WolfBrown will conduct a five-year evaluation of the Leading for the Future: Innovative Support for Artistic Excellence initiative, developed and managed by Nonprofit Finance Fund and funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The evaluation will be co-led by Alan Brown, principal of WolfBrown, who is based in San Francisco, and Arthur Nacht, principal of Nacht Theatre Consulting, LLC, who is based in New Haven, Connecticut.

Leading for the Future is an innovative multi-year grant program designed to explore new business and funding models for the performing arts sector in a shifting environment. The initiative will allow participating nonprofits to test new ways to bolster organizational capacity, mitigate financial risk, and increase the ability to offer top-notch relevant programming. Their projects will also provide instructive examples and models for other arts organizations to learn from and possibly replicate.

Brown and Nacht will contribute analysis and feedback about the initiative, and will also provide an assessment at its conclusion.

WolfBrown is one of the country’s top providers of research-based knowledge to the cultural sector.  Alan Brown is also leading two other assessment projects, an evaluation of the Creative Campus Innovations grant program administered by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and the Engaging Dance Audiences initiative, a pilot grant initiative of Dance/USA.  Both initiatives are funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Nacht Theatre Consulting, LLC, specializes in the financial and strategic management of performing arts organizations, especially nonprofit theatres. Arthur Nacht was a financial executive in the corporate sector for thirty years, including fourteen years as Director of Financial Planning of Packard Bioscience Company, a biotechnology instrument company. Nacht holds an MBA degree in finance from Harvard Business School (1971) and an MFA in theatre management from Yale School of Drama (2006).