National Arts Stabilization (NAS) is a nonprofit arts management group that helps arts organizations build a strong foundation on which creativity and innovation can flourish. Believing that organizational health supports artistic excellence, NAS cooperates with communities to strengthen arts organizations by developing the managerial and financial skills required to thrive in today's environment. Since its inception as a nonprofit organization in 1983, NAS has been instrumental in helping a total of seventy-six arts organizations in seven project sites gain long-term institutional health and in developing tools such as evaluation methodology that promote learning in the field.

NAS has undertaken a research project with local arts stabilization and capacity building programs throughout the country to measure the impact of those programs on the arts organizations they serve. A three year grant from the Ford Foundation will allow NAS and its research partners to design and test an evaluation methodology and disseminate its findings to arts organizations, evaluation practitioners, funders and the cultural policy community.

Stabilization or capacity building strengthens organizations by helping them to develop stronger management, organizational and financial practices, to the ultimate benefit of their creative and artistic mission. The process aims to create the ongoing capacity for responding to change in the external environment. A number of stabilization or capacity building programs use a combination of targeted grants, loans, and technical consulting services. These address the needs of the whole organization and can include strategic planning, financial management disciplines, and effective governance and management operations focusing on achieving the organization's mission.

The NAS project uses the terms stabilization and capacity building to describe these programs; however, programs that fit the definition may use other terms such as organizational development or arts advancement. Programs that participate in the project will have separate, defined funding, a clear focus on building infrastructure for the long term, and the ability and willingness to provide technical assistance to the arts organizations they serve.

The NAS research project will address four key questions:

How do stabilization strategies produce an environment that supports creative processes?

What are the most effective practices in use today, nationally and internationally?

What are the outcomes or diverse stabilization programs?

How can stabilization funders, practitioners, and participating organizations develop an effective communications network to share what they are learning about strengthening arts organizations?

CONTENTS--The project.