Testimonials
Since 1995, NAS has worked with over 2,000 arts and cultural
leaders in the United States and abroad in all disciplines.
These experienced leaders build on the frameworks
and skills they learn in our programs, and use them
to make significant improvements in their organizations
and in their own leadership approaches. They tell
the best story about the impact that participating
in NAS executive education has had on them as leaders
and on their organizations.
The Team Experience
"Attending an NAS seminar
with six staff members was the key to our success.
We emerged with a group of core strategies with a
common vocabulary and process, and were able to form
the 'critical mass' to share the information with
the rest of the staff and artists who weren't able
to attend."
David P. Saar
Artistic Director, Childsplay
"The teams that brought
their executive, program, and their marketing leadership
got it right. The ideas at the seminar and the team
exercises affect the entire organization. With everyone
involved it's so much easier to turn the ideas into
actions when you return home."
Sara Billmann
Director Marketing / Promotions, University Musical
Society
"I thought Managing
People was a great experience. I brought three
other management staff with me, and we all got so
excited about the alignment model that we have followed
up with a number of meetings to refine our model for
use in our workplan next year."
Kathleen Crowther
Executive Director, Cleveland Restoration Society
"Bringing a team of at
least three or four people is so important to the
process, it should be a requirement. The experience
would be so much less powerful without this dialogue."
Scott Rowitz, Executive Director;
Brit Withey, Program Director;
Britta Erickson, Media & Industry Relations Director
Denver Film Society
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"What sets the NAS experience apart is that
you get the staff and trustee leadership in one room,
with very smart professional facilitation, addressing
the same strategic issues. It hugely improves your
direction, focus, and collective thinking, and perhaps
most important, forges working and personal bonds
in many directions. This was the priceless takeaway
for us. It has changed the way the Walters thinks
and does business."
Gary Vikan
Director, The Walters Art Museum
"The NAS strategic planning
seminar was the best training for non-profits that
I have ever experienced. On an absolute basis, it
was the equivalent of any course that I had as a General
Manager/VP in my 25-year career at Hewlett-Packard/Agilent
Technologies and probably as good as any other global
company would deliver. The teachers were top notch
and the material was very relevant to what we do every
day. My team used it to tune our plan."
George Sparks
President and CEO, Denver Museum of Nature & Science
"The opportunity to
send a team, comprising both staff and board members,
to a series of executive seminars is unique and greatly
advantageous to us. The seminars get us out of our
daily routine, immerse us in important issues, and
are a great tool for orienting new board members and
staff to the work of our non-profit."
Bob Taylor
Executive Director, Great Lakes Theater Festival
"It gave us a framework
to discuss and develop solutions for current staffing
and resource allocation problems. It brought us closer
together as a management team, and also gave us a
chance to meet and learn from our peers."
Tom Kaiden
Chief Operating Officer, Greater Philadelphia Cultural
Alliance
"The seminar made us
rethink our positioning. The work challenged one of
our basic beliefs and at first I recoiled from the
result, but by the end of the seminar I realized that
we had captured a key new idea about who we are and
who we serve. The framework we learned for defining
a positioning statement will continue to be a very
valuable tool for us."
Edward Walker
Executive Director, Oklahoma City Philharmonic
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The Faculty
"[Strategy]
fully changed the way we viewed our mission. The enthusiasm
and expertise of [the faculty] pushed us to question
our reason for being, allowing us to see with fresh
eyes the real core of what we do."
Stephanie Small
Former Executive Director, Free Arts of Arizona
Consultant, Young and Company
"By attending the Creative
Alliances workshop as a team, we were challenged
to think beyond the framework of community relationship
building. The NAS faculty was absolutely fantastic!
The Creative
Alliances workshop was not your typical workshop.
The faculty kept us engaged, inspired and energized
throughout the two-day workshop."
Janet Barnett
Deputy Director - Arts, Marketing, Special Services
City of Alexandria - Recreation, Parks & Cultural
Activities
"We're one of the largest
performing arts presenters in the country, and I found
the teaching cases, the discussions, and the exercises
extremely relevant to our work. The faculty for the
seminar do a great job of bringing out ideas from
all the different types of participants at the seminar."
Sara Billmann
Director, Marketing/Promotions, University Musical
Society
"This was a fantastic
presentation/seminar that was detailed and specific.
I feel the time I spent with the faculty and my peers
will have long-reaching influence on the way I direct
my organization."
David Ellenstein
Producing Artistic Director, North Coast Repertory
Theatre
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How NAS is
Different
"The NAS seminars gave me tools and techniques,
but probably more important, they gave me a vocabulary
and a frame of reference that I could share [with
staff and trustees]. As a result, we could plan better
together."
Sheila Grinell
Former President and CEO, Arizona Science Center
President and CEO, Grinell LLC
"I've attended many nonprofit
management seminars which provided quick tips but
failed to address the more complex strategic challenges
that overwhelmed my organization. I felt chronically
burned out; my organization was dysfunctional and
fiscally insolvent. All our energies were consumed
in day-to-day triage. I'd almost given up when I found
NAS. After using the tools from the NAS seminars,
I'm proud to say that we are financially stable, growing
at a measured pace and able to devote significant
time to long-range planning. NAS helped me foster
invaluable change in my organization."
Nan Elsasser
Founder and Executive Director, Working Classroom
"I think differently
about things now. I have a better toolbox to evaluate
what we do and to plan. I am a better executive director
and a better thinker now."
Edward Walker
Executive Director, Oklahoma City Philharmonic
"Because of the NAS seminars,
I have a new appreciation for professionald evelopment,
and I also have new standards. A lot of the training
available is taught by my peers, who are very smart
professionals, but I know what they know. The NAS
seminars introduce me to new ideas."
Rosemary Walsh
Director of Marketing, Childsplay
"I've been in this business
a long time, and the NAS experience really does open
one's mind to new ideas."
Jessica L. Andrews
Managing Director, Arizona Theatre Company
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