money issues….
It seems to me that the people who were least interested in math and science, and perhaps who suffered failure in these because the methods used to teach them were not effective with us creative types, are the ones now wanting to offload responsibility for fundraising and financial management for our nonprofit organizations. It might also be at the root of the answer to the question – why so many nonprofit arts groups? Apart from the set-up by government to be nonprofit and charitable in order to access the investment $$ needed to produce the art, it could be the living embodiment of the financial fantasy many of us hold dear: if we are good enough, our cause is just, the work is important, then the donors/sponsors/grants/ticketbuyers will come.
The housewife syndrome….
People in the arts say they need more training in fundraising and money management – what they would prefer is that somebody else do all this and hand it over. This is what begins to evoke the image of the arts as the stereotypical housewife of the economy. Unpaid work is seen in our society as less important than paid work – so that even when this work is paid for the people doing it are at the bottom of the pay scale and their jobs less secure. Child care, cleaning, taking care of the sick and elderly – women’s work.
This work is essential and important, but as soon as it is done, it starts all over again. It is taken for granted by everyone, being appreciated most when absent or poorly done. When paid for, it is poorly paid. Opportunities for exploiting the dependence and insecurity of the worker abound.