A Catalyst for Change?

Mission, Models, and Money

Conference Summary and Evaluation report
April 2005

Foreword
When we first began the conversations in the autumn of 2003 which led to the
development of what has become known as the MMM Programme of Work,
we were motivated both by frustration and passion. Frustration at the
inevitable catastrophe of the dominance of the status quo in the way the world
of the arts operated and a passion to help catalyse debate about issues of
sustainability which we hoped would lead to changes in mindset, approach
and working practices in the way the arts operate – changes which also had
the potential to release ever greater creative and artistic activity.

Eighteen months later our personal commitment to this agenda has grown
exponentially and our motivation to help necessary change succeed has
strengthened. There have been two primary reasons for this.

The first is the involvement of a range of people whose own personal

commitment and expertise have been exceptional. Adrian Ellis has been a
key source of ideas and understanding, particularly at the formative stages,
and is part of an outstandingly qualified Advisory Group, chaired by Vernon
Ellis, which has played a key role in developing the Programme of Work to
where it is today. Added to them we have had the energy and insight of
twelve of the first cadre of Fellows from the Clore Leadership Programme
who, with the Advisory Group, generated much of the content for this second
conference.

Secondly, through the development of our own knowledge and understanding,

deepened as a result of all the shared learning that has accumulated over this
period, we share a certainty of the need for change, how that change can
happen and what that change might achieve for the sector. This is both
exciting and daunting.

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As John Knell points out in his excellent report of the 7th of February
Conference below, “ MMM’s original analysis – that the sector is overextended
and undercapitalised – is right, and the two conferences have created a
greater appetite to address that fundamental problem. MMM has overall been
a successful initiative – it has built understandings, raised expectations and
dashed them simultaneously – the frequent outcome of a successful pilot”.

In addition to the challenge of expectation management, delegates to this

second conference raised concern about the potential negative impact of
vested interests and institutional territorialities on any future activities
developed under the MMM banner (see full conference evaluation on this
microsite) and were keen for the initiative to retain its independence.

As the Advisory Group plans a third phase to the Programme of Work, it is

very conscious of these concerns but is also confident that they can
successfully be addressed moving forward. The key will be to broaden and
strengthen the coalition approach that has been so successful to date and
that process is already underway.

Despite these and other challenges we are all committed to moving the MMM
agenda forward, collectively and individually. As John Knell concludes, ‘the
revolution starts at home’. Conversations with a range of public and private
bodies about a third phase of activity are underway, the Advisory Group have
been working on objectives, principles, approach and an activity grid with the
aim of making a more detailed announcement shortly after the election.

In the meantime we hope that you continue to find all the material generated
so far and available on the microsite stimulating and helpful and that you
enjoy reading this conference report.

MMM convenors and co-ordinators

Roanne Dods, Director, Jerwood Charity
Clare Cooper, Director of Policy & Communications, A&B

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Introduction
Since its inception in June 2004, the Mission, Models, Money (MMM) programme, an
initiative of Arts and Business (A&B) and the Jerwood Charity, has sought to explore
new approaches to financial sustainability in the cultural sector. Following the launch
event in June 2004, the MMM Advisory Group, supported by Fellows from The Clore
Leadership Programme, has been seeking to deepen our understanding of the
challenges of successfully managing for mission and money and to produce a
different type of professional conversation in the arts – honest about existing
weaknesses and bold about the need to adopt new approaches and models within
the UK’s artistic infrastructure.

The second MMM conference on February 7th 2005 sought to both review the
progress that had been made in examining the key issues and challenges, including
the case studies and international comparisons that had been generated by the
MMM work programme, and to propose a range of new approaches, new solutions
and possibly new models of doing business in the not for profit arts sector.

Introduction to the conference

This document provides a summary of MMM conference held on the 7th February
2005, and is based on detailed transcripts of all of the sessions. The conference
report from the first conference held in June 2004 is also available on the MMM
micro-site, currently hosted by Arts and Business (www.AandB.org.uk)

In addition to the conference summary this brief report also features an evaluation
report on the Conference, which is based on a participant survey conducted for the
MMM Advisory Group by the Research, Evaluation & Information team at Arts &
Business. Both the conference summary and evaluation report identify common
themes and issues in terms of the strengths of the MMM initiative to date, and with
regard to possible directions the MMM programme of work might take in the future.

The conference summary that follows does not offer a verbatim account of the day.
Many of the background papers for the event are available on the MMM micro-site,
and this document is designed as a compliment, rather than a substitute, to those
provocations and the case studies and policy papers produced by the Clore Fellows,
which we would encourage you to read in full.

We turn first to a summary of the conference.

MMM 2 – ‘New Approaches to sustaining the arts in the United Kingdom’

February 7th 2005

“As in most things, divide and conquer would be an unhelpful strategy for sustainability in any
quarter; unite and triumph would be a better thing to think about” conference delegate

Organisation of the conference

The conference was organised in three distinct segments. Firstly an opening plenary,
under the title ‘Free Radicals’, addressing the degree to which organisations n the
arts and cultural sectors are genuinely open to the advantages of becoming more
enterprising and entrepreneurial. Secondly, a series of breakout groups and reporting
sessions which examined in detail the three key themes and issues that the MMM
programme had been exploring, and for which the Clore Fellows had produced
Conference papers. Those sessions addressed the following issues:

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Developing Financial Sustainability
• How can we create reserves /endowments and once created how do we
manage and control them?
• What strategic alliances could be developed between organisations to
achieve back office cost efficiencies and how could these be extended ‘front
of house’?

Developing Organisational Sustainability

• What are the priority issues with regard to governance in the not for profit arts
sector and what changes need to occur to reflect the changing landscape arts
organisations are operating in?
• What can be done to improve the capabilities of arts organisations to develop
both new and more collaborative approaches to sustaining their customer /
visitor base, develop new markets and build participation in the arts?
• What are the key competencies arts organisations need in order to manage
mission-led strategies which are successful both in terms of mission and
financial sustainability?

Deepening our understanding of the changing environment and its

implications for the arts
• How could we, as a sector, better engage with the changing demographic,
technological and social environment?

The final plenary session, entitled ‘Towards Transformation – roles and

responsibilities’, chaired by Sir Christopher Frayling, Chairman of the Arts Council
England, sought to address how the whole MMM agenda could best be taken
forward.

Given this breadth and depth of focus and contributions, it is impossible in this short
document to summarise in any detail the various sessions. Rather we have sought to
provide an overall summary of the key themes and issues that emerged throughout
the day’s discussions, in addition to providing a short summary of each of the key
breakout sessions1. We begin with a summary of key themes and issues.

Key themes and issues

Lots of voices
One of the important characteristics of the day was the wide range of views and
perspectives aired and discussed, producing both richness and complexity. For
example, most of the breakout groups ended up asking new questions rather than
answering the ones identified by the Clore Fellow papers, whilst the plenary sessions
provoked debate but not a lot of consensus or clarity.

Lots of agreement
Nonetheless, reviewing the Conference dialogue reveals lots of common themes that
emerged across the sessions, which included the following:

• Values and language matter – finding new ways of capturing what the arts
already stand for, and do, was a constant refrain through the day – reflecting
a desire to provide good answers to the ‘what are we fighting for’ question

1 Unfortunately due to recording problems, we are currently unable to provide a summary of the

breakout session examining the wider environment and how the cultural sector could better engage
with the changing demographic, technological and social environment. We are in the process of
exploring how best to generate an account of that discussion.

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 • We need more peer-to-peer learning – a virtuous circle of ‘find, share,
celebrate, learn’

• We need better mechanisms for sharing advice, expertise and knowledge

• We’ve barely begun to get good at creatively managing the tensions between
money, mission and models

• We need to get better at defining desirable behaviours and outcomes and

rewarding them

• We need to invest in the skills and capabilities of the people who work in arts
organisations, and be clearer about the core competencies arts organisations
require

• Risk management expertise, financial / commercial acumen, and customer

focus seemed to be the areas in most short supply

• It’s all about relationships – coupled to a sense that we need more honesty
and transparency in our key relationships and practices

• We need to value our own skills more, whilst also becoming more critical of
what we need to learn

• Whilst accepting that there is no one best way forward - there are lots of good
principles and tried and tested approaches which are being unevenly applied
across the sector

• Leading and managing arts organisations poses unique challenges – a

pervading sense that there is too little support and not a little loneliness out
there

Lots of dissent
As you would expect, there were also significant disagreement expressed over
priorities and the best routes forward. Some of the key points here included:

• Support for an MMM type conversation, but also a tangible fear that it will be
reduced to an unsophisticated managerial or CPD agenda

• Some see irreconcilable tensions between the mission and the money –
others see creative opportunities

• An interesting gulf in mindset between those firmly embedded in the

subsidised sector and those already thriving in a more commercial
environment. Indeed, if there was a weakness about the event, it was the
extent to which the key voices heard were from the subsidised cultural sector.
Many wanted to hear more from those operating solely in commercial
environments.

• Weak levels of common agreement over what key concepts and issues mean
(reserves, commerciality, governance etc)

• Lack if clarity over who the prime customer is and what this means for
mission and money

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 • Exceptionalism is a strong default attitude in the sector– informing ‘it’s
different for us’ mentalities

• Tied to a sense that the diversity of the sector makes common approaches
difficult and counterproductive

• Some see the sector has having made great strides and progress on reach
and openness, others regard it as unprepared for the shape of future
developments and big picture drivers

• A lack of clarity over who leads, who’s responsible, and how the sector can
collectively punch its weight

We consider some of the implications of these points in our conclusion.

“it seemed to me that if it’s become difficult to discriminate between the living and the living-
dead amongst UK arts organisations, that should be sometimes a question that anyone
concerned about the quality of UK public life should be concerned with” conference delegate

“I’m struck by the radicalism, the free-radicalism that is sometimes a feature of private
conversation about the arts; it’s not a feature of the public conversation in the UK about the
future of the arts. Our challenge is to make it so” conference delegate

The Breakout Sessions

These sessions proved to be very wide ranging and generated lots of insight into how
best to understand the key issues and challenges and how best to move forward. In
order to generate a brief summary of each we have chosen to report the content
under a common template, which does some violence to the richness of the
discussion but powerfully captures the key arguments and challenges. We
recommend that you read these summaries in combination with the appropriate Clore
Fellow position papers, available on this micro-site.

Developing Financial Sustainability

Reserves and Endowments

How can we create reserves /endowments and once created how do we manage and
control them?

As a sector we should focus more on:

• How to create cash and operational head room

• How to break a culture where money ‘always lives on the stage and not in our
pockets’
• How to break a culture of operating deficits as business as usual to ensure
funding flows
• New organisations using new models who are proving more adept than large
institutions in building reserves

As a sector we should do more of:

• Acknowledging how weak the near cash position is for the sector as a whole
• Acknowledging that as a consequence the leaders of many arts organisations
live in a constant environment of risk & heroic leaps
• Focusing on the skills and capabilities challenge for arts organisations around
these issues

As a sector we need to share practice about:

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 • Those types of economic models and approaches which most effectively build
reserves
• The successful reserve strategies that have been adopted by organisations
• Talking more about assets and asset allocation, rather than narrow, cash
money definitions of an organisation’s assets

As a sector we urgently need clarity on:

• What a reserves strategy might look like for organisations of different sizes
• How to create better incentives, rather than disincentives, for reserve creation
• How to create ‘better line of sight’ in terms of financial accountability inside
arts organisations – with all staff internalising financial disciplines

As a sector we are confused about:

• What we actually mean by reserves and their role in short-term activity and
long-term planning
• What it might mean to have a more far sighted asset allocation strategy,
building new sources of value and revenue
• The degree to which lead bodies (ACE, Local Authorities) support the
creation of reserves as a sign of organisational health

“I think it might be useful instead of talking strictly about reserves to just talk about assets and
asset allocation strategy” conference delegate

Strategic Alliances
What strategic alliances could be developed between organisations to achieve back
office cost efficiencies and how could these be extended ‘front of house’?

As a sector we should focus more on:

• How best to preserve artistic and intellectual copyright when pursuing

strategic alliances.
• How best to ensure that alliances are designed primarily to raise standards,
rather than a narrow concern with cost savings
• How to ensure that successful alliances involve entire organisations and not
just interested individuals
• How to generate dispassionate leadership throughout the process, rather
than any one voice or organisational dominating

As a sector we should do more of:

• Developing action research and other evaluative models to test current

models.
• Looking beyond our own industry to explore the very real potential that exists
for collaboration with other sectors.
• Developing practical user friendly guides to developing strategic alliances
• Acting and taking the lead as a sector, rather than waiting to be told

As a sector we need to share practice about:

• Exemplar examples of strategic alliances and to tell the stories more

effectively.

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 • International experiences as well as UK based examples of practice.
Various examples emerged from around the country and abroad of diverse
collaboration:
- University of Manchester – cohesive strategic approach for museum, gallery
and library
- A consortium of businesses in Manchester including The Bridgewater Hall,
Harvey Nicholls, Selfridges developing frontline service training with potential
support from North West Development Agency.
- Barbican – creating a community of small-scale arts organisations
- Newbury – three small-scale arts organisations combining to approach
Vodafone for funding. Success in combined approach
- Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center exploring a merger

As a sector we urgently need clarity on:

.
• How best to differentiate between buildings and non-buildings based
alliances.
• How ACE, Local authorities and RFOs can best work together to ensure
success
• How best to incentivise and encourage collaboration – in the form of tangible
financial returns from funders. There needs to be incentives to take us
beyond enthusiasm.

As a sector we are confused about:

• The degree to which artistic collaborations and alliances carry with them the
risk of diluting artistic identity
• How best to ensure that sharing resources does not lead to an erosion of
organisational individuality

“I don’t think that, as a sector, the leaders of this sector are working hard enough to define
what it means for arts organisations of different sizes and scales to live well, creatively and
organisationally” conference delegate

Developing Organisational Sustainability

Governance
What are the priority issues with regard to governance in the not for profit arts sector
and what changes need to occur to reflect the changing landscape arts organisations
are operating in?

As a sector we should focus more on:

• Recruiting and training appropriate trustees

• Broadening the supply of potential trustees
• Establishing the responsibilities and expectations on board members
• Triggering periodic reviews of purpose and structure – should we exist is a
necessary question for Boards to review regularly.

“the boards of most major arts organisations are more effective than the Vietcong at
defending lost causes, and they’re often better in hand-to-hand combat” conference delegate

As a sector we should do more of:

• Recognising there are no single answers for the sector and we need to build
flexible approaches

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 • Recruit for skills and competence needs not for status and fund raising
possibilities (contribution & capability not charisma and cash)

As a sector we need to share practice about:

• How best to engage and interest new and existing board members
• An advice line for trustees and board members won favour and support
• How best to manage, appraise and utilise talented boards and trustees

As a sector we urgently need clarity on:

• What the specific governance issues are for the sector

• Whether a ‘comply or explain’ model has legs in the sector & elsewhere
• Whether ‘fixed terms’ are a good idea and should be used more widely
• Whether we could create larger boards, with concentric circles of diminishing
responsibility – in order to increase supply and focus board members by task
and expertise

As a sector we are confused about:

• How far codes, and of what sort, should be used to drive good practice
• Whether the established charity model has had its day – do we need new
structures and models

Marketing and Participation

What can be done to improve the capabilities of arts organisations to develop both
new and more collaborative approaches to sustaining their customer / visitor base,
develop new markets and build participation in the arts?

As a sector we should focus more on:

• Defining what is the appropriate ‘reach’ for different size and types of arts
organisations (‘reaching everyone’ is not a suitable strategy for all arts
organisations)
• Deepening understanding of customer (audience/visitor) base and key issues
such as why people feel they do not want to participate
• Linking data better internally across discrete activity areas (box office,
marketing, development) and externally between arts and other organisations
• Integrating marketing into the whole organisation
• Normalising entrance into arts spaces as a ladder to participation (Sage
Gateshead tea dances)
• De-mystify and/or re-develop vocabulary around marketing and participation
• Identifying better mechanisms to share knowledge and good practice

As a sector we should do more of:

• Celebrating a focus on the customer and accept the adaptability this

necessarily applies in our established missions
• Tackling fears, misconceptions and personal barriers to participation
• Sharing and utilising data from existing regional and national agencies
• Understanding the unique role of local authorities in brokering and deepening
the role between arts and communities
• As a sector we need to share practice about:
• How to build more trusting relationships between bigger institutions and the
smaller player

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 • Systems and data usage which extends and deepens participation
• Leading edge work by art educationalists, and the network of audience
development agencies around the UK
• Widening public participation, particularly in diverse and excluded groups
• About audience behaviour and visitor patterns

“I firmly believe that if you understand your market you don’t have to compromise on your
product and your art form” conference delegate

As a sector we urgently need clarity on:

• How to build an integrated approach – encompassing marketing, education,

development, employment practice, estates management – for the best
organisations ‘participation’ is the ‘Brighton’ in ‘Brighton Rock’
• The extent to which data sharing is acceptable (common purpose v
competition)
• The extent to which shared services are appropriate and deliverable
• How to create new markets as well as respond to existing ones
• How to use data, and data processes to support strategy and mission

As a sector we are confused about:

• Whether building reach can lead to a ‘dilution of identity’

• The degree to which instrumental type activities can distort artistic mission –
i.e. you become funder led and not mission led
• How best to generate shared ownership of audience development within
organisations
• The role of agencies, including ACE in this area versus the potential for other
kinds of collaborations between arts organisations on these issues

“in a world where the old will soon be the majority, the old, over-50s, have 80% of the wealth
now, and 40% of the leisure time, our attitude that the old are really, really boring and
conservative, which, looking round the room, you’d think the population here would disprove,
is perhaps something we need to question.”conference delegate

Key Competencies
What are the key competencies arts organisations need in order to manage mission-
led strategies which are successful both in terms of mission and financial
sustainability?

As a sector we should focus more on:

• Investing in people capacity

• Identify how values, strategy and practice define key competencies
• Recruiting, training and engaging board members
• Managing the creative tension between mission & money
• Understanding our market
• Stakeholder responsiveness and nurturing key relationships

“as well as the Arts Council stabilisation and recovery programmes, and stuff like that, there
would be the Arts Council’s assisted euthanasia programme” conference delegate

As a sector we should do more of:

• Peer-to-peer learning - from each other and other sectors

• Reflect upon & audit the key competencies of our orgs

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 • Income generation & commerciality
• Jointly celebrating tangible managerial competencies and less tangible values
based, artistic leadership skills
• Celebrating what we’re good at

“We want arts organisations that are both mission-led and financially sustainable. Now that
sounds really simple but actually it requires quite a change of mindset for some organisations”
conference delegate

As a sector we need to share practice about:

• Effective leadership
• creating development centric organisations
• getting the small stuff right
• building better organisations
• how to become more transparent
• cost control and embedding financial acumen
• and the skill of saying ‘no’.

“I think that you have to completely embrace the idea that the future for most arts
organisations is more mobile, more fluid, less tied to a fixed cost base” conference delegate

As a sector we urgently need clarity on:

• How to better balance mission and money

• How to build more transparent and productive relationships between funder
and funded
• How to better use our values and core missions to shape our broader
strategies and practices

As a sector we are confused about:

• How best to create:

• strategic leadership
• break through thinking
• risk taking and good risk management
• entrepreneurship, and a culture of learning

“we need some disruption. We all know things need to change” conference delegate

Summary of breakout group session

As these brief summaries reveal, the breakout group sessions generated a
substantive forward looking agenda in terms of priorities for action, both in terms of
key areas for continuous improvement and with respect to key issues over which
there is no consensus or agreement.

These findings can be usefully contextualised against the Conference evaluation

report, to which we now turn, in order to examine how far the key themes that
emerged out of the event are reflected in the experiences, attitudes and aspirations
of those how attended.

Evaluation report on the event2

“A quality event with some tangible outcomes” conference delegate

2 This section of the report was written by Catherine Bunting, Head of Research, Evaluation and

Information, A&B

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Firstly, survey respondents were keen to praise the quality of the two MMM events
and the associated research and opinion papers. Participants felt that relevant issues
were tackled in a grown-up, intelligent and collaborative way and appreciated the
passion, commitment and energy invested by the speakers and authors. The quality
of the audience was also seen to be a key strength – the seniority, experience and
diversity of the delegates allowed for stimulating debate and created important
networking opportunities. For one delegate, “day 2 was one of the best days of its
kind I have attended”.

Overall, then, a successful event – but did it make a difference? The most significant
outcome to date appears to have been an increase in awareness and understanding
– over 60 per cent of survey respondents felt that the MMM initiative had increased
their understanding of the challenges facing the cultural sector to a ‘large’ or ‘very
large’ extent. Several respondents have taken this heightened understanding back to
their organisations, where it appears to be driving and informing fresh approaches to
the challenges of long-term planning, governance, income generation and impact
measurement. Informed by the debate at the first conference, one organisation has
already been able to make a successful application to the Arts Council for a grant to
research potential income-generating activities. Overall, the feedback indicates that
MMM has provided a new lens for examining challenges and exploring solutions, one
that is already being put to use by a number of individuals and organisations across
the sector.

The survey results also indicate that MMM has encouraged greater collaboration
between organisations; several respondents anticipate the development of a new
range of strategic alliances forming on the back of MMM and a group of Executive
Directors in theatre have already “agreed to work more closely together in looking at
the challenges facing our type of organisation”.

Scepticism – and something missing

Unfortunately, it’s not all good news. Whilst MMM has raised individual awareness of
key challenges and encouraged a more collaborative approach to meeting those
challenges, there remains a significant degree of scepticism regarding its ability to
stimulate sector-wide transformation. Less that 40 per cent of survey respondents
are ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’ that MMM will lead to the development of new
practical approaches and models and nearly 70 per cent are unconvinced that the
initiative will activate the changes required to create a more sustainable future for the
sector.

In this respect the respondents outlined specific limitations in the second MMM
conference, in particular identifying the main weakness of the day as a failure to
identify priority action points and responsibilities and to articulate next steps.
Delegates reported a loss of focus in the last session of the day, and were left
unclear as to how the agenda would be taken forward and the momentum
maintained. One respondent summed up the general feeling: “There seemed to be a
positive intent to make the day action oriented, but no-one went away with real and
agreed tasks, nor a process through which those tasks would be assigned in the
future”. Another delegate went on to ask: “Is MMM over – and if not, how can I
know?”

Whilst the quality of the audience was seen as a key strength by most respondents,
there was also a sense that some voices weren’t being heard. In particular, several
delegates felt that the initiative would have benefited from the input of more small
and mid-scale arts organisations and recognition that many such organisations are
already “financially secure without traditional arts funding, are cross cutting, are very

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sophisticated in the way they present to their non-arts audiences and funders”.
Another delegate suggested that those currently engaged in the debate are “only
interested in preserving the status quo” and questioned whether these really were the
people “who will find new models”. There were also calls for greater contributions
from academics, local authorities and the private sector – particularly shared learning
and the transfer of skills, approaches and models between the arts and business
sectors.

“Quality is an increasing problem for people. In an era when equity and access and
participation are the key words that are judging art by its social value, it seems to me that
people are scared to make qualitative judgements” conference delegate

Moving forward – what, who, how

Survey respondents were keen to provide suggestions as to how the issues raised by
MMM might best be taken forward. There were strong calls for action, particularly the
development of a series of small-scale pilot projects – practical experiments serving
as action research and informing future policy and practice. Other suggestions
included “some kind of bonus scheme for best practice examples of change”, “a
MMM conference confined to a specific geographical area, or to a specific part of the
sector” and “ a fundamental review delivering a keynote paper on the key issues
facing the arts”.

However, there was debate – and no real consensus – around responsibility and
ownership: who should drive the agenda forward from here, and what should the
roles of DCMS and ACE be? Several respondents were keen for the initiative to
retain its independence; MMM’s collegiate approach – the fact that it is not ‘owned’
by any one organisation – is seen as one of its great strengths. One respondent
identified a need for “some organisation which will spearhead and champion the case
– and which has teeth/a cutting edge to the way it operates…and is also free from
government subsidy itself”. Yet there was also a palpable belief that buy-in from
policy-makers and funding bodies would be critical to the success of any continuing
programme of work; there was a call to “bed the initiative more firmly into current
political/funding structures so it cannot be seen as an add-on”.

“ The development agencies for the sector, those organisations that are absolutely mandates
to help you in that endeavour to become more adaptive and innovative, they have to develop
themselves rather more effectively than they have done so far” conference delegate

Whatever form MMM takes in the future, the evaluation to date gives rise to three key
recommendations:

1. Action – a focus on real, practical, transferable projects, capable of delivering

demonstrable change
2. Communication – a strong public message about the future of MMM – sooner
rather than later
3. Collaboration and consensus – the development of committed, clearly-defined
and transparent relationships between all agencies with a stake in the future
of MMM, particularly DCMS and ACE.

Finally, the Advisory Group can be assured that there is a strong will in the sector for
the continuation of MMM, and a network of enthusiastic individuals that are
committed to making it work and ready to invest their passion and energy in driving
change. In the words of respondents, MMM “is a crucial initiative and must be
continued”, “has a strong role to play as a catalyst for change” and “needs to be
sustained over a longer term”. The overall message was keep the debate alive.

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“if every one of us doesn’t take away the various rubrics for action in all those six areas,
whichever ones we thought were the two most important, then we are kidding ourselves, and
anybody who doesn’t go through that list and say, yes, I’m doing this or no, I’m not doing that
and then takes a very hard look at the things that they aren’t doing and if they do nothing
about it there’s simply no point in complaining that the sector has not been
transformed”conference delegate

Conclusions - ‘Mission, Models, and Money – An ongoing catalyst for

change?’
If the MMM initiative is to deliver on the aspirations of the sector, now is the right time
to review the progress that has been made, and on the basis of the outputs of the
Conference and the evaluation report, offer some preliminary thoughts on the
principles and practices that might inform its future development.

Firstly then, has MMM made a positive contribution in generating debate and new
insight into how best to generate new approaches to financial sustainability in the
cultural sector? :

• MMM’s original analysis – that the sector is overextended and

undercapitalised – is right, and the two conferences have created a greater
appetite to address that fundamental problem

• MMM has overall been a successful initiative – it has built understandings,

raised expectations and dashed them simultaneously – the frequent outcome
of a successful pilot

• MMM now needs to look forward and back

• Back in the sense of capturing and delivering on the needs identified by

MMM1 & 2 (for example the need to share and pool knowledge and expertise
across the sector, identified by all of the breakout group discussions)

• And forward in the sense that it is vital to keep the momentum and energy
going by keeping the conversation broad, challenging and stretching

Given these achievements and expectations, what might be some of the principles
and practices that need to shape the development of the MMM initiative? :

• Any future programme of work needs to sweat the ‘small stuff’ and the ‘big
stuff’. The MMM programme has powerfully shown that the cultural sector
urgently needs to professionalise its practices (often by focusing on the ‘small
stuff’ of day to day continuous improvement) and to transform its thinking
about its mission, role, and modus operandi (the ‘big stuff’). The strength of
MMM has been to trigger an insightful conversation at both of these levels,
and it should continue to try and do so in the future.

• Any future MMM programme has a crucial ‘roles and responsibilities’ function
– i.e. to make sure those who need to drive forward progress in the future are
not ducking their responsibilities. The evaluation feedback confirmed that
delegates felt unsure about whether key agencies were really committed to
taking forward the MMM agenda. The ongoing development of MMM as a
public good, public interest project, with a wide range of key stakeholders and
agencies, is dependent on engaging more actively than hitherto the main
players, and ensuring that they make firm and tangible pledges to what they
will deliver within any new MMM programme of work.

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 • The key objective of MMM has always been to trigger a greater desire and
capability within the cultural sector to creatively balance the needs of mission
and money. Its message must remain that ‘the revolution starts at home’ –
with each individual and arts organisation accepting the need to think better
and to execute better

The Mission, Money and Models initiative originally sprung from the insights,
concerns, and capabilities of the Jerwood Charity and Arts and Business. However,
as this conference summary and evaluation report has confirmed, its future success
is dependent on others to find common cause and bring to bear their expertise on
how best to create a more vibrant cultural community in the UK built on a more solid
platform of greater organisational and financial sustainability.

In this respect MMM has created a fantastic opportunity for the sector to realise these
ambitions – but it remains only an opportunity. Grasping it demands that MMM
continues its work, and that the key development agencies in the sector drop their
shoulders more firmly behind the wheel.

John Knell
Intelligence Agency

April 2005

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