Professional Development: Consulting Programs: Planning & Development Program with Arts Action Research

The Philadelphia Music Project, in collaboration with fellow Pew Charitable Trusts cultural initiatives Dance Advance and the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, has engaged the Brooklyn-based strategic planning firm Arts Action Research to assist several of its grantee organizations in enhancing their administrative capacity in accordance with their artistic goals.

The Planning and Development Program opened with a roundtable discussion on August 8, 2001, in which consultants George Thorn and Nello McDaniel discussed some of the challenges facing the arts community today, outlined their strategies for responding to these challenges, and described their consulting philosophy. Over the course of the season, Thorn and McDaniel continued to meet individually with each participating organization to provide one-on-one guidance toward aligning administrative operations with its artistic vision. PMP expanded the Planning and Development Program in 2002 to involve six additional organizations and an additional consultant, Lynn Moffat.

Goals for each organization’s work with AAR include identifying and enabling key arts leadership; achieving clarity in mission and purpose; developing effective processes for planning, decision-making, problem-solving, and operating; learning to operate at an appropriate level according to the organization’s financial, community, and human resources; and therefore achieving organizational health and balance.