Possible Solutions For Sustainable Future: Restructuring Through Mergers and Other Alliances in the Nonprofit Arts and Culture Sector

This study looks at how mergers and other forms of business restructuring processes may present advantages and challenges for the nonprofit arts sector. For more than a decade the sector has been impacted by the environmental trends of diminishing funding sources coupled with longstanding concerns about an over-crowded industry with too many arts organizations having similar missions, competing for the same limited financial resources. This is creating a form of mission stasis in the industry provoking concern within organizations and among foundations and state funding agencies about the health of the sector. The current economic downturn has created an even greater urgency for the need to explore the impacts and outcomes for the nonprofit sector in a climate that demands new models for collaboration. Drawing on a decade of evolving research of restructuring activities in the nonprofit sector-at-large, this thesis seeks to present the implications for arts and culture sector when considering strategic restructuring initiatives as a means to better accomplish mission delivery and sustainability within the sector.M.S., Arts Administration -- Drexel University, 200