Donna Walker-Kuhne, Raymond Bobgan, David Stewart and Larissa Fasthorse at the 2017 TCG Fall Forum on governance. (Photo of Isaiah Tanenbaum)
New York: TODAY THEATER Communications Group (TCG) released Who do we trust VI: Governing Boards Survey 2024The sixth complete study of the organization on the governance of non -profit theater and their first in more than 10 years. Since 1998, TCG (which is also the publisher of American theater) has periodically led a investigation Explore the governance councils of the theater in depth. In whom we trust Provides a wide range of comparative data decomposed by budget size to shed light on the evaluation of donation levels, to give / obtain requirements, demographic data from the board of directors, meeting practices, recruitment policies, etc.
“This last edition of the survey on boards of directors, shows significant progress in the urgent work of diversification of non-profit theater councils,” said Emilya Cachapero, co-executive director of national and global programming in a statement. “It was also encouraging to see that despite several highly publicized conflicts between the Board of Directors and the staff, most of the theater chiefs strongly assess the health of their relations with the trustees. Strengthening this critical relationship was a TCG priority of several decades, and we are impatient to continue this relationship with this report and the future programming on the theme of governance. ”
The survey was written and designed by Corinna Schulenburg, co-leader of research programs at TCG, with the edition of Rachael Hip-Flores, also co-directed of research programs at TCG. It presents data of 141 theaters, representing a wide range of budgetary sizes and regions. The main conclusions include:
- Increased racial diversity on advice: One of the most important changes in governance since the boards of directors in 2013 is the growing racial diversity of trustee. In the five investigations to the Board of Directors from 1998 to 2013, the trustees were between 85 and 89% white. In 2024, the growth in the number of bip -fi fiduciaries reduced the average to 71% in all budgetary groups. Also interesting: in the past, the advice of small theaters were more racily diversified. During the 2024 season, the boards of directors of all budget sizes reflect American demographic data more.
- Dating practices: 93% of theaters always use or sometimes Robert's rules to carry out their consulting meetings, 45% declaring their very effective parliamentary practice, and 42% calling them somewhat effective. A small number of theaters experience the variations in decision -based decision -making.
- Discussion priorities: Four subjects are priority during the meetings of the Board of Directors – Fiduciaries / Budgeting, the sale of tickets / audience building, programmatic discussions and fund / capital collection campaigns – with hiring / succession, legal compliance and the least frequently discussed risks.
- Donation of the trustee: The larger the size of the budget of the theater, the more the median gift of median trustees, with trustees offering a median annual gift of $ 20,032 for the budgetary group six theaters (those who have more than $ 10 million in annual budgets).
- Give / get policies: In 2024, 43% of theaters said they had a kind of policy to give / obtaining (that is to say a requirement that the members of the board of directors contribute or increased a certain sum of money), a significant drop in relation to the 78% of theaters who did it in 2013.
- Time spent with administrators: The combined theater staff spent an average of 25 hours per week working with the administrators.
- Consulting personnel relations: The heads of theater evaluated their relations with the trustee, an average of 4.48 out of 5.
- Decision -making authority: The board of directors has most of the decision -making power around hiring at the executive level, annual budgeting and strategic planning.
- The main challenges in relations with the staff of the Board of Directors: The heads of theater appointed “unrealistic expectations of the capacity of the staff”, “do not follow commitments on board” and “the growing requests for staff time” as the main challenges having an impact on relations with the board of directors.
Theater Communications Group (TCG), the national theater organization, leads to a just and flourishing theatrical ecology. Since its foundation in 1961, the TCG district has gone from a handful of revolutionary theaters to more than 750 member theaters and affiliate organizations and more than 3,000 individual members. Thanks to its programs and services, TCG reaches more than a million students, public members and theater professionals each year.
