History Repeats Itself…Wait, Didn't I Just Use This Post Title? by Joe Patti

You may have read Kurt Andersen recent piece in Vanity Fair noting that fashion, art, design and culture in general hasn’t really changed much in the last twenty years. Or maybe like m…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:25am on December 14, 2011☆⚑

Even Great Artists Need Recess by Joe Patti

I may be beating a long dead horse here but last week the National Endowment for the Arts linked to a NY Times article from their Twitter account asking what people thought. The article in q…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:09am on December 13, 2011☆⚑

Give The Gift Of Autonomy For Christmas by Joe Patti

So the big tragedy of non profit arts organizations is that while we are the champions of creativity, we don’t really provide all our employees the most conducive environments for bein…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:48am on December 8, 2011☆⚑

History Repeats Itself And Is Redundant, Too by Joe Patti

I was starting to write up a draft of a press release for a show we will be doing in the Spring, First Person: Seeing America. Probably the best way to describe it is as a live documentary. …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:25am on December 7, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Crowdfunding Legislation Update by Joe Patti

Thanks to Ken Davenport’s post on the subject, I discovered the bill to facilitate crowdfunding I wrote about at the end of October is nearing approval. The House (H.R. 2930) approved …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:23am on December 6, 2011☆⚑

Pools And Pre-Schools And Theatres, Oh My! by Joe Patti

Those who have been reading for a number of years may recall that I have been on an advisory committee for the performing arts portion of a community center the Salvation Army is building wi…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:24pm on November 30, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Internship Guide For Arts Organisations by Joe Patti

The subject of paying interns has been in the news fairly frequently. This summer I noted that while non-profits are currently exempt from some of the rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act, …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:34am on November 30, 2011☆⚑

Will Perform For Snacks by Joe Patti

On the Marginal Revolution blog, Tyler Cowen has a short post about a psychology professor who requires his students take turns bringing a homemade snack in to each class. If they don’…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:10am on November 29, 2011☆⚑

My First Thanksgiving Post by Joe Patti

I usually don’t do thanksgiving themed posts but I have been feeling really energized by some recent occurrences I wanted to acknowledge. -First, I have recently realized just how valu…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:47am on November 24, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Age Related Discounts May Be Illegal by Joe Patti

Hat tip to Thomas Cott at You’ve Cott Mail for making us aware that attempts to attract younger audiences through special pricing may be a form of age discrimination. The D.C. Office o…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:26am on November 23, 2011☆⚑

Try Ask by Joe Patti

I try a fair number of the strategies/techniques that I cover here. Some work better than others. For example, for the last seven performances we have tried just asking two questions in our …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:32am on November 22, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: So You Think You Want To Merge by Joe Patti

It seems discussion of non-profit mergers is becoming more prevalent of late. I recently became aware of a research document created by Wilder Research and MAP for Non Profits looking at wha…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:12am on November 17, 2011☆⚑

Advocation For Arts Careers To High Schoolers by Joe Patti

I was speaking about arts careers at a high school career day today. The high school had been really good about sending out information packets with suggested topics to cover with the studen…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:09am on November 16, 2011☆⚑

Audience Engagement-Careful What You Wish For by Joe Patti

One of the biggest topics of discussion these days is about engaging audiences. Often during these discussions, people talk about the way things used to be when audiences weren’t expec…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:41am on November 15, 2011☆⚑

70-10 Split Of Board Learning by Joe Patti

I have been on a few board-staff retreats and have always been a little skeptical about whether any significant change will come from them. Admittedly, in some cases some small changes have …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:58am on November 10, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Standards For Your Website by Joe Patti

Apropos to my post yesterday about standards for arts marketing personnel is today’s a review of arts organizations’ online marketing efforts. Drew McManus unveiled his 2011 Orch…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:17am on November 9, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Arts Marketing Standards by Joe Patti

Thanks to Tim Roberts at Arts Research and Ticketing Service Australia who recently linked to UK Arts Marketing Association’s new Arts Marketing Standards. The standards outline what a…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:32am on November 8, 2011☆⚑

It's Not A Genius Grant. It Might Actually Be Much Better by Joe Patti

I just got around to reading up on some of the new granting program initiatives the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has recently announced. In the interests of correction right from the sta…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:58am on November 3, 2011☆⚑

Engagement Matters In All Aspects Of Your Life by Joe Patti

I came across a number of articles/blog posts about employment this week and have seen a little bit of common thread through them related to arts and creativity. The first was the results of…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:28am on November 2, 2011☆⚑

Arts Instruction Is Critical…As Long As You Volunteer To Do It by Joe Patti

Last week I came across a link to a story about Columbia University students who created a program to provide after school arts experiences in NYC. I absolutely applaud the efforts of these …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:02am on November 1, 2011☆⚑

Can Arts Orgs Play Moneyball With Their Staffs? by Joe Patti

Ever since the movie Moneyball came out, I have been thinking about whether similar system can be applied to the arts. I mean a system by which baseball teams with small budgets were able to…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:22am on October 27, 2011☆⚑

Crowdfunding Become Crowdinvesting? by Joe Patti

In the “stuff you aren’t supposed to do” theme of yesterday’s post, is a piece from Slate about legal restrictions on crowd funding. While thousands of people can don…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:58am on October 26, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Commerciality Doctrine (What The Heck Is That?) by Joe Patti

Hat tip to Non-Profit Law blog for providing the link to Charity Lawyer Ellis Carter’s 2009 post about the Commerciality Doctrine. As you can probably tell from the title of this entry…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:53am on October 25, 2011☆⚑

Info You Can Use: Efforts You Can Skip…Maybe by Joe Patti

From time to time I advocate for carefully evaluating the technology tools ones organization uses rather than jumping on what appears to be the hottest new thing everyone is apparently using…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:43am on October 20, 2011☆⚑

Organizational Culture"It's People!!!! by Joe Patti

Rosetta Thurman recently relinked back to an entry she did last year about organizational culture and the importance of not feeling like you are helpless in the face of it. Her basic premise…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:58am on October 19, 2011☆⚑