Overstocked Arts Pond: Fish Too Big, Fish Too Many

From her blog Jumper:

My dad used to keep a goldfish pond in our back yard. Without some form of population control, goldfish ponds can become overstocked, a situtation in which the fish become sick, or even die, from lack of oxygen and competitive stress.

The Kresge Foundation and Grantmakers in the Arts have recently spearheaded a funder-led initiative,“The National Capitalization Project,” aimed at addressing chronic undercapitalization of the arts sector. The report suggests we have an overstocked arts pond: “At a time of flattening demand there is increasing supply … in terms of both the sheer number of organizations and the supply of product. Neither the audiences nor the public or philanthropic sector can support this level of oversupply. Taken together, this situation is pushing organizations into hyper-competition.”

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