Report Title:	Intermediary Profile Report
Report Date:

Organization:	National Arts Strategies	Program ID Number: I-6
Date Profile Created:	December 1, 2005	Date Profile Last Updated: December 1, 2005

Program Summary:
National Arts Strategies (NAS) provides education for leaders of nonprofit arts organizations. It works with faculty from the leading business schools in the United States to develop and offer courses of varying content and format, specifically for arts and culture audiences, at lower costs than typical executive education programs. Programming such as seminars and seminar series address the critical challenges facing arts leaders today, including strategic focus, governance, and managing change in complex environments.

Customized programs addressing a specific community's needs can include peer learning sessions, action learning programs, facilitated leadership retreats, executive coaching, mission and strategy reviews, organizational self-assessment, special topics presentations, and other customized learning opportunities. For example, the Boettcher Cultural Leadership Program, a three-year statewide effort for Colorado's arts and cultural sector, was created in collaboration with the Boettcher Foundation. The foundation invited a select list of arts and cultural leaders from across the state to apply for the first cohort that will begin in 2006. The program is designed to create a community of cultural leaders equipped with the knowledge and skills to respond to an ever-changing environment and lead lasting institutions. It will include (1) events hosted in communities across the state to build relationships among many of Colorado's most effective cultural leaders; (2) a structured curriculum of executive-level seminars designed for the arts that provide the content and challenge of top MBA programs; and (3) coaching, peer learning sessions, and other seminar extensions to help leaders translate new ideas into action.

The NAS two-week leadership retreat, "The Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders-Arts," is for mid-career arts executives who have demonstrated effective leadership in their nonprofit arts organizations, their communities, and their disciplines. A partnership with the Stanford Graduate School of Business's Center for Social Innovation, this program has a competitive selection process, and requires nomination and financial sponsorship from a funder outside the nominee's organization.

NAS partners with universities and faculty engaged in research on organizational management and leadership. With the support of national funders, it undertakes research projects to fill knowledge gaps. It then makes learning available by publishing leadership tools, and through case studies and concepts presented in seminars and made available for use by others. For example, the Cultural Dynamics Working Group, a collaborative project of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, NAS, and Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley, maps the cultural ecosystem to provide insight and provoke conversation among arts leaders. Financial Management Practices research studied leading arts organizations to understand how their practices could be used across the arts sector. A framework and publication that can be used by arts groups to assess their approaches is now available. Additionally, based on the idea that evaluation in the arts tends to focus on accountability, and misses out on evaluation's potential for continuous learning and organizational development, NAS developed an integrated approach to evaluation that arts leaders can apply to build organizational capacity and further their missions.

NAS evaluates its own efforts at the end of each service, and annually for the organization as a whole. It uses a combination of methods, including email and in person surveys, focus groups, individual interviews, and internal tracking systems.