Partners in Change: Tackling Organizational Challenges with Consultants

Insights on common challenges and how to approach them from two NYSCA/NYFA Community Arts Leaders Program consultants.

The NYSCA/NYFA Community Arts Leaders program is an annual statewide program that offers 45 nonprofit arts organizations insight into strategies to optimize their organizations and individualized support to address an immediate area of growth. The program is administered by NYFA with funding support from the New York State Council on the Arts.

In this article, learn how two of our expert program consultants–Christine Chen, Senior Consultant at La Piana Consulting, and Gilles Mesrobian, nonprofit consultant–work with arts organizations to plan, optimize, and strategize for sustainable and sustained growth. 

We’re accepting applications for the 2026 cycle now through Wednesday, June 17. Full program details here.

Stay tuned for part 2, which will provide perspectives from 2025 Community Arts Leaders program participants!

While all organizations are unique, there are challenges that they all face. Can you share what challenges you address the most often? 

Christine Chen: Small arts organizations are often stretched thin, so building capacity starts with clarifying focus. Many are doing a ton of work with a tiny team and a working board, so the challenge isn’t ambition—it’s being willing to let go of some things or partner with peers (or even perceived competitors) to do more. I often help leaders clarify ‘what can only we do,’ then set bold goals to move that work forward so they can deliver sustainably without burning out.

Organizations also have to stay relevant as audiences, artists, communities, and funders change. Those shifts can disrupt ‘business as usual,’ so I work with organizations to align on and practice how they make decisions together—what guiding principles will always be true—so they have tools to consider future opportunities and challenges as they arise. 

Beyond budgets, different stakeholders at small organizations often need help understanding cash flow, timing, and how to keep operations going when an important grant you’re counting on won’t get paid out until after you need to pay most of your expenses. 

Gilles Mesrobian: In my experience, the challenges facing smaller arts organizations (with budgets generally under $1.5M) often fall into three interconnected areas. 

The most frequent topic is Organizational Infrastructure and Capacity. Many organizations are stuck in a ‘founder’s trap’ or a volunteer-only or limited/PT staff model, struggling to transition to a compensated, professional staff. I believe there is often a direct link between this model and the inability to expand or scale. My work with NYFA grantees frequently involves ‘triage’ to help these leaders transition from doing everything themselves to building a professionalized structure that can survive and thrive beyond their personal daily involvement.

Simultaneously, many of these organizations struggle with establishing a reliable Fundraising Structure and Sustainability. They often lack a clear donor pipeline, struggle with donor retention, and have boards that lack the capacity or expertise needed to move into major gift solicitation. I help NYFA grantees move toward a ‘monetization mindset,’ looking for fee-for-service models, stakeholder mapping, while leveraging their unique assets to create diversified, unrestricted income streams.

This ties directly into the third challenge: Governance and Board Engagement, where boards are frequently either unaligned, resist necessary changes, or lack the formal committee structure and best practices needed to support organizational growth.

What does a successful collaboration look like between you as a consultant and the organizations you work with? Anything that you would like arts administrators to know so you can best support each other?

Giles Mesrobian: A successful collaboration is one rooted in radical transparency and a ‘grounded peer’ relationship. I see my role not just as an advisor, but as a partner in navigating the ‘messy middle’ of organizational growth. The most impactful sessions occur when administrators are willing to pull back the curtain on their debt, board friction, or succession fears. As a four-time Executive Director, I have been both a founder and followed a founder. This gives me a unique experience to have a peer to peer and honest conversation about the challenges they are facing.

I’ve observed that in the arts there is a tendency to ‘perform success.’ As a consultant I want to focus on tangible success. So for the collaboration to thrive we need to stop performing and start discussing reality. That’s when we can build actionable strategies. I want arts administrators to know that ‘strategy is a muscle, not a document.’

Christine Chen: A successful collaboration is built on curiosity and trust. We co-design the work together—agreeing on the goals, who needs to be involved (the leader and, as appropriate, other staff or board members), and what ‘good’ might look like—while creating enough psychological safety to name what’s hard. I ask a lot of questions, listen for what’s underneath the presenting issue, and help teams stay focused on learning rather than defending past decisions.

From there, we actively find solutions together.

When an organization brings you on as a consultant, what questions do you typically ask first to get a sense of their needs?

Christine Chen: I usually start with: 

1. Where are you stuck? What decision(s) do you need to make in the next 3–6 months, and what tradeoff are you currently avoiding?

 2. Why do you exist? Who are your priority communities/audiences today, how are you understanding their needs (not just assumptions or tradition), what are you doing to meet these needs, and how are you measuring your success? And does everyone at your organization agree on these things?

 3. How do things get done at your organization? How does decision-making work (within and between leadership, staff and board), what dynamics (tenure, history, power, communication norms) are shaping that, where do you feel capacity is most constrained (people, time, cash, systems), and what must be true for you to execute your priorities sustainably?

Giles Mesrobian: When engaging with a new organization, the first goal is to swiftly diagnose the critical pressure points and ensure immediate alignment on priorities. It sometimes feels like speed dating. I typically ask initial questions in three areas:

1. For me, numbers tell the real story, so where is your revenue coming from, what is the most immediate and serious financial issue you are facing, and what are the specific revenue goals for the next year? This identifies both the crisis, the financial ambition and whether goals are based in reality).

2. Leadership is the solution to all of our community challenges so, who is leading and how, what is your board’s current committee structure, and how are members actively engaged in fundraising and community representation? This assesses leadership and governance capacity and fundraising infrastructure.

3. Creativity is a resource that has to be managed and harnessed for success. So what is your vision, what does success look like for your organization three years from now, and what specific capacity gaps are preventing you from reaching that vision? This focuses on long-term strategic vision and needed infrastructure.

What types of projects have you worked on with organizations in the past through NYFA’s Community Arts Leaders Program?

Giles Mesrobian: Through the Community Arts Leaders Program, I have worked on projects focused on financial stabilization and organizational transition. 

I helped one organization pivot from a high-risk strategy of publicly launching a $4M capital campaign without secured lead gifts. I advised them to implement a ‘quiet phase’ first, focused on a feasibility study and major donor cultivation. I encouraged them to leverage their success with state funding to engage and excite individual donors. This advice helped them reframe their gala, while successfully advancing a strategic development strategy that aligned major donor support with critical government grants.

A second example is my work with another organization that focused on Stakeholder Mapping. We moved beyond general fundraising to create ‘customized pathways’ for different groups—parents, university partners, and alumni. This project illustrated how a small organization can operationalize its board and volunteer base to create a sustainable, multi-channel revenue stream rather than jumping from one grant deadline to the next.

Christine Chen: I’ve often helped organizations clarify their impact and purpose–aligning on all the elements underlying the why (who they primarily service, what they do, how they’re funded, and how they are measuring success), and then translating that to impact statements and theories of change. 

Once they clarify their purpose, I’ve worked with them to use that to inform strategy (choosing a focus), marketing (figuring out how to reach key new audiences), fundraising (leveraging story and impact), program mix (what to do more/less/differently), and/or operations (how to organize/train processes, staff)–whatever feels most pressing.

Another frequent project type is governance and leadership alignment—especially when a newer executive leader is working with a board that holds deep institutional memory. In those situations, I guide conversations that surface assumptions about roles, reset expectations, and build a shared understanding around decision-making. 

About The Consultants

Christine Chen is a Senior Consultant at La Piana Consulting, where she supports nonprofit leaders with strategy, business planning, governance, and organizational development. Following a career as a dancer/choreographer/educator, she served as Executive Director at STREB and American Repertory Ballet, and as Director of Strategic Programming at the 92nd Street Y. Chen is a BoardSource Certified Consultant and has advised many small arts organizations on sharpening focus, strengthening boards, and building financial resilience. She holds an MBA degree from UC Davis, an MFA degree from The Ohio State University, and a BA degree from Princeton University.

Gilles Mesrobian is a nonprofit consultant and resource for community-based organizations, with over 30 years in senior management, including 18 years as an Executive Director in the nonprofit sector. As the Owner of Red Queen Group and a Senior Associate at the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, his expertise is focused on strengthening organizational infrastructure. He specializes in strategic planning, organizational assessment, executive leadership transition and, and governance training, where he is a Certified Governance Trainer for BoardSource. He also serves as faculty at Bard College’s MBA in Sustainability, teaching leadership development. His consulting work helps organizations achieve long-term sustainability and align their leadership with their mission.

The NYSCA/NYFA Community Arts Leaders Program is part of NYFA Learning, which includes professional development for artists and arts administrators. It is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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