An executive director quitting within a couple of months of starting is bad news for any company.
For a small nonprofit, it’s a red flag that begs this question: How does a fledgling arts organization grow?
Resonance Works Pittsburgh is a performance organization that, in non-pandemic times, put on a few shows a year ranging from operas and musicals to chamber music and oratorios with contracted artists. It defies any particular programming niche. Next year is its 10th anniversary season.
According to tax documents from recent years, it blips along with an annual budget of around $130,000 a year, largely donated by founder and general director Maria Sensi Sellner and her family with some foundation funding.
Sellner, a former engineer turned conductor with engagements across the country, declined to comment for this article.
In 2021, the board met to outline new strategies to grow and settled on hiring an executive director. Enter Clare Longendyke, a Chicago-based pianist and the founder of a plucky arts festival and recital series.
Longendyke began working as a part time contractor on Sept. 1, but she said she quickly realized that the position would require more than full-time work and informed the board of her decision in December.
“I decided to leave because I couldn’t be successful in growing the organization under those circumstances,” she said.
Her final day was March 4.
So what went wrong? And what can other nonprofits in a similar situation learn from this situation?
Butts in seats
“The organization’s overriding goal is butts in seats,” said Doug McGill, current president of the board. “If we don't have butts in seats, that’s the clearest indicator that things aren't quite aligned between the organization and the community.”
For perspective, the organization’s last full pre-pandemic season, which ended in 2019, drew 1,447 total listeners, a slight increase over the previous year, according to its unsuccessful application for funding through the Regional Asset District.
That document also reveals that while the number of individual contributors is ticking up gradually, the top three funders during the 2019 season were the founder and her family members, who contributed a combined $57,285. Sellner and her husband, Brennan Sellner, vice president of the board as well as operations manager, personally hold the organization’s long-term debt.
Growth under these conditions is incredibly difficult, and of course the pandemic has thrown a giant monkey wrench in operations for nonprofits around the country, including Resonance Works. Where to begin?
“It’s certainly possible for a small org to grow, but the first thing to do is develop a compelling mission and programming plan to garner a larger share of the philanthropic pie,” said Joseph Kluger, a principal at WolfBrown, a nonprofit consulting firm.
WolfBrown customarily works with organizations with budgets in the millions or tens of millions of dollars, but Kruger had some advice for small groups looking to take the next step up the budget ladder:
“This is often something of a ‘chicken and the egg’ situation,” he said, explaining that it takes manpower to increase resources and resources to increase manpower.
“First, you need a mission statement,” Kluger said. “You need an elevator speech that, when you’re out at a cocktail party and someone says what do you do, ‘We’re an organization that does ‘X.’
“It needs to be inspiring and it needs to be compelling and it needs to meet a public need that isn’t served by other organizations. That’s the next step.”
Now in its ninth season, Resonance Works website, www.resonanceworks.org, doesn't have a clear, concise mission statement.
“In Pittsburgh, there are so many other groups and you don't want to directly compete,” McGill said. “What we really care about is representation, but it’s hard to build an audience when programming is going to change all the time.”
McGill also cited the never-ending wheel of single-year grant funding as a hurdle.
Longendyke said that, though she was only there briefly, the organization’s commitment to being artist-led could be a viable peg for its funding pitch, perhaps the start of such a statement.
“The flexibility that Resonance Works offers to its artists to pitch ideas and carry through ideas with organizational support is truly unique,” she said. “They're really willing to get behind what they call their family of artists. They’re willing to do anything to support the vision of the artist and they’re very capable of doing that."
She joined the organization in hopes of helping to craft a mission statement but simply wasn’t there long enough to do so, she said.
Collaborative growth
Siphoning funding into an executive directorship was Resonance Works’ gambit to increase staff to begin growing the organization. Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off.
“We will not be replacing the executive director role in the short term,” said McGill. “We’re rethinking what administrative help we’d need in such a role, and it’ll likely focus more on grant writing and production support. Marketing is a huge need for us, for example.”
The remainder of Longendyke's salary is now going to a marketing firm to consult and provide marketing services. The firm, Workhorse Collective, also declined a request for an interview.
Other local organizations with similar budget sizes, such as the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Girls Choir and Pittsburgh Camerata have also created executive positions in recent years.
“Adding Andrew [Swensen, the organization’s executive director] to the team has absolutely helped us to grow and develop,” said Edward Leonard, founder and artistic director of the Chamber Orchestra.
“Having someone else to bounce ideas off of and to talk through decisions with has been really key.”
These positions are typically part-time, but in the case of the choir and Camerata, the two organizations secured funding to create a shared executive directorship to assist both organizations with fundraising and production through the Allegheny Regional Asset District’s Connection Grant, a program that provides three years of funding to promote “cost-saving connections” like mergers or shared staff.
They announced the hiring of Angela Goldberg for the position in January.
Growth requires additional manpower, and for each nonprofit, there comes a time when a founder isn’t able to keep up with the demands of running both the artistic and administrative side of the organization.
“Maria has poured blood, sweat and tears into this organization, and she’s not taking a salary,” said McGill, Resonance Works’ board president. “We have oversight but not directly.
“On certain kinds of decisions, what tempo, what dynamics, the conductor should have full authority,” said Kruger, the nonprofits consultant. “But almost everything else should be a byproduct of shared authority.”
He added that young organizations often populate boards with friends and family, which can make providing the appropriate checks and balances difficult.
“A lot of the boards and founders of nonprofits assume that because they’re in the business of losing money wisely they’re serving the public interest,” he said. “That's not necessarily the case.
“I have to say, most small organizations don’t develop beyond this. Maybe that’s OK."
Jeremy Reynolds: jreynolds@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1634; twitter: @Reynolds_PG. His work at the Post-Gazette is supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Getty Foundation and Rubin Institute.
First Published: March 24, 2022, 10:00 a.m.
Updated: March 24, 2022, 12:05 p.m.
