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November 8, 2004

A question of identity | Richard Willing leaves L/A Arts after nearly 15 years. Can the organization survive the transition?

By Sara Donnelly
For nearly 15 years, Richard Willing's name has been synonymous with the nonprofit he directed, Lewiston-based L/A Arts. Acting at the helm of a four-person staff, Willing was by all accounts the face associated with L/A Arts ˆ— the man who presented the organization to the public and who solicited funding from sponsors.

In the nonprofit sector, it is not an unusual arrangement. Organizations, especially small nonprofits, often are directed by both a board of directors and an executive leader, who typically becomes the public face for the agency as it solicits community interest and funding. Willing, a charismatic executive with a history in theater, was no exception. And so it was not surprising to those associated with L/A Arts that after resigning as the organization's executive director on Oct. 1, Willing cited this melding of L/A Arts' identity with his own as the final motivation for his amicable departure.

"Associating an executive director with the nonprofit happens to an organization when it has the same leadership for some time," Willing explains. "[It happens to] nonprofits more maybe because of the two-way interaction with the public. I think after a while that needs to change [in order for the organization] to have a different mindset, a different set of values."

Willing's influence on L/A Arts is evident in the organization's reaction to his departure. The $2 million capital campaign it started in 2001 has been halted (in part due to poor results) and ongoing discussions about changing the organization's mission have been frozen. L/A Arts hopes to hire a new director by January and, until then, is existing in a transition period in which no major changes will be made until the new executive director can weigh in.

According to Audrey Alvarado, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Council of Nonprofit Associations, this wait-and-see period is typical of nonprofits struggling with what consultants familiar with executive transition call "founder's syndrome." The condition traditionally occurs at a nonprofit that has been steered from its inception by a founding executive whose personality and vision define the organization. When the founder leaves, the nonprofit must wade through a rough re-examination of its identity. According to Alvarado, founder's syndrome, either in the wake of the loss of a founder or of a long-time executive leader, is so common that a number of consultants nationwide have begun specializing in this transition. "Just like you have in the public sector, you have an aging population" in nonprofit leadership, she says. "So there's been an increasing question: What do we do to replace these people who are leaving?"

Pivot point
Founded in 1973 by a member of the Lewiston Public Library board, L/A Arts began as LPL Plus, a library-based arts and culture series that presented concerts, foreign films, art lectures and discussions on public policy. Since then, it has been recognized locally and nationally as a leader in cultural programs for both education and performance. The organization has sponsored hundreds of performances in the Twin Cities and countless educational and cultural events, including a popular cabaret series featuring local and national artists, ranging from singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler to bluesman Oscar Brown Jr.

Willing began his tenure at L/A Arts in 1991 as education director, a post he held until 1996, when he was named executive director, the seventh person to hold that post in the organization's history.

Several months ago, the board and staff under Willing formed a Transition Committee to discuss potential changes to the L/A Arts mission, including an increased emphasis on local talent and educational programs. When Willing announced his departure this fall, the committee, which had been meeting frequently since being formed last winter, temporarily disbanded.

According to L/A Arts marketing director and former committee member Cheri Donahue, the Transition Committee does not want to move forward with any organizational change until the new executive director can participate. "We don't want to force something on the new director because they might come in with fantastic ideas about our new direction," she says.

Tom Adams, president of the Maryland-based consulting collaborative TransitionGuides, has worked exclusively for 13 years on nonprofit management transitions, which he says often accompany what he calls a "pivot" in the nonprofit's mission. "I advise nonprofits to approach it as a process, not a search" for a new executive director, says Adams. "There is a capacity and openness for change during this time and the nonprofit should make the most of that. The pivot is sometimes small; sometimes there isn't one ˆ— sometimes it's a complete change."

Adams says the loss of an executive director or founder in some ways mirrors the loss of a president to a small business, but the fundamental difference lies in the organization's center of power. In a for-profit company, the owner calls the shots. In a nonprofit, a new executive director must learn to work with the agency's board of directors. Constructing this new relationship, as well as managing the time between executive directors, is often the source of much of the transitional stress, he explains.

Adams typically advises smaller nonprofits such as L/A Arts ˆ— which is not a client of his ˆ— to focus on the interim time as much as the search. "In [for-profit] companies and larger nonprofits where there's a fairly well developed and mature infrastructure, you can do the executive search and the system keeps moving," he says. "In smaller nonprofits, when you take the executive director out, you're taking out a large part of the organization. You have to manage this time in between as well."

The conductor isn't the orchestra
L/A Arts board chair Jon Oxman, a lawyer in Auburn, says Willing had been honest with him months prior to his last day about his intentions to move on. "He tried to resign before and I convinced him to stay on," says Oxman, who has worked on the nonprofit's board off-and-on for the last 15 years. "At some point you get tired. The pressure of trying to operate performance venues and also the ceaseless fundraising and [financial] pressure that all nonprofits seem to be under has got to wear on you."

In recent months, L/A Arts has struggled to raise $2 million for a capital campaign to renovate its new office building on Lisbon Street in Lewiston, an effort Willing says did not contribute to his resignation. (Oxman and Willing attribute the fundraising problems to competition from what they say are the numerous capital campaigns currently underway in Lewiston-Auburn.) Oxman says the future of the office building again will rely on the changing mission of the organization as it explores an identity apart from Willing. "I think of L/A Arts as a community," says Oxman. "Richard was clearly a voice of both creativity and energy but is the New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein? No. It's a great orchestra and a great conductor, but the musicians inform the music as well."

The musicians at L/A Arts include Jen Ryan, former education director and now interim executive director of L/A Arts. Ryan, who does not plan to apply for the executive director position permanently, says Willing's departure, while expected, has proven challenging for the remaining staff of three. "Any kind of change with L/A Arts is difficult," she says. "Financially, we hadn't planned on putting a search out there. There wasn't any concern that staff couldn't make it through, but [with] L/A Arts in [philosophical] transition, it's especially difficult."

Ryan says L/A Arts considered hiring a transition consultant to help reshape the nonprofit's mission once a new executive director is hired, but no plans have been made to seek help in the interim. In the meantime, the board and staff continue to informally discuss potential changes to the organization, including the concept of becoming a local arts agency ˆ— perhaps acting as a central resource for other local arts organizations ˆ— and increasing the number of programs it offers in local schools. Donahue, L/A Arts' marketing director, says the organization must now reassess its goals in accordance with changes in the community.

"We realized that we started out because there was a need for a presenter in the community, but now arts are thriving in Lewiston-Auburn," she says. "We're an organization looking at the needs of the community. We're not looking to bring in repeated types of programs. We just celebrated our 30th anniversary and it's time to step back and see, are we still needed in the community? It's exciting. It's a very exciting possibility."

Back in Portland, Willing, 51, looks forward to spending more time with his children and seems eager to explore other career options. He praises the Lewiston-Auburn community, which he describes as his second home, and says he hopes L/A Arts will work to create an arts district in the Twin Cities like the district in Portland. But Willing doesn't have any plans to work with the organization toward this end. Instead, he seems happy, after nearly 15 years on stage at L/A Arts, to soon be able to relax in the audience.

"It's a wonderful town, Lewiston-Auburn," he says. "I'd like to go and see some of the shows. But I'm not going to do it now because I don't want to get in the way."

L/A Arts

221 Lisbon St., Lewiston

Acting executive director: Jen Ryan

Founded: 1973

Services: A nonprofit working to integrate arts into the communities of Lewiston and Auburn. Sponsors year-round live performances, arts-in-education programs, exhibits and an international film series.

Employees: Three

Operating budget, 2004: $400,000 - $500,000

Contact: 782-7228

www.laarts.org

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