Sustainability Questions/Worksheet Illinois LAN meeting, August 2010 FIRST, write your answers to these questions: 1.

What have you done in response to hard times: a. What have you cut or consolidated?

b. What have you learned?

c. Have you come up with one or more best practice for tough times?

d. What do you want to learn from someone else?

e. What could you teach/share with someone else?

2. What is your mission?

3. What are 3-5 values-based ways of doing business that your organization holds dear (for instance: we dont want to survive at the expense of other nonprofits here, or we collaborate wherever possible or we will always find ways for families, even at the poverty level, to participate with us etc)

4. Do you think that the board/staff agree on what the last program to go would be if times get worse? What is that program? Does it embody the mission well? If it doesnt, is it a problem with the mission? Or with the programs?

5. When times get tough one of two things typically happens: Groups either become more narrow/focused, or broader, in order to survive. There are pros and cons for both. What has been your strategy? Has it been an intentional one?

6. Has the message youre sending to your community changed as times have gotten tougher? If so, what is the change? (Sometimes the message is unintentional. For instance, in one arts center which has recognized the need to focus, the staff has been unintentionally sending the message, we dont want you by eliminating weekend hours, eliminating the number of unjuried shows, etc). Be honest here!

7. Are your mission, your programs, and the messages you are sending to your community consistent? If not, what could be improved?

8. Are board members in agreement about what sustainability means? If not, is there discrepancy between particular types of board members (older/younger, longer/shorter term, artists/nonartists, etc) If the view is different, what are you doing to align the viewpoints?

9. Taking into account your mission and your realities, should any current programs be eliminated or back-burnered? Why?

10. Sometimes hard times are the perfect times to try something bold and new, to take risks. Is this true for you? What new/bold/risky things might be warranted now? If you do these, would you have to give something up? What?

11. Ask yourself these: a. Does your organization believe that things will return to normal in the future?

b. Are you personally counting down till you find a new job or go off the board?

NEXT, read over all of your answers. Informed by what you said, ponder 2 big questions: 1. What do you fear that your organization will have to do in the year(s) ahead?

2. What brave/crazy things could your organization do in the year(s) ahead?