Trustees of Culture

Why do wealthy people choose to serve on the boards of fine art institutions? How do they exercise their influence as trustees, and how does this affect the way arts institutions operate? To find out, Francie Ostrower conducted candid personal interviews with 76 trustees drawn from two opera companies and two art museums in two large cities in the United States. Her new study demonstrates that members of the elite arts boards walk a fine line between maintaining their status and serving the needs of the large-scale organizations they oversee. As class members whose status depends in part on the prestige of the boards on which they serve, trustees seek to perpetuate arts boards as exclusive elite enclaves. But in response to pressure to increase and diversify the audiences for arts institutions, elite board members act in a surprisingly open manner in terms of organizational acessibility and operations. Contributing significantly to our understanding of organizational governance, "Trustees of Culture" should interest anyone concerned with philanthropy and the wider social policies that emphasize private support in the arts.