic). At some point, I think that business education should be injected into a Fine Arts degree. Chances are, at some point, as artists we are each going to become a partner or creator of a company. Business is business and it would be helpful for artists to know how to accomplish running a successful one. Perhaps if Karen takes a peek at this she could point us all to some resources that can help accomplish this (or am I a fool for not noticing it before).

Cheers!
Brian

[Christopher Comte]

Brian,

I've been having exactly this discussion with people for - oh, about fifteen or sixteen years now.

I completely agree with your premise, but the difficulty arises from the simple fact that many of the people running university degree programs in the arts, and in particular the performing arts, have little or no practical experience as working artists themselves.  They're academics, and the entirety of their professional experience has occured in an academic setting.  For the remainder of those who actually have worked out there in "the real world", their own business skills may be marginal-to-non-existent, and which possibly contributed to their shift from profressional to academic career tracks in the first place.  Meanwhile, the handful that do "get" the need for teaching the BUSINESS side of "Show Business" frequently have good intentions. but just as often run into resistance within their own departments.  "That's not our job," they're told, or, "we do not wish to sully our art with considerations of crass commerce", or, "if artists want to be business people, they should pursue an MBA degree," or other such nonsense.

Frequently this attitude comes from a position of simple ignorance, but it also can come from a fear that putting students in the position of honestly confronting some of the more difficult challenges of their profession, particularly ones that instructors themselves find problematic, may only serve to discourage students from pursuing their particular degree program; and nowadays, with the explosive growth of liberal arts programs, particular those in the performing arts in the past 10 - 15 years, nobody wants to do anything to upset their cash-cow.

As a result, literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of young performers are handed their diplomas, and thrust out into the highly competitive (and in my opinion, already over saturated) marketplace, with at best, only the most minimal business skills required to successfully develop and maintain a professional working career.  But for the most part, nobody has spoken to them about developing a business plan, about marketing (other than, "get headshots"), about personal or business finances, about taxes, about - well, about anything that could have a significant financial impact on their careers.  And so, they're left to flounder around helplessly, maybe picking up a few things as they go along, or perhaps at some point coming to the realization that they're deficient in these areas, at which point they may seek out expertise or additional education to get up-to-speed.

But for the most part, what I see when I conduct tax seminars, or on rare occasions get invited to actually come speak to students on the subject, are young performers who, for the most part have never even paid taxes, let alone prepared their own returns, who haven't the faintest idea about deducting business expenses, or, about categorizing and allocating income and expenses; heck, most don't even know how to correctly fill out employment forms!  And frankly, even a lot of established working artists just don't have enough of a "left brain/right brain balance" to fully understand math and related concepts (although truthfully, if I can do it, anyone else can too, given sufficient time, training, and motivation), so they just let it slide until the problem finally becomes too intractable to ignore, THEN they start hunting around for someone - anyone to help them out, which unfortunately, most often means they end up someplace like H&R Block, where the so-called "tax specialists" don't have any better understanding of the specific issues relating to their profession than they do!  This is generally the point where they start showing up on my "doorstep".

[Zachariah Robinson]

You can find a slew of links under the main menu under online tools under Theatre Arts & Business links.

[Brian Giannini Upton]

Thanks Zachariah, I'll check that out. Well said, Christopher!