Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Today is the last of our Developing Your Board Leadership Series. For the last 6 weeks, we’ve been hearing from grantees who have recently taken part in our Board Leadership Training Series workshops and are now telling their stories about how they are applying what they’ve learned to their organizations.

Allison Trimarco of Creative Capacity kicked off the series with some really helpful and humorous advice about fundraising. We also heard about fundraising from Matt Finlay, board member of the Mayo Center for the Performing Arts. Ruth Fost of Pushcart Players talked about organizational succession planning while Liz Mitchell of the Printmaking Council of New Jersey shared her organization’s turnaround story. John Gattuso of the Hunterdon Land Trust Alliance discussed losing and choosing board members, while Eddie Rogers of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey explained working through a major transition. Today, we hear from Maleyne Syracuse of the Peters Valley Craft Center and more about Nonprofit Lifecycles, a signature workshop of the Dodge Foundation’s Technical Assistance offerings.

A Nonprofit Is More Likely To Reach Its Programmatic Goals If It Is Well Managed

In her book, Nonprofit Lifecycles, Susan Kenny Stevens identifies the Seven Stages of Nonprofit Capacity:

1. Idea
2. Start-Up
3. Growth
4. Maturity
5. Decline
6. Turnaround
7. Terminal

According to Ms. Stevens, mature nonprofits have reached the stage in their lifecycle in which they are “well established, operating smoothly and…provide consistently relevant and high quality services.”

Peters Valley Craft Center celebrates its 40th Anniversary this year. After 40 years, one might expect Peters Valley to be a mature organization. But it’s not quite that simple. Maturity doesn’t necessarily come automatically or easily or simply with time. Nonprofit Lifecycles has been a valuable and vital tool for our Board and Staff in assessing Peters Valley and identifying those things we need to do to make PV a truly mature organization.

I’ve been on the Board at Peters Valley for a little over 10 years. And for as long as I have been involved and for many years before that, Peters Valley has experienced cycles of boom and bust: one or two good years of balanced budgets or even surplus followed by years of deficit and struggle to pay off debt.

We thought the answer was simply more money. Emergency appeals (“Help Save Peters Valley!”) were successful but when you launch an emergency appeal every 2-3 years, it’s no longer an emergency. The answer isn’t simply more money—more money is a tactical solution—it certainly helps in the short term but often, as it did in our case, the quick fix masks deeper issues.

The answer wasn’t more programs either. Like many nonprofits, PV tried to “program” its way out of its boom and bust cycle. But while new programs are grand to talk about and fundable in the short term, over the long term ours were not self-sustaining and created drag on organizational resources.

Recurring cycles of boom and bust are exhausting—for the Board, the Staff, donors and constituents. Peters Valley needed to create a sustainable turnaround.

Using the lifecycle framework, the PV Board saw that organization was stuck in a pattern of flipping from “Growth Stage” to “Decline” and back. While PV did not slip irretrievably into the Terminal stage, Peters Valley never fully matured either. One of the reasons the organization did not fully mature was that much of its administrative/management systems and infrastructure did not really progress past the Start-up stage.

Mature organizations must have a healthy balance between (1) their mission and programs, (2) their capital and (3) their organizational capacity. These are the 3 legs of the stool. If any one or more of them is not as strong as the others, the stool topples over. Peters Valley has a vibrant mission and wonderful programs. It has capital – some times more than others. But it had not fully developed the organizational capacity it needed to fully achieve its programmatic goals: enough people in the right jobs, all the proper space and systems and all the appropriate processes that would allow it to do everything it needs to do and do well.

I want to be clear that this is not a criticism of the PV Staff. Peters Valley has great, hardworking and dedicated staff. But even the best, most hardworking staff need – frankly deserve – strong organizational capacity. Without a systematic approach to the organization’s growth—a truly strategic division of labor, evolved systems and planning and detailed policies and procedures—it’s just not possible to run an organization as complex as PV efficiently. Peters Valley offers over 150 two to five-day workshops, uses more than 100 guest instructors, welcomes more than 700 students (many of whom live and eat on campus), and operates more than 20 separate buildings, including studios, dorms and a kitchen, many of which are historic structures. And that’s just our Summer Adult Workshop Program!

Peters Valley Craft Center store

So why did Peters Valley not fully develop the organizational capacity it needed? It’s not uncommon for an organization’s programs to get ahead of its capacity and there are many reasons for this. I will mention one that is probably relevant to other organizations: an overreliance on volunteers. As PV grew and its programs evolved, especially when resources were slim, we were blessed with many dedicated volunteers, especially Board members, who were more than willing to jump in and help out where needed. This is great for a nonprofit in the Start-up or early Growth Stage. But as an organization matures, it can’t continue to simply rely on the good will of volunteers. As volunteers came and went, often there was no paper trail and limited institutional memory about who had done what, what had worked, what hadn’t worked or when things needed to be done. It is possible to use volunteers successfully (we have an excellent volunteer who runs our annual craft fair very successfully), but it takes structure, systems and organization!

So where are we today? As I said earlier, capacity building isn’t necessarily easy and it is the Board’s responsibility to ensure that the organization has the resources it needs to build capacity, a responsibility that the PV Board has embraced. Efforts are underway to ensure an appropriate division of labor among staff members, identify functions that need to be filled and create position descriptions. Written policies and procedures are being developed to cover all of our functions. Moreover, last year, the PV Board committed itself to a comprehensive strategic planning process, in order to ensure that we evaluated and took appropriate action with respect to all 3 legs of our stool: mission and programs, capital, and capacity.

I could devote another whole blog to our strategic planning process so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. But we are very pleased that among the 15 Board and staff members who participated in our goal setting retreat on April 17th, we had broad consensus around goals and, not surprisingly, several addressed organizational capacity. We are working now on the strategic plan itself and an actionable implementation plan. But it all began with a frank assessment of where PV was in its lifecycle.

Maleyne Syracuse is the President of the Board of Directors of Peters Valley Craft Center. She is also is President of Board of Directors of the Pike County (PA) Public Library and serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of two NYSE traded closed ends funds. Ms. Syracuse retired in 2007, after over 25 years as an investment banker, most recently as a Managing Director with JP Morgan. She enjoys gardening and fiber arts—a passion she developed after taking weaving courses at Peters Valley. Ms. Syracuse lives with her husband and their two cats in New York, NY and Milford, PA.

The Dodge Foundation thanks all of our guest bloggers in the Developing Your Board Leadership series for their time and thoughtful input. We hope that these blog posts have been informative to all of our readers. For further information about our Technical Assistance workshops, please visit the Dodge website.

If you’ve been following along the last several Mondays, you know that we’ve been hearing from grantees who have recently taken part in our Board Leadership Training Series workshops and are now telling their stories about how they are applying what they’ve learned to their organizations. Today, we hear from Eddie Rogers of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey who discusses his experience joining the board as it was going through major transition and how they’ve managed to increase both the quality and the quantity of their work.

Hard at Work at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

When I was approached to join the Board of Trustees of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, I had some not-for-profit board experience, but I had not been involved with any arts organization, and there was not much that could be said of my specific qualifications. The most important factor may have been that I was filled with a passion for William Shakespeare and for the classic theater that is grist for the Theatre’s mill. I had been a subscriber to the Theatre’s season for six or seven years, and I was a modest donor with a willingness to contribute more of my “treasure” to the Theatre’s mission. I knew one other Trustee and I had some acquaintance with Bonnie Monte, our remarkable Artistic Director. I soon found out that there was much about the Theatre’s mission of which I was unaware.

A word about our mission: utilizing a company of loyal and talented Equity actors, the Theatre produces a season of six to seven plays on the “Indoor Stage”—the F.M. Kirby Theater on the Drew University campus—and one play at the “Outdoor Stage” of the Greek theater at the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station. These productions are drawn from Shakespeare’s canon, augmented by other classic works.

In addition, the Theatre is an educational institution. A touring company called “Shakespeare LIVE!” carries skillfully abridged versions of Shakespeare’s favorites to schools throughout New Jersey and beyond. We operate a Summer Professional Training Program offering comprehensive theatrical training, both performance and technical, to young people seeking a career in the theater. And finally, we provide an introduction to serious acting for middle and high school students through our Junior and Senior Corps programs. The Theatre also offers residency programs to local schools seeking a more concentrated Shakespearean experience.

F.M. Kirby Theater at Drew University

The Board is as focused on the success of these educational programs as on the more “public” aspects of the Theatre’s activities. Not only do they open the way to a broad range of potential financial support, they also enhance the institution’s stature and, most importantly, lay the foundation for a new generation passionate about Shakespeare.

When I joined the Board , I was advised that the Board of Trustees had recently been through a certain turmoil, in the course of which about one-half of the Trustees had resigned. The Board was in serious need of “reconstituting,” and one could say I was part of the “reconstitution.” In terms of board “lifecycles,” the Theatre was pretty definitively in the “Turnaround Stage.” We were facing significant challenges:

• Finding new Trustees to fill the many vacancies;

• Financing ongoing operations in a hostile economic climate;

• Finding a way to eliminate a cumulative deficit;

• Finding new support facilities to replace the distant and dangerous scene-building facilities we had been utilizing.

The “old” Trustees (most of whom had considerable tenure on the Board) strongly believed that proper Board organization was critical to addressing these issues. The Board Committee on Trustees (since renamed the Governance Committee) had the unenviable task of assuring an adequate Board membership, and during 2009 virtually doubled the size of the Board. I might say in passing that having been in the position of attempting to recruit not-for-profit board members myself, I regard the accomplishments of this Committee and the Board’s leadership as awesome. The recruitment of quality Trustees was critical to the Theatre’s fundraising goals, but it was also important to find role players to spread the Theatre’s message. The Board was rigorous in defining the qualities required from any new trustee and unwavering in ensuring that all newly-appointed trustees met the very highest standards that we had set. Whatever success we have achieved has been the result of a constant review and culling of the candidate list by the Governance Committee and remorseless focus on the goal by a core of Trustees and the Artistic Director. (more…)

If you’ve been following along the last several Mondays, you know that we’ve been hearing from grantees who have recently taken part in our Board Leadership Training Series workshops and are now telling their stories  about how they are applying what they’ve learned to their organizations. Allison Trimarco of Creative Capacity kicked off the series with some really helpful and humorous advice about fundraising. We also heard about fundraising from Matt Finlay. Ruth Fost talked about organizational succession planning while Liz Mitchell shared her organization’s turnaround story. All of these experiences, as well as today’s excellent post (John Gattuso of the Hunterdon Land Trust Alliance talks about losing and choosing board members), are, we hope, helpful to all of you folks in the nonprofit world who are struggling with the same issues.

We encourage you to comment on any of these blog posts with your thoughts, your questions, or your own organization’s struggles and stories and get a conversation going. At Dodge, we see this blog as a community forum – a place to get and give information – so your input is always welcome.

Stepping Up, Stepping Down

I joined the board of the Hunterdon Land Trust Alliance about six years ago and have served as an officer for about four—first as vice president, now president. It’s been a period of rapid growth for the group, which was founded in 1996 as an all-volunteer organization and now has a staff of six.

I sometimes say the organization is in its adolescence: constantly changing and prone to growing pains. And while growth can be exciting, it’s also tricky to manage. Good planning is essential, but, as we learned at Dodge over the last couple of years, a plan will only go so far if we don’t have the people to execute and revise it. Thinking about what the organization is going to do is only half the battle. Knowing who is going to do it is equally important. For our trustees, and especially for our leadership, that meant getting a handle on the issue of board succession.

Ironically, one of the first and most important lessons we learned is to get comfortable with the idea of losing board members. Initially, I felt that a trustee resignation was a sign of failure. And, in truth, we lost several people in my first few years whom I regarded as part of the organization’s brain trust—some of our most experienced and accomplished members, not to mention a couple of our biggest donors. But I also saw a new generation of trustees step in and fill the void. We were lucky. The transition happened more or less organically, because we had people ready to move into leadership positions. But what if the situation had been different? What if nobody was prepared to lead? Clearly, this is not the sort of thing you want to leave to chance.

With Dodge’s encouragement, we came to realize that losing board members isn’t a defeat. On the contrary, it’s an opportunity to reinvigorate the board with new people, fresh ideas, and a broader network of supporters. It’s unreasonable to expect trustees to serve indefinitely, and it’s unfair to the organization to retain board members who aren’t fully engaged.

As a first step, our executive committee decided to do a simple check-in with our fellow trustees. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a phone call to discuss their thoughts about the organization and their plans for the future. Did they feel their time and talents were being utilized effectively? Did they have an interest in a leadership role? Did they intend to continue serving on the board?

As it turned out, some trustees were thinking about stepping down but were reluctant to do so out of a sense of loyalty. They needed to know that it was possible to exit gracefully, with the organization’s thanks for their years of service. Just by starting the conversation, we gave them permission to leave the board with a sense of accomplishment instead of guilt.

Of course, the other half of the equation is finding new trustees. Until recently, our method—if you can call it that—depended mostly on personal recommendations. Typically, one of our board members would suggest a candidate and, after a little bit of vetting and a meeting or two, he or she would be invited to join the board.

Now we approach board nominations much as we would a new hire. It starts with an analysis of the skills, experience, and personal qualities the organization needs. We solicit names of potential nominees from our trustees and associates, narrow the list down depending on how well the candidates meet our criteria, then interview each one. It’s a fairly involved process, but it works. We recently welcomed five new trustees and three non-trustee committee members. Equally important, we’ve already started identifying prospects for our next round of nominations.

Finding and cultivating new talent is one of the key responsibilities of board membership, and it requires a sustained effort. Admittedly, it’s not always the most comfortable thing to contemplate—nobody likes to think they’re replaceable. But when the time comes to step off the board—and sooner or later that time comes for everybody—we should do so with the knowledge that we’re leaving behind people who can do the job at least as well as we did, if not better.

HLTA blog
HLTA on Facebook

John Gattuso is president of the Hunterdon Land Trust Alliance, a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the natural resources, open spaces, and productive farms of Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Milford, New Jersey, where he runs a design and communications firm.

* * *

The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark is October 7 – 10
For more information, visit the Poetry website.

Follow the Dodge Poetry Festival on Twitter
Become a fan of the Dodge Poetry Festival on Facebook
Join the Friends of the Festival (use the blue Donate button on our homepage)

Over the past six months, teams of board members and nonprofit executive leadership attended Dodge Technical Assistance workshops including Nonprofit Lifecycles, Assessment, Board Care and Feeding, and Strategic Planning, among others. We have heard terrific feedback and ideas from many board members who are actively applying the learning to their board work. The “Developing Your Board Leadership Series” is their forum to share what they’ve learned.

Today, Liz Mitchell shares with us the turnaround story of the Printmaking Council of New Jersey.

The Turnaround Stage: A Phased Approach

Completing the Dodge Board Leadership Training Series and hearing the many stories of fellow nonprofit leaders has helped me begin to see the Printmaking Council of New Jersey as the little engine that could.

Like many nonprofits, the Printmaking Council of NJ (soon to be the Printmaking Center of NJ) began in the living room of a group of impassioned individuals. Florence Wender and a few fellow printmakers came together over 37 years ago to formalize their ideas and create an artist cooperative with an educational outreach program. The mission of the organization uses the uniqueness of this timeless art process as a tool for building community through in-house and outreach programs, exhibitions and an open printmaking studio for working artists of all levels.

My connection to the Printmaking Council has been as an active member for many years. Over time, I began to see that there were functional difficulties within the organization. In 2008 the little engine began to stall. I had always felt that PCNJ was a true gem, and I was seeing it lose its polish. I decided to join the Board of Directors to bring my prior board experience to bear on the challenges at hand. At the time, the organization was in a state of flux and the board was faced with hiring a new director. It was clear that new leadership was needed to move the organization forward. We also needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the model of the organization, which was still operating much like an artist cooperative and faced a prolonged decline in the process.

Liz Mitchell

In June 2008, Linda Helm Krapf was hired as the new Executive Director and brought with her more than 25 years of experience working in the nonprofit field. It was clear to Linda that the organization was in the Decline Stage of its nonprofit lifecycle, and to successfully navigate the Turnaround Phase would take tremendous focus and resolve. Shortly after Linda arrived, I was asked to become the Board Chair of the organization. As we were adjusting to the newness of our positions, the Board and staff began to review, define and prioritize the major organizational challenges. We believed that nothing was so broken that it couldn’t be fixed. In Susan Kenny Stevens’ book, Nonprofit Lifecycles, she describes this stage as “Where Rubber Meets the Road.” I could not agree more!

What we had going for us was experience, tenacity and some refined tools in our toolbox. What we had going against us was that we had a long, long way to go. Over the next 18 months the board began a phased approach to making the necessary changes needed to get the organization back on track. We began to evaluate the organization examining PCNJ’s policies against nonprofit best practices, which identified the weakest points and greatest vulnerabilities. We patiently and bravely took this time to complete a laundry list of items in the “Fix What is Broken Phase.” This involved: creating checks and balance systems; resolving conflicts of interest; hiring qualified staff; and establishing program goals around excellence. We then moved to the work of updating stale curricula, assessing profitability and holding successful fundraising events. Over time, we accomplished an overarching goal to repair strained donor relationships and win the trust of members. A remarkable synergy between the board, staff and members was born in this time.

The next phase was a vision quest. We held salons for open discussion among the membership and found creative ways to engage our stakeholders. We used the following words of Linda C. Crompton, President, Board Source, as a mandate to keep focused and move forward:

“True leaders will recognize that there is opportunity embedded within the financial crisis and seize the moment to evaluate, restructure, retool; in short, to regenerate their organizations. All former bets are off, and the leaders who ask the generative questions—in effect, question everything—will build organizations that come out the other side of the turmoil stronger than ever.”

In September of 2009, we were ready to chart the future course for PCNJ. This process defined the capacity of the organization. We used our creativity to imagine the best Printmaking Council of New Jersey, and planned for the way to give that image purpose. Strategic planning became the new engine that would drive the mission and programs.

In the process of strategic planning we realized that even though we had worked hard and successfully cleared many hurdles, we did not yet have a fully trained board with the experience to execute our ambitious goals. This realization came just as the invitation to join the Dodge Training hit my email. Serendipity was at play as the training sessions that followed yielded invaluable information and real world experience for our board members.

We coined these months in Dodge training as the “Getting Our Governance Ducks in a Row Phase.” Five PCNJ board members participated in Dodge training, creating a critical mass of understanding of the complexities of nonprofit management. Training also clarified the responsibilities each member needed to make. The board began to see and experience a shift in the way they manifest their commitment to PCNJ, and the foundation of the organization began to shift and stabililize. Every time board members responded to the new responsibilities that they helped to define, the organization took a giant step forward. The result is that we now have a shared plan and strategy that has everyone’s mark on it.

Phillemon Hlungwani gives an artist presentation in the PCNJ Gallery. Phil participated in PCNJ’s international print exchange with the Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The difference at PCNJ is palpable and is evidenced by the support and response from our funders, and through the enthusiasm of our membership. The training has strengthened the board, creating a more focused and value-driven organization. As we round the bend of the Turnaround Phase this new knowledge has helped inspire courage, even though we can’t always fully see what lies ahead.

Board members have talked about “aha” moments at Dodge training. One I remember best was during “The Care and Feeding of Quality Board Members.” Laura Otten took us through the section on board meeting agendas and introduced the models of consensus and strategic agendas. Those of us attending realized that PCNJ was actually fully prepared to define the structure of the agenda for our board meetings beyond reading reports and putting out fires, and into a strategic agenda format. Together, we had laid the ground work, navigated the phases, stayed focused, and let ourselves be inspired by our shared commitment. Being able to take advantage of a sophisticated tool such as a strategic agenda defines the other, less obvious benefits of the work we just accomplished and the training that supports the work – the benefit of efficiency. In these challenging times, our ability to stay relatively small requires that we operate with utmost efficiency. Efficiency allows the engine to work like a Swiss watch. Aha!

PCNJ now has a strong working engine clipping along towards the future with everyone “on board.” Two years into our turnaround we have made lasting and fundamental change. We have replaced: fear with courage; haphazard decision-making with best practices; planning out of convenience with strategic planning; and austerity with prudence. It’s thrilling to now witness the momentum that follows. PCNJ now attracts individuals who are passionate, not only about the arts, but also about doing a job right and recognizing that although challenging, the work of turning an organization around can be infinitely rewarding.

Liz Mitchell has been the Board Chair at the Printmaking Council of New Jersey since 2008. She has also served on the Foundation Board at Raritan Valley Community College for the last ten years, most recently as the Vice Chair. She is an educator, curator and collage artist who makes artist books and installations. Her work is collected both nationally and internationally. She has completed three artist in residencies at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa and most recently held a solo exhibition in the Ben Shahn Gallery at William Paterson University in Wayne NJ.

* * *

The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark is October 7-10
Follow the Dodge Poetry Festival on Twitter
Become a fan of the Dodge Poetry Festival on Facebook

Follow the Dodge Foundation on Twitter
Become a fan of the Dodge Foundation on Facebook

Today’s guest post is the third in our series by nonprofit board members and executives who have recently taken Dodge’s Board Leadership Training workshops and are now sharing their insight with us.  If you haven’t gotten a chance, you can read the first in the series, by Allison Trimarco of Creative Capacity, here, and the second by Matt Finlay, a board member for the Community Theatre at the Mayo Center for the Performing Arts, here. Both give valuable advice on fundraising.

Today, we explore succession planning with Executive Director of Pushcart Players Ruth Fost.

Late Night Ponderings

What’s the last thing you think about at night and the first thing you think about in the morning? If your answer is work related, then read on.

Are your thoughts stressful? About putting out fires, worrying about financials, solving yesterday’s problems tomorrow?

Or, are your thoughts more like ponderings? You know, the “dreams and visions” variety – i.e. “What if the whole stage is ‘dressed’ in blue – except for one character that is in bright yellow….?” Or, “What if we showed the hardships of settlers traveling west by seating 2 characters on a bench, framed by a lattice outline of a covered wagon? One will hold the reins – the other will tell their story as they bounce up and down…” Or, “That folktale about the King who searches the universe only to find that what he’s looking for is right in his own backyard would really work well as our next story theatre piece….”

I have been “pondering” for more than 36 years. Many of the night time and early morning contemplations have grown into full musical productions that introduce the joy of live theatre—often with curriculum connections—to young people in their schools or local theatres. You see, I’m a founder of a theatre company for young audiences, Pushcart Players, and my love and passion for what I/we do has never grown old.

But the reality is that there is a timeframe for everything we do. I’ve pondered this concept too, but never thought it was something that could be discussed, outlined, planned. That is, until members of our Board of Directors and I began attending The Dodge Board Leadership Training Series over the past several years.

We assessed, we boot camped and we drilled down. Lo and behold,  in several sessions we talked about something called “Succession Planning.” There was actually a name for this process! And I, along with our current staff and Board, could be pro-active and a part of the process. Now, this opened the door for a whole new series of late night and early morning contemplations.

Two things had to happen if we were to successfully move forward with a succession plan. The first was to infuse new life and leadership into our loyal, loving and supportive, but mostly non-working, Board of Directors. The second was to find the right person, or people, to provide the leadership needed to guide, manage, dream and imagine all the possibilities to carry on the legacy and high standards of our well-established, professional touring company for young audiences.

After an intensive Board Retreat, skillfully facilitated by John McEwen of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, we have a Strategic Plan for Board Development that is well underway. Even though we are a mature organization, our board had not grown at the same pace as our programming. We knew that we needed to develop a deeper, layered structure that could support the various needs of the company, including a successful succession strategy. We are in the process of developing an Artistic Advisory Board of individuals who will lend their name to the organization, serve as ambassadors, and may be asked occasionally to help support a special event.

We are also refreshing and adding to our Honorary Board, which includes political and other community leaders who may not have the time to serve as Trustees but are willing to lend their name, contacts, support and validation of the organization. And, we are making good progress in building our “working” Board of Trustees – one that sets policy and has the fiduciary responsibility to ensure that Pushcart Players has and utilizes resources responsibly to carry out its mission. A strategy for identifying potential trustees and a process for nominating and voting for a new trustee was designed, and a committee structure was created. We have already added two dynamic trustees with great organizational skills, knowledge and passion for the work we do. A third strong candidate is currently under consideration and moving through the appropriate steps towards approval.

As for staff leadership, my late night musings always took me back to wondering who, in this very special world of theatre for young audiences, might provide the promise of maintaining the core values and continuing this lifelong commitment of work always geared toward a sustainable future for Pushcart Players. When the moment presented itself, I, like the king in the folktale, discovered that sometimes the things we search for in distant places are right in our own backyard. We shuffled and re-distributed some of the roles and duties of staff members already working at Pushcart, moving Stephanie Carr from Director of Programs and Services into the position of Managing Director. Totally devoted to Pushcart for the past 12 years, first as a gifted actress on tour and then as an equally gifted staff member with intelligence, insight and understanding of every aspect of company functioning,  Stephanie is a deeply valued leader on the Pushcart staff and will without a doubt move the company forward towards a rich and successful future as she adds fundraising initiatives and company management to her already busy roster.

Time and circumstances were just right to reach out to Lenny Bart, formerly Artistic Director of 12 Miles West Theatre Company, to take on the title of Artistic and Education Outreach Director. Lenny is well known to many of us in the theatre world in NJ, and his qualifications coincide perfectly with our needs at Pushcart. His past experience at 12 Miles West, his in-depth knowledge of arts education, producing, directing, envisioning and designing theatre and his congruent mission and objectives to Pushcart’s as an actor, director, technician, teaching artist, friend and partner over many years have made him a perfect choice. Lenny has taken on the idea and the reality of this new position with enthusiasm, passion and a whirlwind of ideas to make our garden grow!

So, what shall I ponder tonight?

Ruth Fost is Executive Director as well as a playwright, actor, designer and co-founder of Pushcart Players. She has been devoted to the development and presentation of quality theatre for young audiences for thirty-six years and has authored or co-authored, designed and “engineered” all Pushcart productions since 1974.

* * *

The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark is October 7-10!
Follow the Dodge Poetry Festival on Twitter
Become a fan of the Dodge Poetry Festival on Facebook

Follow the Dodge Foundation on Twitter
Become a fan of the Dodge Foundation on Facebook