Why funders, boards, audiences, and leaders have to stop paying for the paint job and start repairing the ship.
I was sitting in a darkened theater at a prestigious arts awards ceremony. A production I had worked on was being honored as one of the best of the year.
Under the warm stage lights, the Director clutched the trophy and talked about the “family” we’d built and the transformative power of the work. The audience cheered. The critics smiled. Glasses clinked.
In my seat, my stomach twisted.
Because I knew what it took to get that show on stage.
Behind that shiny trophy was a process that had harmed people. Psychological safety was non-existent. Staff were treated as disposable. Fear and favoritism did most of the directing. The “family” everyone applauded was, in reality, an exhausted and anxious group of humans trying not to fall apart.
And still, this company is considered a success story.
Why? Because the art was good.
This is one of the ugliest truths in our field: we keep rewarding the outcome, even when the way we got there is grinding people down.
We celebrate the facade, while the structure underneath is cracking.
The High Cost of the Facade
This isn’t about one “bad” company or one abusive leader. It’s about an industry-wide pattern that’s becoming unsustainable.
Across the arts and nonprofit sector, recent surveys and reports tell a stark story:
- Burnout is the norm.
Sector-wide research with nonprofit and arts leaders shows that burnout is consistently named as one of the top threats to their mission. Many leaders say they regularly think about leaving the field altogether. - The talent exodus is real.
Studies of the creative and cultural workforce in the US and UK describe a “retention crisis,” with early-career artists and administrators quietly leaving for more stable sectors—not because they’ve stopped loving the work, but because the system keeps asking them to sacrifice their health and stability. - The funding gap keeps the pressure on.
Research on funding practices has repeatedly found that organizations heavily reliant on restricted, project-based support feel far less secure about their long-term survival and have far less ability to invest in people, systems, and culture than those with robust general operating support.
We see the standing ovations. We don’t see the number of people who decide, on closing night, “I can’t keep doing this.”
The Scarcity Loop: How Good People Run Bad Systems
When something goes wrong, we look for a villain: a bad Director, a negligent Board, a checked-out funder.
But in most of the rooms I’ve been in, the people are not villains. They are caring, smart, deeply tired humans doing their best inside a broken template.
The real culprit is the funding model and the scarcity logic it creates.
When funding is tightly restricted to “the show,” “the project,” or “the program,” leaders get trapped in what I call the Scarcity Loop:
1. The Resource Gap
There is no real money for the “unseen” work:
HR, conflict mediation, manager training, better rehearsal practices, trauma-informed support. The ship has a hole in the hull, but the budget only covers new paint.
2. The Safe Pivot
Under pressure to meet ticket and donation goals, leaders default to “safe” programming that feels predictable and “sellable,” abandoning the braver, more experimental work they actually value.
3. The Burnout Tax
To make everything happen anyway, they lean on overfunctioning staff and freelancers.
“Just one more show. Just this season. Just until we get through this crisis.”
Multiple recent burnout studies confirm what people on the inside already know: nonprofit and arts workers are significantly more likely than the general workforce to report chronic stress, blurred boundaries, and regularly working beyond their contracted hours.
4. The Innovation Freeze
No one has the bandwidth to actually fix the system. The same conflict patterns, the same harm, the same turnover repeat, year after year, under a new season brochure.
Your donation, in that loop, buys the same struggle on a nicer-looking postcard.
What This Looks Like Up Close
Out of respect for the individuals involved, I’m not naming the company or the production. But I will name what happened.
On the show that won that award, “success” looked like this behind the scenes:
- The very people brought in to support artists’ wellbeing (including me) were quietly pushed out when our presence made leadership uncomfortable. We were told, directly or indirectly, that our work was “disruptive” to the process.
- Artists who were dealing with real grief and public controversy weren’t given space to process as humans. Instead, they were sat down with a nervous HR representative and read a sexual harassment policy, as if legal language could substitute for actual care.
- People who felt used and unsafe whispered their fears in hallways and dressing rooms, then laughed them off. Underneath the jokes was a shared belief: We are replaceable. If we speak up, we’re out.
By closing night, the show was beautiful.
By closing night, a lot of us were numb.
No one stood up at the curtain call and shouted, “I’m never working in theater again.” What I heard instead were softer, sadder versions:
“I can’t do another process like this.”
“I don’t want to work at places like this anymore.”
And then, when the next auditions were announced, many of those same people showed up — because for freelance, gig-based workers, there is no clean moral stance that also pays the rent. Saying “no” to harmful rooms often means saying “no” to groceries, to childcare, to housing.
I know this firsthand. I had to step away from acting to be able to write honestly about these dynamics and do the consistent work I do now. As long as my livelihood depended on being cast, it was not actually safe to tell the truth.
That’s the trade-off we’re making, over and over: art that looks brave, built on processes that require people to swallow their own needs just to stay in the game.
Fund the Framework, Not Just the Show
We cannot fix this with one-off wellness workshops or “pizza party” appreciation. We don’t need another panel. We need a new operating system.
In my own work at Art & Soul Consulting, that’s why my team and I built the STAGES™ framework; not as a “program,” but as infrastructure. It’s a six-part, repeatable process organizations can use to redesign how creative work happens, from the ground up.
STAGES™ is one example of the kind of framework our sector needs. Frameworks like this help organizations:
- Set context and expectations clearly from day one.
- Tailor processes to the actual humans in the room.
- Choose and support leaders intentionally.
- Invite real-time feedback instead of quiet resentment.
- Empower people to speak up before harm compounds.
- Reflect and repair at the end, so each project actually teaches the next one.
But here’s what funders and boards need to understand:
Investing in frameworks like this is not “overhead.” It’s risk management.
It reduces turnover. It reduces the risk of public crisis. It protects your reputation and the humans whose labor makes that reputation possible.
Decades of work in philanthropy have made one thing very clear: when organizations have flexible, reliable support, they are far better able to invest in people, culture, and systems — not just projects. That investment is what makes the work sustainable.
It is infrastructure, not extra.
What Different People Can Do
This isn’t only a funder problem. Every part of the ecosystem has leverage.
If you’re an audience member or avid arts supporter
You don’t control the budget, but you do influence culture.
- When you donate, ask questions like:
“How do you care for the artists and staff who make this work?”
“Do you invest in training or frameworks to keep your rehearsal rooms healthy?” - Pay attention to which organizations talk openly about their culture and not just their accolades. Support those.
You can still love the art and also care how it’s made.
If you are a funder or foundation
You have enormous power to either reinforce the Scarcity Loop or help break it.
- Shift more of your giving to multi-year, unrestricted general operating support, so leaders can patch the hole in the hull, not just repaint the deck.
- Create specific grant lines for culture infrastructure: implementation of care-forward frameworks (like STAGES and others), leadership training, conflict resolution processes, and real HR capacity.
- In your reporting requirements, don’t only ask: “What did you produce?”
Ask: “What changed for your people and your processes?”
Your dollars can buy more than shows. They can buy a healthier future for the field.
If you are a board member or major donor
You are often the bridge between the money and the mission.
- At your next board meeting, ask: “What are we investing in to protect our people from burnout and harm?” “Where in our budget do we fund the culture, not just the content?”
- Advocate for budgets that include line items for framework implementation and care infrastructure, and be willing to back that with your own giving.
Your legacy doesn’t have to be attached only to buildings and seasons. It can be attached to the reputation: “That’s the company where people feel safe to do their best work.”
If you are a leader inside the system
You are carrying the weight of all of this.
You can’t single-handedly rewrite the funding model, but you’re not powerless while the money catches up.
- Start naming the dynamics clearly to your staff, board, and funders: “We can’t keep delivering high-profile work on a system that burns people out. Here’s what needs to change.”
- Pilot a different way of working on one project this season. Use a framework (like STAGES™ or another care-forward model) to structure that process differently. Track what changes: staff retention, fewer crises, better communication.
- When you talk to funders, try language like: “We can deliver the outcomes you want only if we invest in the infrastructure that keeps our people whole. Here’s the plan and what it will cost.”
You deserve tools and language that back up the ethics you already hold.
Stop Applauding the Paint Job
The applause at that awards ceremony still echoes in my head.
Everyone in that room was sincere. The art was genuinely powerful. And yet, we were celebrating a ship that, below the waterline, was taking on water and quietly losing crew.
We don’t have to choose between excellent art and humane processes. We just have to stop pretending that a beautiful paint job means the hull is sound.
So, the next time you give, program, approve, or applaud, ask yourself: Am I funding the facade, or am I helping repair the ship?
Because the future of this field depends not only on what we put on stage, but on whether the people who make it can bear to come back tomorrow.
Let’s make sure they can.
