FIXED!! - Closing Remarks #7

Every week that I sit down to pull this together, I tend to identify a trend. Recently, it's been a mix of healthcare and tech; this week it's looking like the art sector is really taking a blow. While blows to one sector might worry me more than another, it's not really the closures that give me pause --- endings are a part of life--- it's the speed and insensitivity of so many of them.

The idea that people work day in and day out for/with organizations that extol so much unbridled benevolence, and then one day those same people wake up and are told that they have no job, no studio space, no childcare. It's simply heartbreaking.

While there are, undoubtedly, situations where groups truly are blindsided, the vast majority are not. The board and leadership see the signs and either bury their heads in the sand or decide to run things up to the cliff hoping for a miracle. If the question is between: a) being transparent and gracefully winding down now and b) being deceptive or avoidant to squeeze a few more months out, are those few more months really worth it? I just don't think so.

Here are this week's links:

1) Canadian youth arts org forced to shut
Despite over two decades of operation in the area, the Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming (SCYAP) struggled to find funding to keep its doors open. The group had only just last month celebrated their Skribe Festival of Youth Poetry.

2) An Atlanta Gallery Abruptly Disappears
Employees and artists-in-residence at Atlanta, Georgia's MINT Gallery were given a mere week to remove their possessions from the premises and no redress for expenses.

Local arts organizers are trying to help the abandoned artists and workers pick up the pieces.

5) Nicaragua becomes a no-man's land for nonprofits
The government of Nicaragua recently announced the forced closure of over 1,500 nonprofits ranging from sports and religious groups to LGBT+, women's rights, and health advocacy. This brings the number of shuttered nonprofits in the country to over 5,000 in the past 2 years.

While the government insists the actions taken were related to improper financial reporting, critics blame political repression. (CNN) (NY Times)

6) International Aid Nonprofit Dating Back to Colonial Days Crumbles
After weeks and months of warnings of impending destruction coming from various sides of the planet, Crown Agents, a group originally chartered by the thieving masters of the British imperial realm to support centuries of colonial destruction around the globe, has finally run aground.

In its wake it leaves behind --- in addition to generations of underdevelopment, extraction, and misery --- hundreds of disgruntled former employees. Some in South Sudan claim the organization gave them no severance/redundancy and no sense of where their pension savings have gone.

Color us all shocked.

7) More views on the rapid sunsets in tech
This Washington Post article delves deeper into the global phenomenon of tech advocacy and education nonprofits' rapid disappearance.

“DEI must DIE,” Elon Musk posted on X in December. The popular All-In podcast, hosted by four tech investors, called
DEI “dying” the “best political trend” of 2023.

8) US Veep candidate mothballs his current nonprofit
And speaking of our favorite tech bros.....

On the heels of his successful book, Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance formed Our Ohio Renewal and, later, Our Ohio Renewal Foundation to help address some of the problems he'd identified --- namely drug addiction, mental health, and employment in the "Rust Belt".

OOR wrapped up after just a few years, and the mostly-defunct foundation will close this year in order to tie up loose ends.

According to reports, Vance's nonprofit efforts accomplished little.

Quelle surprise.

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