{"id":25638,"date":"2019-08-19T10:20:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T15:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=25638"},"modified":"2019-08-19T10:20:50","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T15:20:50","slug":"bso-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/08\/19\/bso-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"BSO, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My cousin &amp; non-profit management expert Scott Chamberlain continues to express astonishment at the <em><strong>Baltimore Symphony Orchestra&#8217;s <\/strong><\/em>Board of Trustee&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/06\/04\/bso\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">management style<\/a> &#8211; or lack thereof:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>\u201cSome trustees say that prudence requires them to hold onto the $60 million endowment in case it\u2019s needed to bankroll a future replacement orchestra. \u2018The endowment trust was created to support the BSO\u00a0<em>or<\/em>\u00a0its accredited successor,\u2019 Chris Bartlett, chairman of the Baltimore Symphony Endowment Trust, wrote in an email. (The emphasis on \u2018or\u2019 was Bartlett\u2019s.)\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Wow. So that\u2019s where the money is going. The trustees looking ahead to funding a newer, different orchestra.<\/p>\n<p>Or to clarify, the trustees are choosing to withhold much-needed funds from a respected, venerable, 103-year old orchestra\u2014choosing to actually force financial hardship on an organization they are charged with protecting\u2014and when it folds, they\u2019ll maybe support some sort of new orchestra that arises from the ashes.<\/p>\n<p>This is monstrous.<\/p>\n<p>Again, I don\u2019t dispute that trustees have to take the long view. But they are supposed to take the long view of the\u00a0<em>Baltimore Symphony Orchestra<\/em>\u2014the entity the endowment was created to support. Not the long view of some hypothetical group that may or may not exist in the future.<\/p>\n<p>There are so many things wrong with this picture. Let\u2019s start with the most basic, obvious questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Would a new orchestra actually arise from the ashes?<\/strong>\u00a0Isn\u2019t that a\u00a0<em>huge<\/em>gamble to take? Back during the Minnesota Orchestra lockout, many folks asked the musicians why they didn\u2019t just create a new orchestra of their own? The answer was made clear again and again\u2014it is supremely hard to create an orchestra from scratch. It requires a significant staff to get it up and running. It needs a place to rehearse and perform. It needs HR expertise to hire musicians. It needs significant capital to pay salaries, healthcare right from the start\u2026 or no one will come to work for it. And so forth. Why go through all that time, trouble, and expense when\u2026\u00a0<em>there\u2019s already an organization that has all these things?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I wonder if management is made up of conservatives matching the new definition of conservatives, and if the musicians are all liberals?<\/p>\n<p>If you have an interest in symphony orchestras or non-profits in general, Scott is an excellent resource.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My cousin &amp; non-profit management expert Scott Chamberlain continues to express astonishment at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra&#8217;s Board of Trustee&#8217;s\u00a0management style &#8211; or lack thereof: \u201cSome trustees say that prudence requires them to hold onto the $60 million endowment in case it\u2019s needed to bankroll a future replacement orchestra. \u2018The \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/08\/19\/bso-ctd\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25639,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25638\/revisions\/25639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}