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September 6, 2024
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Ok, friends. SIGHHHH. This one is gonna be kind of a double issue. I took last week off, but the nonprofit closures kept on trucking. Here are some notable announcements and analyses from the past few weeks.
Arts and Culture
Arts museum shutters in Washington state
After nearly 50 years of operation, Bellevue Art Museum has announced it is out of business effective September 4th, 2024. The museum's leadership cited lack of grants, dwindling attendance, and low donations as some of the contributing factors. They do, however, note that they remain committed to producing the Bellevue Arts Fair in 2025, despite the loss of the museum space.
Arts council in Pennsylvania resort area calls it quits
Since 1975 (again almost 50 years!), the Poconos Arts Council has organized festivals, gallery walks, exhibitions, student summer camps, arts networking, workshops, and more in Pennsylvania's Pocono area. However, financial issues (again!) have forced them to halt operations; September 30th will be their last day.
In a generous move, the group is setting an early final date in order to make their remaining financial assets available to the community through grant programs managed by the Community Foundation of Monroe County (CFMC).
Vancouver art house gallery closes indefinitely
Deer Lake Gallery (that swirly building pictured above) is a 1960’s Arthouse in Burnaby, Canada that is run by the Burnaby Arts Council. Funding concerns along with a critical volunteer shortage prompted the pause.
The arts council still plans to move forward with other programming through the rest of the year, and they also hope to engage community about the state of arts in the area.
Art icon in Texas felled by climate change
Flooding and damage from Hurricane Beryl forced the indefinite closure of Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational public chapel designed by and devoted to the works of abstract painter Mark Rothko.
According to Houston-based multidisciplinary artist Únies Gonzalez, "The Rothko Chapel was one of the only places that allowed AIDS funerals in the ’90s. It has seen death, it has seen weddings, it has seen babies and people with cancer and refugees seeking shelter.”
Care and Healing
Iowa community's most needy lose a safe haven
Since 2013, The Warming Shelter has been a space for Sioux City, Iowa's housing insecure to find a warm place to sleep during bitterly cold winter nights. It has also been a space for people suffering from addiction to find recovery. Unfortunately, an inability to amass sufficient funding and community support has forced the shelter to permanently shut down.
The organization is now trying to assist all residents in locating new housing.
Psychiatric residence abruptly abandons children, families
St. Mary’s Home for Children was the only in-state psychiatric residential treatment facility for young people in Providence, Rhode Island. It also operated the Hunt School. The home sparked alarm when it sent letters out to families advising that they were going out of business immediately.
Though the organization's leadership cites financial challenges as the root cause, the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families actually removed everyone from the residential program in June, citing abuse and neglect.
While the school will be moved to a nearby nonprofit center, in-patient residents have been shipped off to facilities as far away as Idaho. The home continues to be investigated by several state agencies.
Other Stuff
Gathering nonprofit lessons from the COVID pandemic
"I have so many people that come to me and say they want to start a non-profit and I go, 'STOP! DON'T!' go to Guidestar and try to see how many people tried to do this before you did. Not doing it has to be part of the solution."
In this great (and brief!) conversation on the Nonprofit Mastermind Podcast, Tarik Ward, Director of Global Strategic Operations and U.S. Programs for the ELMA Philanthropies Services, discusses intentionality in nonprofit beginnings
Ode to a beloved ---and now sunsetted --- festival
From 20212 until August 2024, XOXO was an annual experimental festival celebrating independent internet artists and creators. The gathering brought together writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, game developers, coders, cartoonists, and more to share their stories and struggles of living and working online. In their latest newsletter, Melissa and Johnathan of management consultancy Raw Signal wax poetic about the enduring lessons from the XOXO Festival.
"The thing (they) did so well is something open source nerds call a Framework for Participation. How are we inviting people to get creative? Where do we expressly want their input? Where do we expressly not? What is the container for them to not only attend a thing but to actively help make it something better? This is a container you can build. It's still a kind of heroics to pull it together well, but it's magical in a way that a small team of heroes could never pull off on their own. It's a leap of trust that your attendees will do their part, but when they do, it is energetic and chaotic and beautiful."
Yours in the end,
Camille
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Closing Remarks is brought to you by The Wind Down, a consultancy for exploring, building, designing, and delivering better non-profit endings. If you're enjoying it, please support my work.
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