Arts Hacker: For decades now there has been a belief that the lower the ratio of non-profit’s overhead expenses to program expense, the better run the non-profit is. As a result, a low overhead ratio has been viewed as something of a virtue and non-profit organizations have used all sorts of accounting tricks and parsed terminology in an effort to redefine what constitutes an overhead expense.
2 comments:
I don't know much about how non-profit organizations work and this article is an interesting insight into what goes on behind the scenes. I had never even given a thought to how budgets were made and money was spent and I definitely didn't know that there was a precedent to not spend much money on costs that are considered overhead costs. While I hadn't thought about it before, now that I've read this article it makes a conclusion about spending that makes sense. If an organization is not spending much money on what they consider to be overhead costs, they could be creating a host of issues that could plague them even if they have a great season with a large budget. If they are underpaying their staff, they won't be able to retain good employees. If they are not spending enough on upkeep of their facilities or on their technology, they will be very limited on the productions that they can do.
The author had some interesting ideas for cheap molding, but I think a key takeaway is some of the prefabricated PVC or similar attachments. Those are cheaper than the real thing and they can be reused. Honestly the labor required for a scenic painter is probably much more expensive than just buying that molding material. Unfortunately we don’t do a lot of ceilings in the theater, but prefab panels could give an older look. Peel and stick is also good and if the designer doesn’t really care it wouldn’t be a bad idea just to have standard crown molding, baseboard, picture rail, and chair rail that looks nice and is kept in stock. Obviously corners will be difficult, but that would probably save some money. Bead board is really used in houses and many of the other suggestions from this author are as well. They make all sorts of pre-fabbed embellishment shapes at home depot.
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